There is a generation, oh how lofty are their eyes! Their eyelids are lifted up.
Parallel translations
- KJV There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.
- BSB There is a generation—how haughty are their eyes and pretentious are their glances—
- NKJV There is a generation—oh, how lofty are their eyes! And their eyelids are lifted up.
- NASB There is a kind—oh how lofty are his eyes! And his eyelids are raised in arrogance.
- NLT They look proudly around, casting disdainful glances.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
There is a generation marked by proud, haughty eyes and looks of contempt.
Overview
Lofty, lifted-up eyes are a biblical picture of arrogance, here describing a people consumed by pride. Such haughtiness is among the things God most detests, for it exalts self against Him and looks down on others. The remedy is the humility Christ both taught and embodied, lifting up the lowly and bringing down the proud.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Prov 6:17haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood;
- Isa 2:11The lofty looks of man will be brought low, the haughtiness of men will be bowed down, and Yahweh alone will be exalted in that day.
- Ps 101:5I will silence whoever secretly slanders his neighbor. I won’t tolerate one who is haughty and conceited.
- Ps 131:1A Song of Ascents. By David. Yahweh, my heart isn’t haughty, nor my eyes lofty; nor do I concern myself with great matters, or things too wonderful for me.
- Isa 3:16Moreover Yahweh said, “Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with outstretched necks and flirting eyes, walking to trip as they go, jingling ornaments on their feet;
- Prov 21:4A high look, and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, is sin.
- Dan 11:36–37The king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods; and he shall prosper until the indignation be accomplished; for that which is determined shall be done.
- Hab 2:4Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright in him, but the righteous will live by his faith.
- Ezek 28:2–5Son of man, tell the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because your heart is lifted up, and you have said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the middle of the seas; yet you are man, and not God, though you set your heart as the heart of God —
- Ezek 28:9Will you yet say before him who kills you, I am God? but you are man, and not God, in the hand of him who wounds you.
- 2 Th 2:3–4Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be, unless the departure comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction,
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Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 30:13 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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