Do not move an ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless,
Parallel translations
- WEB Don’t move the ancient boundary stone. Don’t encroach on the fields of the fatherless:
- KJV Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:
- NKJV Do not remove the ancient landmark, Nor enter the fields of the fatherless;
- NASB ¶Do not move the ancient boundary Or go into the fields of the fatherless,
- NLT Don’t cheat your neighbor by moving the ancient boundary markers; don’t take the land of defenseless orphans.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Do not move ancient boundary stones or seize the fields of orphans.
Overview
This repeats the boundary-stone warning (22:28) and applies it pointedly to the fatherless, the most defenseless. Encroaching on an orphan's land is a grave injustice against those with no human advocate. God's special care for the fatherless runs throughout Scripture and is honored in Christ, who gives the helpless a sure Defender (Ps. 68:5).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Zech 7:10Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’
- Prov 22:28Do not move an ancient boundary stone which your fathers have placed.
- Jas 1:27Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
- Jer 22:3This is what the LORD says: Administer justice and righteousness. Rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Do not shed innocent blood in this place.
- Deut 27:17‘Cursed is he who moves his neighbor’s boundary stone.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’
- Job 24:2–3Men move boundary stones; they pasture stolen flocks.
- Deut 19:14You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker, which was set up by your ancestors to mark the inheritance you shall receive in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess.
- Job 22:9You sent widows away empty-handed, and the strength of the fatherless was crushed.
- Mal 3:5“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and against those who defraud laborers of their wages and deny justice to the foreigner but do not fear Me,” says the LORD of Hosts.
- Job 31:21–23if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless because I saw that I had support in the gate,
- Ps 94:6They kill the widow and the foreigner; they murder the fatherless.
- Jer 7:5For if you really correct your ways and deeds, if you act justly toward one another,
- Job 6:27You would even cast lots for an orphan and barter away your friend.
- Job 24:9The fatherless infant is snatched from the breast; the nursing child of the poor is seized for a debt.
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Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 23:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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