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Proverbs 22:28; 23:10; Deuteronomy 19:14

"Remove not the ancient landmark"

"Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set." The boundary stone (gevul) marked a family's inherited field. Moving it stole land. The law forbids it (Deuteronomy 19:14; 27:17), Proverbs repeats the warning (23:10, adding "enter not into the fields of the fatherless"), and the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope has a whole chapter against moving field boundaries.

Read Proverbs 22:28; 23:10; Deuteronomy 19:14 in every edition

Stable text: no manuscript differences in meaning

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✓ contains this verse · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. The proverb as first composedCollections from the monarchy to the Persian period (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from The proverb as first composed
  3. Deuteronomy 19:14 (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from The proverb as first composed
Greek
  1. Greek Proverbs (library: Giguet's French)Old Greek c. 2nd century BC; French 1872Translated from the Old Greek Proverbs
Latin
  1. Latin Vulgate (Clementine)Jerome c. AD 398, from Hebrew; edition 1592Translated from the Hebrew text Jerome used
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew
New Testament quotation

    Every witness, in order

    1. Collections from the monarchy to the Persian period (debated)

      The proverb as first composed

      – No copy survives

      No original survives. The oldest Hebrew copies of Proverbs are two small Qumran fragments (4Q102, 4Q103, 1st century BC – 1st century AD, reported).

    2. Jerome c. AD 398, from Hebrew; edition 1592

      Latin Vulgate (Clementine)

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Hebrew text Jerome used

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

      Ne transgrediaris terminos antiquos, quos posuerunt patres tui.

      Latin position: Proverbs 22:28. Jerome translated Proverbs from Hebrew (c. AD 398); the Clementine Vulgate sometimes also carries lines from the Greek.

    3. AD 1008

      Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

      ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from The proverb as first composed

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

      אַל־תַּ֭סֵּג גְּב֣וּל עוֹלָ֑ם אֲשֶׁ֖ר עָשׂ֣וּ אֲבוֹתֶֽיךָ׃

      Do not move the ancient boundary that your fathers made

      Hebrew position: Proverbs 22:28.

    4. AD 1008

      Deuteronomy 19:14 (Leningrad Codex)

      ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from The proverb as first composed

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

      לֹ֤א תַסִּיג֙ גְּב֣וּל רֽ͏ֵעֲךָ֔ אֲשֶׁ֥ר גָּבְל֖וּ רִאשֹׁנִ֑ים בְּנַחֲלָֽתְךָ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר תִּנְחַ֔ל בָּאָ֕רֶץ אֲשֶׁר֙ יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ נֹתֵ֥ן לְךָ֖ לְרִשְׁתָּֽהּ׃

      You shall not move your neighbour's boundary, which the former generations set, in your inheritance

      The law behind the proverb.

    5. 1611

      King James Bible

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

      Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.

    6. Old Greek c. 2nd century BC; French 1872

      Greek Proverbs (library: Giguet's French)

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Old Greek Proverbs

      How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

      Ne déplace pas les bornes que, de tout temps, tes pères ont posées.

      Greek (digital file) position: Proverbs 22:27. Giguet's 1872 French of a printed Greek text (D check). In these chapters the Greek verse positions in the digital file shift; the matching line was found by content. No Göttingen critical edition of Greek Proverbs is published; a C check needs Rahlfs–Hanhart and specialist studies.

    What changed, and why

    In Israel's ideal, land was the inheritance of families from God (Leviticus 25:23; 1 Kings 21:3, Naboth: "The LORD forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee"). Boundary stones were easy to move at night. Hosea 5:10 condemns princes "like them that remove the bound."

    Babylonian kudurru stones (boundary records of land grants, 14th–7th centuries BC) carry curses on anyone who moves or destroys them. Amenemope ch. 6: "Do not move the markers on the borders of fields, nor shift the position of the measuring-cord… do not encroach on the boundaries of a widow" (Lichtheim; C check). The Hebrew saying belongs to this shared legal and moral world.

    23:10 joins the boundary to the orphan: the vulnerable lose land most easily. 15:25 says the LORD "will establish the border of the widow."

    What the evidence shows

    • Independently documentedDeuteronomy 19:14 and 27:17 forbid moving a neighbour's landmark.
    • Strongly supportedAmenemope warns against moving field boundaries. Reported from Lichtheim (C).
    • Independently documentedBabylonian kudurru stones curse those who move boundaries.

    Sources

      Related lessons

      • Proverbs 22: Train Up a Child →Proverbs 22 ends the first Solomonic collection (vv. 1–16) and begins a new one (vv. 17–29). The first part has famous sayings: "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches" (v. 1), "The rich and poor meet together: the LORD is the maker of them all" (v. 2), "Train up a child in the way he should go" (v. 6), "the borrower is servant to the lender" (v. 7). At 22:17 a teacher says "Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise" and promises "excellent things" (or "thirty sayings," v. 20). The sayings that follow (22:17–23:11) closely resemble the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope: do not rob the poor (v. 22), do not befriend an angry man (v. 24), do not remove the ancient landmark (v. 28), the skilled worker will stand before kings (v. 29).