LANDMARKS AND SOCIAL COOPERATION Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour'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 (Deut. 19:14).
The theocentric focus of this law is God's ownership. God owned the land of Canaan. As the original owner, it was His right to determine who would manage it for Him. He could lawfully exclude anyone from occupying a piece of land, in the same way that He excluded Adam and Even from the forbidden tree. Ownership, above all, means the right to exclude.(1) So does stewardship, as a form of delegated ownership. God was about to transfer stewardship over this land from the Canaanites to the Israelites. That is, he was about to use Israel to exclude Canaanites from the land they were occupying. More to the point, for Israel to inherit the land, which God had promised to Abraham, Canaanites would have to be disinherited. Inheritance/disinheritance is the fundamental theme of the Book of Deuteronomy.
Because God planned to take up residence in Israel in a special way (Num. 35:34), His ownership of the land of Israel was special. He owned the whole world in general, but He owned the land of Canaan specially. "The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me" (Lev. 25:23). Also, He owned all nations generally, but He owned Israel specially. "But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine" (Isa. 43:1). He established laws on rural land ownership inside the nation's boundaries (Lev. 25) that had not applied before, and which would no longer apply in the same way after the exile, when gentiles living in the land would be included under the jubilee laws (Ezek. 47:21-23). These laws finally ended when God ceased to dwell with Israel as a nation after A.D. 70. The disinheritance of Israel was marked by the annulment of the jubilee laws. These laws had never applied outside of the land of Israel. They had not been cross-boundary laws. They were land laws.
Permanent External Boundaries The original allocation of land to the families of the conquest generation in the days of Joshua was supposed to remain unchanged. Down through the generations, there would be subdivisions of the original properties within each family, but the external boundaries were to remain unchanged. These boundaries marked the inheritances of the original families. Moses told Israel that God would distribute each family's inheritance through surveyors, judges, and lot-casters (Num. 26:53-56).(2) God was sovereign over this casting of lots.
Every Israelite family was required to honor God's original allocation. Only after Israel's return from the exile did God allow new boundaries for those families that had lost track of their original boundaries, or whose claims had been replaced by foreigners brought into the land by the conquering Assyrians and Babylonians. Prior to the exile, any tampering with the evidence of this original allocation was a form of theft of God's property. God's agents had subdivided the land, and in so doing, they had allocated the responsibilities of stewardship. The jubilee law placed limits on the permanent transfer of these responsibilities. These responsibilities (liabilities) were inseparable from the land (asset). No family could lawfully sell these assets-responsibilities or forfeit them to repay a debt.(3)
The jubilee land law was important for what it silently implied: in the absence of such a law, it is lawful to transfer such stewardship responsibilities. It means also that it was lawful to delegate these assets-responsibilities until the next jubilee year. Any suggestion that economic liability cannot legally be delegated or transferred is incorrect -- as incorrect as the suggestion that economic assets cannot legally be delegated or transferred. The jubilee law, which was a temporary land and seed law of the Mosaic economy, testifies to the fact that economic liability and responsibility can be delegated, and in the absence of such a law, can be permanently transferred. The whole point of the dominion covenant (Gen. 1:26-28) is that God delegated a great deal of responsibility to Adam, who in turn delegated some of it to Eve, and would have delegated it to his children. It was the very legality of this transfer that gave Satan his opportunity to steal the inheritance by deceiving Eve and corrupting Adam.(4)
This law was repeated in Deuteronomy 27:17: "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen." There had to be a public affirmation -- an amen -- on the part of the people. The fundamental issue here was inheritance. The jubilee land laws were supposed to provide continuity between the original allocation and the future. There could not be any legal long-term alienation of rural land. There was an eschatological reason for this restriction on the sale of land. The Mosaic land laws were aspects of the seed laws, and the seed laws were messianic, having to do with Jacob's prophecy regarding Shiloh (Gen. 49:10). The tribes had to be kept separate in order for Jacob's prophecy to come true. The land laws were a means of keeping the tribes separate.(5)
To move a neighbor's landmark was an act of theft. It was not an easily achieved deception in open terrain. The more accurate the measuring devices, the more difficult the deception. The ancient world had extraordinarily accurate measuring devices, as the dimensions of the Cheops pyramid indicate.(6)
The Civil Sanction Moving a landmark was an act of theft. The penalty for theft was double restitution: "If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep; he shall restore double" (Ex. 22:4). This must have been a monetary payment. The civil sanction was could not have been the forfeiture of rural property. This was not any man's right to transfer.(7) A convicted criminal could not alienate his family's land. Double restitution must have been made by the transfer of some other form of property. Judges would have been required to estimate the lease value of the land over an entire jubilee period and then apply double restitution. The present cash payment for the lease value over a 49-year period would have been close to the cash value of a permanent transfer, given the heavy discounting effects of the rate of interest on the present value of income several decades away.
The theft was an attack on inheritance. Theft constituted the disinheritance of one's neighbor. What was the value of this disinheritance? There was no market for the sale of rural land in Mosaic Israel. It was illegal to disinherit one's heirs. There was a long-term leasehold market. The maximum term of the lease was 49 years: until the next jubilee (Lev. 25:27).
How could judges have estimated the monetary value of the stolen land? First, they would have had to ascertain the prevailing leasehold redemption at the beginning of the most recent post-jubilee cycle. The attempted theft was to have been permanent, i.e., longer than 49 years. Nevertheless, the market price of a 49-year lease was close to the permanent price. Why? Because of the effect of the rate of interest. Discounting an expected stream of income by a fixed rate of interest produces a low present market price for the income expected in year 49. The higher the prevailing rate of interest, the lower the present value of future income. The more distant the income, the lower the present market price. Each subsequent year gets lower. The present market value of the expected income in year 98 is not significantly lower than the present market value of the expected income in year 49. The higher the rate of interest, the less significant the difference. Second, the judges would have doubled this lease payment: the restitution factor (Ex. 22:4). Third, they would have estimated the size of the plot stolen in relation to the property's total size. Fourth, they would have multiplied the double restitution payment for all of the land by this percentage.
If there was either price deflation or price inflation in the economy, then the further back the jubilee cycle began, the more burdensome the restitution payment, either to the victim (under inflation) or the criminal (under deflation). But with gold or silver as the standard, there is not much likelihood of inflation. With the silver shekel of the sanctuary as the judicial standard, the judges could have estimated what was owed with greater confidence. With a metallic monetary standard, a slowly falling price level is likely. This must have placed an extra burden on the criminal; the later his crime was discovered in the jubilee cycle, the heavier the burden. Without detailed price statistics, the judges would have found it difficult to estimate the extent of the price deflation since the beginning of the last jubilee cycle.
In today's world, there are no temporal restrictions on buying land. Judges could use the prevailing market price of the stolen land, denominated in gold, as the price to be doubled.
Graves and Boundaries There was a major difference between Israel and the other nations, including Greece and Rome: the lack of sacred land. There was no sacred land in Israel. There was sacred space: the place where the Ark of the Covenant was housed. The most sacred space in Israel was inside the Ark. After the return of the Ark from Philistia on the cart drawn by the oxen, it arrived at Bethshemesh. God's judgment came against the residents in the early days of the Ark's arrival. "And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter" (I Sam. 6:19). This many deaths indicates that the whole city was involved. A generation of men died, leaving their wives without husbands. This would have drastically speeded up the inheritance process in the region. Not surprisingly, the survivors invited the people of Kirjath-jearim to take away the Ark. They did, and it remained with them for about a century before David brought it back to Jerusalem.(8)
Sacred space had to do with God's unique judicial place of residence. The idea of God's judicially restricted presence differentiated Israel from the other nations. Animism was rampant in the ancient world. Demons were believed to reside in the neighborhood. Their presence led to the development of a common theological outlook. Men believed that particular plots of land served as the residences of local gods and also the spirits of deceased male heads of household. Land was inalienable in ancient Greece, for the local god of a family had nothing to do with the god of another family. The domestic god conferred on the family its right to the soil. The family's hearth, like the family's tomb, could not lawfully be moved. Neither could either be occupied by others. Fustel wrote: "By the stationary hearth and the permanent burial-place, the family took possession of the soil; the earth was in some sort imbued and penetrated by the religion of the hearth and of ancestors." This, he said, was the origin of the idea of private property.(9) He was incorrect. Private property originated when God delegated to Adam authority over the earth, but then retained ownership of the forbidden tree. It was God's "no trespassing" declaration that established the principle of private property. God's right to exclude man was a boundary that man had to honor, on threat of death. God delegated no authority over that tree. Then He departed from the presence of man. His declaration of man's exclusion, not His presence, established private property.
Israel's religion was founded on the public rejection of all other religions, including animism. Animism is a religion of local gods. The God of Israel was the God of the whole earth. He could dwell with Israel outside the land. Thus, He could threaten the Israelites with temporary exile without threatening their existence as a holy nation. "And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind" (Deut. 28:63-65). Because God is the universal God, their exile would in no way break their covenant with Him. On the contrary, their exile would confirm the covenant: predictable corporate negative sanctions in history. The Old Covenant was primarily judicial, not geographical. It had been renewed through verbal ratification by the nation at Mt. Sinai, which was located outside the land (Ex. 19). He would still be their God in a foreign land. The fact that an invading nation -- Assyria -- would remove most of the population and substitute foreigners as permanent residents of the land in no way polluted the land. It was Israel's sin that had polluted the land, not these foreigners (later known as Samaritans). In fact, Ezekiel told Israel that resident aliens would be under the jubilee land laws after the Israelites returned to the land (Ezek. 47:21-23).
This geographical sequence of events would have been inconceivable in ancient Greece. The boundaries of each family's land were guarded by large stones called Termini. These stones were regarded as gods. "The Terminus once established according to the required rites there was no power on earth that could displace it. It was to remain in the same place throughout all ages."(10) It was the same in ancient Rome. "To encroach upon the field of a family, it was necessary to overturn or displace a boundary mark, and this boundary mark was a god. The sacrilege was horrible, and the chastisement severe. According to the old Roman law, the man and the oxen who touched a Terminus were devoted -- that is to say, both men and oxen were immolated in expiation."(11)
That the Old Testament rarely mentions tombs, graves, and burial points to the fact that such matters were not considered important ritually, let alone theologically. Burial was a family matter, as when Jacob buried Rachel (Gen. 35:20). There was no officiating priest. Moses' body was not marked by any pillar, and its location was immediately forgotten (Deut. 36:4). The only reference to burial in the Mosaic law governs the death of sinners hanged on a tree: "And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance" (Deut. 21:22-23). As for touching a grave, the infraction was minor: "And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days" (Num. 19:16). All that was required was a ritual sprinkling (v. 18).
The land of Israel was important as God's dwelling place. It was not important as the burial place for Israelites. The crucial covenantal issue was ethics, not ritual-based piety. If the nation broke the covenant, God threatened to depart from the land. He would no longer defend them Israel invasion. Where a man was buried had significance only if he was outside the land. Joseph asked that his bones be taken out of Egypt at the exodus. This had to do with God's promise of land to Joseph's forefathers (Gen. 50:24). It was a covenantal issue, not a ritual issue. It had to do with the fulfillment in history of a covenantal promise. The fact that very few Jews returned to Israel after the exile did not make gentiles of those who remained behind in Medo-Persia. Their dispersion beyond the boundaries of Israel was implied from the beginning: the promise of zero miscarriages (Ex. 23:26) and long life (Ex. 20:12) were promises guaranteeing a population explosion to covenant-keeping Israel. Israel's geographical boundaries were not supposed to incarcerate the Israelites.
Social Peace and Cooperation The law of landmarks upheld private property. As such, it was an application of the eighth commandment: "Thou shalt not steal" (Ex. 20:15). Moving a marker was a way to steal the future value of an asset. But this asset -- land -- had another function: marking the boundaries of the original land distribution. A theft of land was a theft of God's property. He had allocated the land in Joshua's generation. This allocation was designed to separate tribes from each other, thereby honoring Jacob's messianic prophecy regarding Shiloh.
This law governed neighbors and close relatives. It acknowledged that theft is a great temptation for those who are one's closest covenantal associates. The threat to landed property in Mosaic Israel was either one's neighbors or an invading foreigner. This law implied that God would be the enforcer, since slight adjustments of markers are not easily detectable. But this also implied that men were willing to risk the wrath of God for the sake of relatively minor shifts in ownership. A major alteration of a boundary would have been obvious. Either the boundary-mover was a thief for the sake of theft, since not much property was involved, or else he planned a long-run confiscation, a little bit at a time. In either case, this was serious criminal behavior.
The nature of this crime would have led to family conspiracies. There can be little doubt that families on both sides of a landmark would have been well aware of its location. Generations of inherited property were at stake. Members of families would have known what would eventually be their inheritance. This is why family members would have had to conspire together to get away with such a theft. Anyone who attempted such a theft on his own who did not conspire with his family would have risked facing a family member in court serving as a witness for the victim. The sanctions against the false witness appear in the next section (vv. 15-21).
For one family to tamper with the boundary markers of its neighbor meant that intra-tribal conflicts would increase. This was obviously a crime that threatened social cooperation in the community. When neighbors cannot trust neighbors not to steal, it is difficult for a community to enjoy the division of labor. There is too much hostility and distrust.
But the threat was more than inter-family conflicts; it was equally intra-family conflicts. Within the boundaries of the original land grant there would have been new landmarks, generation by generation. If the jubilee was actually enforced, then there would have been additional markers, generation by generation. Each male heir of each original conquering family was entitled to a portion of the original land. The parcels of land would have grown smaller over time in the face of a growing population. As the plots grew smaller, as testified to by the boundary markers, the nation would have been reminded that they could place no faith in rural land as a long-term source of income. They would have to move off the land eventually. The dominion covenant could not be fulfilled inside the boundaries of Israel. Neither could it be fulfilled inside the boundaries of a family's rural inheritance. The heirs would have to be separated from their original inheritance in the land if they were to prosper economically. The markers were to testify to this covenantal reality, generation by generation.
Conclusion The defense of private property is necessary for the maintenance of social cooperation. This law, because it deals with contiguous property that is marked off by visible boundaries, deals with neighbors. The preservation of social peace in a community is a high priority. It was an even higher priority in Mosaic Israel, where the jubilee made it highly unlikely new neighbors could become permanent residents. Disputes over property could result in long-term conflicts or even feuds. Because family conspiracies would have had to underlie any plan to move a marker, this crime threatened social cooperation even more than other kinds of theft.
"Good fences make good neighbours," wrote the American poet Robert Frost. He had a good point. Moving a fence is a lot more difficult than moving a single boundary marker. But building a fence is more expensive than sticking a marker in the ground. Unless the fence lies entirely on one person's property, thereby reducing his available land by a greater percentage than his neighbor's land, they must come to an agreement regarding the width of the fence, the construction materials, etc. A good fence that separates property equally along the line of the fence implies prior good relations between neighbors. The fence helps to maintain this cooperation. A fence is a manifestation of the private property order. By allowing men to exclude others, it encourages cooperation. When the fruits of this cooperation can readily be distributed in terms of the value which each party has put into the joint effort, there is an incentive for joint efforts. Boundaries around property acknowledge the owner's right to exclude. When these boundaries are enforced by law and social custom, the individual can more safely open the gate to others. When you have the legal right to remove visitors, you can more safely invite them for a visit. Good fences, in the broadest sense, make good neighbors, in the broadest sense.
Footnotes:
1. The model is God's exclusion of the forbidden tree.
2. Gary North, Sanctions and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Numbers (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1996), ch. 14.
3. The one exception was the refusal to pay a vow to a priest (Lev. 27:20-21). See Gary North, Leviticus: An Economic Commentary (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1994), pp. 606-609.
4. "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression" (I Tim. 2:14).
5. Gary North, Leviticus: An Economic Commentary (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1994), ch. 17.
6. Peter Tompkins, Secrets of the Great Pyramid (New York: Harper & Row, 1971). See especially the appendix by Livio Stecchini. See also Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, Hamlet's Mill: An essay on myth and the frame of time (Boston: Gambit, 1969).
7. The one exception: a transfer to a priest because of a broken vow (Lev. 27:14-24). Gary North, Leviticus: An Economic Commentary (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1994), ch. 37.
8. James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World (Brentwood, Tennessee: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1988), p. 224.
9. Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome (Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor, [1864] 1955), Book I, Chapter VI, p. 67.
10. Ibid., II:VI, pp. 68-69.
11. Ibid., p. 69.
If this book helps you gain a new understanding of the Bible, please consider sending a small donation to the Institute for Christian Economics, P.O. Box 8000, Tyler, TX 75711. You may also want to buy a printed version of this book, if it is still in print. Contact ICE to find out. icetylertx@aol.com