Job 24:2

24:1-12 Job discourses further about the prosperity of the wicked. That many live at ease who are ungodly and profane, he had showed, ch. xxi. Here he shows that many who live in open defiance of all the laws of justice, succeed in wicked practices; and we do not see them reckoned with in this world. He notices those that do wrong under pretence of law and authority; and robbers, those that do wrong by force. He says, God layeth not folly to them; that is, he does not at once send his judgments, nor make them examples, and so manifest their folly to all the world. But he that gets riches, and not by right, at his end shall be a fool, Jer 17:11.

Anciently set to distinguish one man's land from another, to secure property, and preserve from encroachments; but some were so wicked as either secretly in the night to remove them, or openly to do it, having power on their side, pretending they were wrongly located; this was not only prohibited by the law of God, and pronounced an accursed thing, Deuteronomy 19:14 ; but was reckoned so before the law was given, being known to be such by the light of nature, as what was now, and here condemned, was before that law was in being; and so we find that this was accounted an execrable thing among the Heathens, who had a deity they called Jupiter Terminalis, who was appointed over bounds and landmarks; so Numa Pompilius appointed stones to be set as bounds to everyone's lands, and dedicated them to Jupiter Terminalis, and ordered that those that removed them should be slain as sacrilegious persons, and they and their oxen devoted to destruction (f): some render it, "they touch the landmarks" (g), as if to touch them was unlawful, and therefore much more to remove them: they violently take away flocks, and feed thereof; not content with a sheep or a lamb, they took away whole flocks, and that by force and violence, openly and publicly, and slew them, and fed on them; or else took them and put them into their own grounds, or such as they had got by encroachments from others, where they fed them without any fear of men; which shows the effrontery and impudence of them. (f) Dion.

(2) Some remove the landmarks. —Now follows a description of the wrong-doings of various classes of men. The removal of landmarks was expressly provided against by the Mosaic Law ( Deuteronomy 19:14 ; Deuteronomy 27:17 ). And feed thereof.—Rather, probably, feed them: i.e., pasture them, the more easy to do when the landmarks are so removed.

Job 24:2 . Some, &c. — In proof that wicked persons prosper, he instances in two sorts of unrighteous people, whom all the world saw thriving in their iniquity: 1st, Tyrants, and those that did wrong under pretence of law and authority; and, 2d, Robbers and plunderers, that did wrong by downright force, as the bands of the Sabeans and Chaldeans, who had lately plundered him. Remove the landmark — By which men’s lands are distinguished, and their properties secured, that so they may enlarge their own border by diminishing the estate of their neighbour — which is so great an act of injustice that it was not only very strictly forbidden by God in his law, but also declared execrable by the heathen, among some of whom it was permitted to any man to kill him that did it. Forging or destroying deeds is now a crime equivalent to this. They violently take away flocks, and feed thereof — They take away cattle by force, and use them as if they were their own. Or, they feed them; they do not hide, or kill them, but openly feed them in their pastures, without any remorse, or shame, or fear of punishment, either from God or man.

2 . Some remove ] Or, there are who remove . In the absence of hedgerows or walls, the landmark defined the boundary of a man’s field or estate. Its removal was equivalent to violent appropriation of the property of another; see Deuteronomy 19:14 ; Hosea 5:10 . and feed thereof ] Rather, and feed them . They are open and defiant in their violent wrong, they seize a flock and publicly graze it as their own. 2–4 . Job now proceeds to illustrate his complaint of the absence of righteousness in God’s rule of the world. The instances are in the first place general.

Verse 2. - Some remove the landmarks . (On this form of wickedness, see Deuteronomy 19:14 ; Deuteronomy 27:17 ; Proverbs 22:28 ; Proverbs 23:10 ; Hosea 5:10 .) Where neighbouring properties are not divided by fences of any kind, as in the East generally, the only way of distinguishing between one man's land and another's is by termini, or "landmarks," which are generally low stone metes or bourns, placed at intervals on the boundary-line. An easy form of robbery was to displace these bourns, putting them further back on one's neighbour's land. They violently take away flocks . Others openly drive off their neighbours' flocks from their pastures, mix them with their own flocks, and say that they are theirs (comp. Job 1:15-17 ). And feed thereof; rather, and feed them ( as in the margin); i.e. pasture them. Job 24:2

Some remove the landmarks; or, they (i.e. the wicked, of whom he here treats) touch (to wit, in an unlawful manner, and with evil design, as this word is oft used, as Genesis 26:11,29 Rth 2:9 , so as to invade, or possess, or remove) the landmarks, by which men’s lands are discerned, and their properties secured; that so they may enlarge their own border by diminishing their neighbour; which is so horrid an act of injustice, that it hath not only been severely forbidden by God, Deu 19:14 27:17 Proverbs 22:28 23:10 , but also declared execrable by the heathens, among whom it was permitted to any man to kill him that did it. Feed thereof; or, feed them . They do not hide or kill them, but openly feed them, either in their oppressed neighbour’s ground, which, by taking away the landmarks, they have made their own, or in their own pastures, without any remorse, or shame, or fear of punishment, either from God or men.

Some remove the land-marks - Landmarks are pillars or stones set up to mark the boundaries of a farm. To remove them, by carrying them on to the land of another, was an act of dishonesty and robbery - since it was only by marks that the extent of a man's property could be known. Fences were uncommon; the art of surveying was not well understood, and deeds describing land were probably unknown also, and their whole dependence, therefore, was on the stones that were erected to mark the boundaries of a lot or farm. As it was not difficult to remove them, it became a matter of special importance to guard against it, and to make it a crime of magnitude. Accordingly, it was forbidden in the strictest manner in the law of Moses. "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's land-mark;" Deuteronomy 27:17 ; compare Deuteronomy 19:14 ; Proverbs 22:28 ; Proverbs 23:10 . And feed thereof - Margin, "or, them." The margin is correct. The meaning is, that they drive off the flocks of others, and "pasture" them; that is, they are at no pains to conceal what they do, but mingle them with their own herds, and feed them as if they were their own. If they drove them away to kill, and removed them wholly from view, it would be less shameful than to keep and claim them as their own, and to make the robbery so public.