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LANDMARK.—The word (gebûl) so rendered must not be identified off-hand, as is usually done, with the kudurru or boundary-stone of the Babylonians, for the fundamental passage, Deu_19:14, ‘Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark, which they of old time have set,’ should rather be rendered: ‘Thou shalt not remove (or ‘set back’) thy neighbour’s boundary, which they … have drawn.’ Under the old Hebrew system of the cultivation in common of the village land, the boundaries of the plots may have been indicated as at the present day by ‘a furrow double in width to the ordinary one,’ at each end of which a stone is set up, called the ‘boundary-stone’ (PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1894, p. 195 f.). The form of land-grabbing by setting back a neighbour’s boundary-line must have been common in OT times, to judge by the frequent references to, and condemnations of, the practice (Deu_19:14; Deu_27:17, Hos_5:10, Pro_22:28; Pro_23:10, Job_24:2).
A. R. S. Kennedy.