The Hebrew verb gaah means to rise up, swell, be exalted, or be majestic. It appears about 7 times in the Old Testament and is closely related to ga'on (pride, majesty) and ge'eh (proud). It describes both the majestic exaltation of God and the sinful pride of human beings.
Gaah and its cognates occupy a paradoxical theological space: the same Hebrew root describes both the glorious majesty of God (Exodus 15:1 — 'He is highly exalted') and the destructive pride of human beings (Proverbs 16:18). In Exodus 15, Moses uses gaah gaah (doubled for emphasis) to celebrate God's triumphant exaltation over Pharaoh — the most powerful man on earth was no match for the rising glory of YHWH. This duality teaches that exaltation rightly belongs to God alone; when humans grasp it for themselves, it becomes the root of all sin.