What Does Proverbs 15:25 Mean in the King James?

The LORD will destroy the house of the proud: but he will establish the border of the widow.

Proverbs 15:25 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The LORD uproots the proud house, but makes the widow’s boundary stand.

THE MEANING

The proud house has no permanence before the LORD, while the widow’s boundary is made firm. The verse speaks of a justice that holds the vulnerable person’s rightful space in place, even when power presses against it.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that the powerful can make their claims permanent while the vulnerable have no claim worth defending.

THE ROOT

יִסַּח

yissach

GROWS FROM

נסח

nasach

To pluck away or uproot.

The word translated “destroy” carries the image of pulling something out of its place. The proud house is not merely damaged; its claim to permanence is uprooted.

ALSO GROWS

yissach: tears away, uproots

יִסַּח

Here, the LORD uproots the house of the proud.

yissəḥû: shall be rooted out

יִסְּחוּ

Proverbs 2:22 uses this same root for the wicked being rooted out, echoing the removal of the proud house.

גְּבוּל

gebul

GROWS FROM

גבל

gabal

To set a boundary or limit.

“border” in this verse is gebul. The widow’s boundary is not left vague or easily erased: the verse says the LORD sets it firm. The word holds both a line of separation and the territory that remains within it.

ALSO GROWS

higbil: set bounds

הִגְבִּיל

Exodus 19:12 uses this form for setting a boundary around the mountain; it shows the root’s sense of making a limit hold.

gebul: boundary, border, territory

גְּבוּל

The same word can name the limit and the land within it, illuminating the widow’s protected space.

THE PATTERN

The LORD overturns structures that exploit the vulnerable and secures the space that belongs to them.

The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.

Psalm 146:9 · KJVThe widow is upheld while the wicked way is turned over, matching the verse’s contrast between the widow’s firm boundary and the proud house’s removal.

To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!

Isaiah 10:2 · KJVThis verse names the vulnerable people whose rightful space is taken; Proverbs 15:25 shows the LORD setting the widow’s boundary firm.

Which devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation.

Mark 12:40 · KJVThe image of widows’ houses being devoured echoes the proud house in Proverbs, while the LORD’s response secures the widow’s claim.

THE THREAD

But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.

Proverbs 2:22 · KJV

The verb is ⁨נָסַח⁩ (nasach, uproot); Proverbs 2:22 uses the same root in ⁨יִסְּחוּ⁩ (yissəḥû, “shall be rooted out”). That echo reveals the proud house’s destruction as removal from the place it claims to occupy.

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