Deuteronomy 19:14

14. Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark Among the Romans boundaries were placed under the protection of a special deity Terminus; and the severest penalty was visited upon the one who removed a landmark defining property. So among the Assyrians there were evidently the most stringent provisions for the security of landed rights. On a stone found on the western side of the Tigris, which George Smith thought was of the date 1340 B.C., is an inscription of a grant of land made by Merodach-Baladan to one of his officers. On the back of the stone is a rudely carved picture of the deities invoked to protect the property, and to punish any who should remove the boundary-stone. The inscription closes with curses upon any who should injure or remove the stone. See Records of the Past, vol. ix, p. 29. Compare also Deuteronomy 27:17, where among the curses to be pronounced on Mount Ebal is one against him who removeth his neighbour’s landmark. Comp. also Hosea 5:10; Job 24:2; Proverbs 22:28; Proverbs 23:10.

They of old time This is not a suitable translation of the Hebrew word. The Vulgate has priores. Schroeder renders it predecessors. We prefer to consider it as explained by Joshua 14:1, where we learn that Eleazar the priest and Joshua and the heads of the tribes distributed the land on the west of Jordan. We understand the term rendered they of old time in our version to mean the heads of the tribes, who, after the general division of the land to the tribes, subdivided each tribal division to the several families. The expression, then, by no means implies that the land had been long occupied by the Israelites.