StrongerBible

ge'eh

גֵּאֶה

HebrewH1343“proud, arrogant, ...”

Appears 9 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Job 40:11Job 40:12Psa 94:2Psa 123:4Psa 140:5(6)Pro 15:25Pro 16:19Isa 2:12Jer 48:29
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradegeh-EHadjective

What ge'eh means

proud, arrogant: a person or nation puffed up above its rightful place

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This word is always an accusation. English "proud" can be warm and approving, as when a parent is proud of a child, but this Hebrew word never carries that good sense. It only ever names the wrong kind of self-importance: someone who has lifted himself up above the place that belongs to him.

The picture underneath the word is physical. Its root describes water swelling, or a plant shooting up, something rising higher than it should. To be "proud" in this sense is to rear up like a wave climbing over its own bounds. That image is why the word can be aimed not only at arrogant people but at whole nations and their monuments, cedars and towers and ships that stand tall and are due to be brought down.

The same root gives Hebrew a set of nouns (such as גָּאוֹן) that can point either way: they name God's rightful majesty when he is exalted, and human arrogance when a person is. This adjective, by contrast, is fixed on the bad side. It never describes God. That is the heart of it: God alone is rightly high, so a person or people who exalt themselves have stepped into a place that is not theirs, and the Bible uses this word to mark them for reversal, from the day of judgment in the prophets, to God bringing the proud low in the book of Job, to the psalmists crying out against proud oppressors.

Job 40:11Job 40:12Psa 94:2Psa 123:4Psa 140:5(6)Pro 15:25Pro 16:19Isa 2:12Jer 48:29

Disputed

Whether Isaiah 2:12 uses the word in a physical "lofty, towering" sense distinct from the moral "arrogant" sense (older lexical treatment), or whether it is morally freighted there as everywhere else.

  • majorityThe word is morally freighted in all its occurrences, including Isaiah 2:12; there is no separate merely-physical sense.; Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 1-12 (Continental Commentary), on Isa 2:12; H. G. M. Williamson, Isaiah 1-5 (ICC), on Isa 2:12
  • minorityIsaiah 2:12 carries a physical "lofty" sense, distinct from the moral "arrogant" sense seen in Jeremiah 48:29.; BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. גֵּאֶה

What scholars say about ge'eh

The lexica converge on a single, exclusively pejorative sense: BDB, HALOT ("proud, arrogant, haughty"), and the standard theological dictionaries all treat גֵּאֶה as never positive. Kellermann (TDOT) makes a distributional observation with theological weight: unlike the cognate nouns גָּאוֹן, גַּאֲוָה, and גֵּאוּת, which take God as subject in the sense of "majesty," the adjective גֵּאֶה never has a divine subject, so it names precisely the illegitimate creaturely self-elevation. Wakely (NIDOTTE) notes it clusters in contexts of divine humiliation of the proud (Isa 2:12; Job 40:11-12) and pairs with רָשָׁע (Ps 94:2; Job 40:12). The root's concrete image is physical elevation, especially swelling water and vertical plant growth (cf. the verb גָּאָה of rising waters in Ezek 47:5). The LXX renders it consistently with ὑπερήφανος, and the wider ג-א-ה family maps onto ὕβρις/ὑπερηφανία, feeding the New Testament slogan "God opposes the proud" (Jas 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5), drawn from LXX Prov 3:34. Three interpretive disputes recur but do not touch the lexical sense: the rhetorical force of Job 40:11-12 (a straightforward assertion of divine sovereignty in Hartley and Pope versus an ironic destabilizing of retributive theology in Clines, Newsom, and Balentine, with Habel between); whether Isa 2:12 preserves an older physical/moral distinction (largely rejected by Wildberger, Blenkinsopp, Oswalt, and Williamson); and whether the Jer 48:29 cluster is Jeremianic intensification or a borrowed foreign-nation topos. A minor lexicographic dispute concerns whether גֵּא at Isa 16:6 is a byform (BDB) or a separate lemma (HALOT), and the textual crux at Ps 123:4 (Kethiv/Qere).

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm), s.v. גֵּאֶהlexicon
  • BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. גֵּאֶהlexicon
  • D. Kellermann, "גָּאָה," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) 2:344ff.theological-dictionary
  • Robin Wakely, "גאה," in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDOTTE), vol. 1theological-dictionary
  • Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 1-12 (Continental Commentary), on Isa 2:12commentary
  • David J. A. Clines, Job 38-42 (Word Biblical Commentary 18B), on Job 40:11-12commentary
  • Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs (NICOT), on Prov 15:25; 16:19commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of גֵּאֶה

m p absolute

גֵּאִים

Psa 94:2, Psa 140:5, Pro 15:25, Pro 16:19

m s absolute

גֵּאֶה

Job 40:11, Job 40:12, Isa 2:12, Jer 48:29

m p construct

גְאֵי

Psa 123:4