1. The term. The English word “humility” derives from Latin humilis, “lowly” (“near the ground”, humus = earth). In the ОТ, (LXX: ταπεινός) the dominant note is the elemental human experience of not having given ourselves existence, and therefore of not being necessary, which thrusts itself upon man in the pointlessness of life (cf. the sapiential books), in guilt, sickness, and death.

2. Scripture, a) Old Testament. Since Yahweh, the Creator God, has given man existence and keeps him in being, since Yahweh also rules the history of the Jewish nation and of th…