Have you heard of the Seven Deadly Sins? The title of the list conveys the idea that if you commit those sins, you will die. People believe there is such a list in the Bible called “The Seven Deadly Sins,” but there is no such list in the Bible. While there are numerous lists of sins in the Bible, none of them claim to be deadly sins that automatically kill you. Tradition holds that the Seven Deadly Sins were created by Christian leaders hundreds of years ago, as a way to caution people about what are often very real consequences of committing those sins. Those Christians leaders likely collected a master list of sins, mining the Scriptures, and then narrowing it to a final seven.
Perhaps the most famous list, and the one that might be inspiration for the Seven Deadly Sins is found in Proverbs 6:16-19 which says this: “Six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.”
Notice that first one in the list: haughty eyes. What are “haughty eyes”? Do you know the origin of the word “haughty”? In English, as in the Hebrew the author of Proverbs 6 wrote, the word “haughty” refers to the idea of “height.” One thing is higher than another thing. In Proverbs 6:16, the adjective “haughty” describes the noun, eyes. Haughty eyes. It give us the picture of a person who has eyes that are somehow higher.
What do you think this means? Are that person’s eyes physically higher on their face than others’? Can’t be…right? The shape of a person’s face is not inherently sinful! So what does it mean to have “haughty eyes”? My guess is that all of us have had haughty eyes at least one time or another. You read that right. All of us!
In our next section of Ezekiel, we’ll meet someone who had not only haughty eyes, but a haughty heart, and it did not go well for him. Read through Ezekiel chapters 25-28, and then join us on the blog next week as we’ll talk about it more! Most of all, we’ll talk about how not to have haughty eyes and hearts.
Photo by Julio Rionaldo on Unsplash
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