“Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set” (Proverbs 22:28).
The children of Israel received the land promised to Abraham by God (Gen. 12:7, 15:16). After the conquest of the land of Canaan, led by Joshua, “the Lord gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it” (Josh. 21:43). Each of the twelve tribes and all the families within each tribe received a divinely allotted territory within this land flowing with milk and honey (Josh. 13-19). In addition, the tribe of Levi and its families received forty-eight cities with their surrounding land (Josh. 21:41-42). As Joshua describes the natural boundary lines, various landmarks are used: cities, rivers, ravines, plains, mountains, villages, valleys, wildernesses, seas, brooks, stones, hills, coastlines, and springs (Josh. 13-19).
These natural boundary lines, plus those erected to mark the property lines within each tribe served as the divinely authorized landmarks for each tribe and family in Israel. Thus, to move a landmark was to defy Jehovah and His authority. Therefore, Moses stated: “You shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess…Cursed is the one who moves his neighbor’s landmark” (Deut. 19:14, 27:17).
To change the location of an ancient landmark was literally and spiritually a “transgression”. Spiritually, you were presumptuously transgressing God’s authority and His sole right to give each family its own inheritance in the Promised Land. Literally, you were transgressing a fellow descendant of Abraham of his divinely given inheritance by seeking to defraud him of a portion of it.
Whenever and wherever God has drawn a line, the wise DO NOT transgress it.
Sort of related to not moving from where God wants us to stand, isn’t it?