The Lord will destroy the house of the proud (Proverbs 12:7; Proverbs 14:11; Proverbs 16:18). The proud, self-confident man, with his family and household and wealth, shall be rooted up. The heathen saw how retribution overtook the arrogant. Thus Euripides says—
τῶν φρονημάτων
ὁ ζεὺς κολαστὴς τῶν ἄγαν ὑπερφρόνων
"Zeus, the chastiser of too haughty thoughts."
But he will establish the border of the widow. He will take the widow under his protection, and see that her landmark is not removed, and that her little portion is secured to her. The widow is taken as the type of weakness and desolation, as often in Scripture (comp. Deuteronomy 10:18; Psalms 146:9). In a country where property was defined by landmarks—stones or some such objects—nothing was easier than to remove these altogether, or to alter their position. That this was a common form of fraud and oppression we gather from the stringency of the enactments against the offence (see Deuteronomy 19:14; Deuteronomy 27:17; and comp. Job 24:2; Proverbs 22:28). In the Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions which have been preserved, there are many invoking curses, curious and multifarious, against the disturbers of boundaries. Such marks were considered sacred and inviolable by the Greeks and Romans.