Deuteronomy 19:14

Against Removing Boundary Stones

In the Sg. address, but as in Deuteronomy 19:4 f., Deuteronomy 19:11 and Deuteronomy 15:2, q.v., with neighbourinstead of brother, usual in Sg. passages; and followed by a deuteronomic formula. It is significant that the formula is not only separable from the law proper (as in the previous law) but contradicts it. For while the law betrays its date as subsequent to Israel's settlement in the land and with this agree the facts that there is no parallel in the earlier codes and that protests against removing boundary-stones appear in the prophets and later books (Isaiah 5:8; Hosea 5:10; Proverbs 22:28; Proverbs 23:10; Job 24:2) the closing formula adopts the standpoint of Moses, the land which the Lord is to give thee. Clearly, therefore, the law has been adopted from some other source into D's Code cp. the Decalogue but there is nothing to show whether this incorporation was due to the authors of the Code or to editors.

It is difficult to explain the position of the law just here. Steuern. and Berth, attribute this to its use of the term gebul, boundary, used also in the previous law (Deuteronomy 19:3 a, yet with a different meaning from here); the former thinking that in its original form the law was entered on the margin and thence taken into the text by the compiler of the Code, the latter that it may have formed part of the original Code. Notice rather that both laws besides being in the Sg. address use the term neighbour, and were therefore probably from the same source. Dillm. points out that in this ch. murder, theft and false-witness appear in the same order as in the Decalogue, and Dri. compares Deuteronomy 27:17 ff.

Other nations expressed the same reverence for the sacredness of boundaries, in similar laws, or protests, against their removal. For the Greeks see Plato, Legg. viii. 842 e, for the Romans Dion. Hal. ii. 74, Plutarch, Numa16. For the settled Semites cp. the border-stones of fields which are among the oldest Babyl. monuments; bearing dedications to the gods -they were regarded as sacred and great importance was attached to their preservation. The Kings taxed their powers of cursing [cp. Deuteronomy 27:17] in order to terrify men from removing their neighbours" landmarks" (Johns, Babyl. and Assyr. Laws, etc., 191 f.). For other Semites cp. Clay Trumbull, Threshold Covenant166, Musil, Ethn. Ber.87, Doughty i. 163. No such Israelite stones have been found, but M. Clermont-Ganneau discovered the boundary inscriptions of the town of Gezer (-at or near the 1st Cent. b.c.") bearing the term teḥum, the later Heb. for gebul(Arch. Res.ii. 26 ff., 270 ff.). For modern Palestine see Baldensperger, PEFQ1906, 194.

remove Lit. so: re-move, move back, so as to make one's own field larger.

landmark Heb. gebul, applied both to the border-line whether of private fields (here, and in E, Joshua 24:30, cp. texts cited above) or of urban (Isaiah 54:12) or tribal (Deuteronomy 2:18; Deuteronomy 3:16) territories: as well as to the area enclosed by the border (Deuteronomy 19:3; Deuteronomy 19:8, Deuteronomy 2:4; Deuteronomy 28:40).

they of old time Heb. rîshônîm, the formergenerations, the forefathers: LXX B etc., πατέρες σου; A etc., πρότεροί σου.

in thine inheritance which thou inheritest] Part of the law proper: the portion of ground (LXX κληρονομία) that passes from one generation of a family to another.

in the land which the Lord thy God is to give thee, etc.] the frequent deuteronomic formula, Deuteronomy 4:40; Deuteronomy 5:31; Deuteronomy 12:1; Deuteronomy 17:14; Deuteronomy 21:1; Deuteronomy 25:19; and in shorter form, Deuteronomy 15:7; Deuteronomy 18:9; Deuteronomy 25:15; Deuteronomy 27:2; Deuteronomy 28:8.