Psalms 73:6
“Therefore pride is like a chain around their neck. Violence covers them like a garment.”
What does Psalms 73:6 mean?
The psalmist is describing how pride hardens people and pulls them deeper into wrongdoing. When someone becomes full of themselves, that self-centeredness wraps around them like something they can't shed, making them increasingly callous and cruel toward others. What starts as arrogance doesn't stay internal, it spills outward into harm, until violence becomes as natural to them as the clothes they wear. This comes in a psalm where the writer is wrestling with why arrogant people seem to prosper while the faithful suffer. The imagery here captures something true about human nature: pride isolates us from reality and from God, and that isolation makes it easier to hurt people without seeing their humanity. It's a sober reminder of how easily unchecked self-regard can transform us into someone we don't want to become.