Job 24:2

2 Zij tasten de landpalen aan; de kudden roven zij, en weiden ze.

Job 24:2 Meaning and Commentary

Job 24:2

[Some] remove the landmarks
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 ) ( 27:17 ) ; 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 ^F6: some render it, "they touch the landmarks" ^F7, 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.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F6 Dion. Halicarnass. & Festus apud Sanctium in loc. Vid. Rycquium de Capitol. Roman. c. 14. Ovid. Fasti, l. 2.
F7 (wgyvy) "attigerunt", Pagninus, Bolducius; "attingunt", Vatablus.

Job 24:2 In-Context

1 Waarom zouden van den Almachtige de tijden niet verborgen zijn, dewijl zij, die Hem kennen, Zijn dagen niet zien?

2 Zij tasten de landpalen aan; de kudden roven zij, en weiden ze.

3 Den ezel der wezen drijven zij weg; den os ener weduwe nemen zij te pand.

4 Zij doen de nooddruftigen wijken van den weg; te zamen versteken zich de ellendigen des lands.

5 Ziet, zij zijn woudezels in de woestijn; zij gaan uit tot hun werk, makende zich vroeg op ten roof; het vlakke veld is hem tot spijs, en den jongeren.