G5196 ὕβρις (hýbris)

Insults (5196) (hubris) describes injurious treatment or insulting injury - wanton insolence, the basic problem being the pride which erects itself against God and man alike. It refers to treatment which is deliberately calculated publicly to insult and openly humiliate the person who suffers from it. It describes the experience of insolence, shame, insult or mistreatment. Hubris includes the idea of vile treatment which is not just with words but can also be with violence and assault. Hubris describes harm done to another by mistreatment or by insults meant to shame. Aristotle wrote that Hubris means to hurt and to grieve people, in such a way that shame comes to the man who is hurt and grieved, and that not that the person who inflicts the hurt and injury may gain anything else in addition to what he already possesses, but simply that he may find delight in his own cruelty and in the suffering of the other person. Barclay writes that... Hubris was to the Greek the vice which supremely courted destruction at the hand of the gods. It has two main lines of thought in it. (i) It describes the spirit of the man who is so proud that he defies God. It is the insolent pride that goes before a fall. It is the forgetting that man is a creature. It is the spirit of the man who is so confident in his wealth, his power and his strength that he thinks that he can live life alone. (ii) It describes the man who is wantonly and sadistically cruel and insulting. Aristotle describes it as the spirit which harms and grieves someone else, not for the sake of revenge and not for any advantage that may be gained from it, but simply for the sheer pleasure of hurting. There are people who get pleasure from seeing someone wince at a cruel saying. There are people who take a devilish delight in inflicting mental and physical pain on others. That is hubris; it is the sadism which finds delight in hurting others simply for the sake of hurting them... hubris, wanton insolence, is the spirit which hurts someone in a cold, detached way, and then stands back to see the other person wince. It is hurting for hurting's sake, and it always involves deliberate humiliation of the person injured. (Barclay, W: Romans - The Daily Study Bible Series. The Westminster Press or Logos) NIDNTT adds that... hubris is a very ancient compound (E. Schwyzer, Griechische Grammatik, I, 19532, 495), formed from y (Cypriot, Rhodian equivalent of epi) and bri (cf. briaros, weighty; britho, weigh, be heavy). Originally it meant excess weight, excess power; sometimes more concretely, ill-treatment, abuse, insult; sometimes more abstractly, arrogance, insolence, brutality. The word is frequently used in the Odyssey, to denote Penelope’s suitors (e.g. 1, 227; 24, 352). Hubris appears objectively as an infringement of the order of justice established by Zeus, which enabled community-life in the Greek polis to be maintained. It is the opposite of eunomia, good order, to the observance of which the gods pay close attention (as early as Homer, Od. 17, 487) and of noos theoudes, the attitude that fears the gods. Classical tragedy contrasted hybris to sophrosyne, modesty, which respects the limits laid down for men. Therefore hybris is not, strictly speaking, directed against the gods (J. J. Fraenkel, Hybris, 1942, 73). What the malefactor harms is good order. In the 5th century B.C. hybris became the classical expression of “numinous fear, i.e., of the Greek sense of sin from the religious standpoint” (G. Bertram, TDNT VIII 297; cf. Soph., Trach. 280; OT. 873). But in Euripides human norms replace those set by fate (Heraclidae 388; Or. 708). There are only 3 NT uses of hubris... Acts 27:10 and said to them, "Men, I perceive that the voyage will certainly be attended with damage and great loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives." Acts 27:21 And when they had gone a long time without food, then Paul stood up in their midst and said, "Men, you ought to have followed my advice and not to have set sail from Crete, and incurred this damage and loss. 2 Corinthians 12:10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. There are 45 uses of hubris in the Septuagint (LXX) - Lev 26:19; Esther 4:17; Job 15:26; 22:12; 35:12; 37:4; Pr 1:22; 8:13; 11:2; 13:10; 14:3, 10; 16:18; 19:10, 18; 21:4; 29:23; Isa 9:9; 10:33; 13:11; 16:6; 23:7, 9; 25:11; 28:1, 3; Jer 13:9f, 17; 48:29; 50:32; Ezek 7:5; 30:6, 18; 32:12; 33:28; Hos 5:5; 7:10; Amos 6:8; Mic 6:10; Nah 2:2; Zeph 2:10; 3:11; Zech 9:6; 10:11 John Piper defines insults this way... when people think of clever ways of making your faith or your lifestyle or your words look stupid or weird or inconsistent. When we were giving out “Finding Your Field of Dreams” at the dome, I heard one man say mockingly, “And the Lord said, Play ball.” And all his friends laughed. Hardships—circumstances forced upon you, reversals of fortune against your will. This could refer to any situation where you feel trapped. You didn’t plan it or think it would be this way. But there you are, and it’s hard. (Ibid)