As a man's life is to be held sacred, so are his means of livelihood; and in this connection a prohibition is inserted against removing a neighbor's landmark: compare the marginal references.

Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark - Before the extensive use of fences, landed property was marked out by stones or posts, set up so as to ascertain the divisions of family estates. It was easy to remove one of these landmarks, and set it in a different place; and thus the dishonest man enlarged his own estate by contracting that of his neighbor. The termini or landmarks among the Romans were held very sacred, and were at last deified.

To these termini Numa Pompillus commanded offerings of broth, cakes, and firstfruits, to be made. And Ovid informs us that it was customary to sacrifice a lamb to them, and sprinkle them with its blood: -

Spargitur et caeso communis terminus agno.

Fast. lib. ii., ver. 655.

And from Tibullus it appears that they sometimes adorned them with flowers and garlands: -

Nam veneror, seu stipes habet desertus inagris,

Seu vetus in trivio florida serta lap is.

Eleg. lib. i., E. i., ver. 11.

"Revere each antique stone bedeck'd with flowers,

That bounds the field, or points the doubtful way."

Grainger.

It appears from Juvenal that annual oblations were made to them: -

- Convallem ruris aviti

Improbus, aut campum mihi si vicinus ademit,

continued...

Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark,.... By which one man's land is distinguished from another; for so to do is to injure a man's property, and alienate his lands to the use of another, which must be a very great evil, and render those that do it obnoxious to a curse, Deuteronomy 27:17.

which they of old have set in thine inheritance, which thou shall inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it; the land of Canaan: this is thought to refer to the bounds and limits set in the land by Eleazar and Joshua, and those concerned with them at the division of it; when not only the tribes were bounded; and distinguished by certain marks, but every man's estate, and the possession of every family in every tribe which though not as yet done when this law was made, yet, as it respects future times, might be said to be done of old, whenever there was any transgression of it, which it cannot be supposed would be very quickly done; and it is a law not only binding on the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, but all others, it being agreeably to the light and law of nature, and which was regarded among the Heathens, Proverbs 22:28.

The prohibition against Removing a Neighbour's Landmark, which his ancestors had placed, is inserted here, not because landmarks were of special importance in relation to the free cities, and the removal of them might possibly be fatal to the unintentional manslayer (as Clericus and Rosenmller assume), for the general terms of the prohibition are at variance with this, viz., "thy neighbour's landmark," and "in thine inheritance which thou shalt inherit in the land;" but on account of the close connection in which a man's possession as the means of his support stood to the life of the man himself, "because property by which life is supported participates in the sacredness of life itself, just as in Deuteronomy 20:19-20, sparing the fruit-trees is mentioned in connection with the men who were to be spared" (Schultz). A curse was to be pronounced upon the remover of landmarks, according to Deuteronomy 27:17, just as upon one who cursed his father, who led a blind man astray, or perverted the rights of orphans and widows (cf. Hosea 5:10; Proverbs 22:28; Proverbs 23:10). Landmarks were regarded as sacred among other nations also; by the Romans, for example, they were held to be so sacred, that whoever removed them was to be put to death.

Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it.

De 19:14. The Landmark Is Not to Be Removed.

14. Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark, which they of old have set in thine inheritance-The state of Palestine in regard to enclosures is very much the same now as it has always been. Though gardens and vineyards are surrounded by dry-stone walls or hedges of prickly pear, the boundaries of arable fields are marked by nothing but by a little trench, a small cairn, or a single erect stone, placed at certain intervals. It is manifest that a dishonest person could easily fill the gutter with earth, or remove these stones a few feet without much risk of detection and so enlarge his own field by a stealthy encroachment on his neighbor's. This law, then, was made to prevent such trespasses.

19:14 Direction is given to fix landmarks in Canaan. It is the will of God that every one should know his own; and that means should be used to hinder the doing and suffering of wrong. This, without doubt, is a moral precept, and still binding. Let every man be content with his own lot, and be just to his neighbours in all things.