An Ozymandian Syndrome?

by Gene Shelburne

We know him as Pharaoh Rameses II. He’s thought to be   the Pharaoh of the Israelite Exodus. If this is who he really is, we read about him in Exodus, and Moses would have known him well.

The old Greek historians called him Ozymandias. He was a powerful man and ruled a mighty nation. He also liked himself really well and caused some unbelievably huge statues to be made in his own likeness so people like us would remember how important he was.

At his mortuary temple in Thebes, an inscription found among the broken, scattered pieces of one of his statues inspired the British poet Shelley to compose a sonnet, entitled appropriately, “Ozymandias.”

The poem notes the trunkless legs of stone standing on the desert floor, and near them, half-buried in the sand, stone lips that still show the “sneer of cold command.” The boastful inscription on the base of the ruined statue is mocked by the crumbling reality surrounding it:

My name is Ozymandias,

    king of kings;

Look on my works, ye Mighty,

    and despair!

The picture emerges clearly. Oz wasn’t nearly the power player he thought himself to be. In fact, his significance was reduced to rubble scattered on the Egyptian desert, a “colossal wreck,” the poet says.

Does this remind you of anything in the Bible? Jesus listed arrogance as an evil that makes us unclean (Mark 7:20-23). One of Solomon’s proverbs (Proverbs 16:18) tells us pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

These words are being written one month following the destructive deeds at the WTC and Pentagon. Lawless men instigated this evil, and it can’t be blamed on our excessive national pride. Even so, it seems that witnessing the prime symbols of our financial strength and military might in flames should tend to encourage a bit of humility. Do you think America needs to be wary of an Ozymandian syndrome? Painfully, we have discovered that, like old Pharaoh’s, our works are not invulnerable to destruction. We’ve seen far too much American rubble recently. What should we expect from history’s most powerful and wealthiest nation? Can we demand of America what God required of old Israel? “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).