The Proud And the Trusting
It would appear that the "arrogant" in 2:4, the one whose soul is puffed up speaks of the Babylonian. Earlier in chapter 1 the general description of them reeks with arrogance. They mock kings and jeer at every fortress they are challenged to tear down (1:10) and they live according to their own rules that they make up as they go along (1:7). In practice, the only god they recognise and serve is their own power (1:11). Their success proves to them that they should believe their own press so it's little wonder that they are a "proud one" whose soul is out of whack within them (2:4).It doesn't matter that the sovereign Lord is eternally sovereign in contrast to the fly-by-night human rulers (1:12), it doesn't matter that Babylon is his instrument to work to work his will, the Babylonians are ruthless and proud because they want to be. Babylon has no sense that in its cruel conquests it is doing God's bidding (be sure to see Isaiah 10:5-7,15). God doesn't choose cruelty for them but in their choosing cruelty to fulfil their own agendas they don't know it but they are fulfilling God's prior and overarching agenda.
If they were to recognise that they were God's instruments we would have a different picture but they deny all connection. Nebuchadnezzar expressed Babylon's spirit when he said (Daniel 4:30), "Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?" No confession of dependence here. No need of God here. I have built it, by myself and for myself. This is the way to power and greater power? No, this is the way to destruction and death. This is the way to swelling and puffing up like a toad but it's not the way to life and peace (Habakkuk 2:4a).
Older interpreters all agreed that our original sin was pride. I'm not sure that can be established but if they were wrong they went in that direction with good reason. Our stupidity in deciding we could do without God was monumental. Our lust for godhood is as alive today as ever it was even after countless years that prove we might make good servants but we'll never make good gods. We're not up to the job.
And who will "live"? The vulnerable but dependent ones. Those who have renounced self-sufficiency and clung to God. Those who come weaponless and without the assurance that they can be trusted to work it all out. Those whose trust is also faithfulness to the One to whom they've trusted themselves and their destiny.
But this isn't the kind of trust that poor Nietzsche raved against. This trust and faithfulness isn't weakness. It isn't the strong who give up on God when times are calamitous, it's the weak that do that. There's truth in what Phil Yancey said about the book of Job. He said Job is less about where God is when times are bad and more about where man is when the sky's falling.
Trust is power but it isn't the power of the trusting one. His life and sustenance lie outside of himself and in someone else. And so it is that the glory of Babylon has vanished and the trusting ones dance on the grave of pride and self-sufficiency.
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