low or lowly: lying beneath what is around it, whether in height, in rank, or in spirit
At its root this word means simply low: set beneath the things around it. It describes a vine that stays close to the ground, a tree of little height, or a mark that sits below the surface of the skin. From that plain picture the word stretches naturally to cover people and nations.
Applied to standing, it means brought down or made small. A once-proud kingdom becomes a lowly one, kept from rising again; a priesthood is made contemptible before the people. Here being low is something imposed, a loss of position.
Applied to the inner life, the same word turns positive. To be low or lowly in spirit is the opposite of proud, and it is the very thing God is said to favor: he looks with regard on the lowly and lifts them up, while the high are brought down. The Hebrew word for the bowed-down humble, עָנָו, runs close to this sense.
So one plain idea, being low, runs from the height of a tree to the humility of a heart, and the Bible keeps turning it into a reversal: the low are raised and the high are laid low.