Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:
Parallel translations
- WEB Don’t move the ancient boundary stone. Don’t encroach on the fields of the fatherless:
- BSB Do not move an ancient boundary stone or encroach on 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 7:10And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.
- Prov 22:28Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.
- Jas 1:27Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
- Jer 22:3Thus saith the LORD; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.
- Deut 27:17Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen.
- Job 24:2–3Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks, and feed thereof.
- Deut 19:14Thou 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.
- Job 22:9Thou hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.
- Mal 3:5And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.
- Job 31:21–23If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate:
- Ps 94:6They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless.
- Jer 7:5For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;
- Job 6:27Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and ye dig a pit for your friend.
- Job 24:9They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor.
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Christ at the center
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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