Some move landmarks; they seize flocks and pasture them.
Job's friends insist that God always punishes the wicked here and now. He answers by pointing at crimes everyone around him could see. Boundary stones moved, flocks seized and grazed in the open — and heaven seems to say nothing.
Two Kinds of Theft
The verse names two crimes that work in opposite ways. One is theft by stealth: a stone moved, land taken. The other is open force: flocks seized, then grazed as if they were the thief's own.
Leslie M. Grant"Why are not times treasured up with the Almighty? Why do not they who know Him see His days?" (v.1 - JND trans.) Job wonders why God, who is Almighty, does not take account of all that happens in time. He wonders why those who know Him never see Him deal seriously with gross evil while it is going on. For, he says, "Some remove landmarks," and so steal land from others; they steal flocks of sheep by force and feed on them.
Job does not stop at land and flocks. Every item on his list breaks a basic rule of right, and the weakest people pay for it.
Samuel RidoutJob is about to dwell on God's apparent failure to judge the wicked. He begins by asking why God does not let His saints see a righteous judgment fall on these men. Why does He not set a limit to their contempt for God and their wicked oppression? Job lists some details of their evil course, and each one breaks every principle of right. They remove landmarks. They steal their neighbour's flocks, and shepherd them as their own. The fatherless and the widow are victims of their greed. They drive away the poor and the needy.
What a Landmark Was
The word means a physical marker, and the law protected it.
Morrish Bible DictionaryAnything, such as a stone or stake, that marked the boundary of a tribe or of a man's possession. The law forbade moving it (Deuteronomy 19:14; Job 24:2; Proverbs 22:28; Proverbs 23:10).
God Himself marked out those boundaries, so moving one was more than a property dispute. The same principle covers truth handed down from our fathers.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinFor Israel these landmarks were sacred things. The Lord's will had marked out their land, so tampering with the markers was a transgression. Israel was God's earthly people, and Israel had landmarks. God's heavenly people have landmarks too, landmarks of the heavenly realm: the blessed doctrines of the Word of God, which make up the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. And how man removes these landmarks in our day! How true it is, "Some remove the landmarks," that which our fathers cherished, believed and trusted in.
An Old Trick, Still Running
The same greed works at every level, from a neighbour's fence to a king's border.
William KellyHe says, "Some remove the landmarks." That is not at all an uncommon thing. We have the evidence of it all around us in London now. There are people who have encroached upon — taken — the common land of this very Blackheath... they have laid hold upon what does not belong to them. But it has gone on so long that the law cannot touch them.
William KellyBut this is what the verse refers to — a very old trick of bad men, especially men of property and men of rank. Owning land gives them the chance to steal a little more. And so it is with kings... And the men who do all this are the very ones whose position makes them guardians of the law; yet they are guilty of all this wickedness.
Why Job Raises It At All
This is not a lecture on social justice. It is a courtroom reply. His friends hint that his suffering proves hidden sin. So he points to men whose sin is plain and who suffer nothing.
Samuel RidoutWhy do his friends insinuate that he was guilty of such conduct, when glaring cases were manifest to them?... It is an awful picture of facts only too well known to them — and to us. How can Eliphaz make such facts fit in with his theory that evil is always punished in this life? But, oh, how can God close His eyes to these things, and afflict a faithful man instead of these wrongdoers? This is Job's great trouble, and for this he has found no solution.
Why Judgment Waits
Job found no answer. The reason lies in what God is doing at this moment in history.
J. N. DarbyThis was what Job found so hard to understand — how those who did evil prospered, while the righteous suffered persecution. The reason is simply that the time of judgment has not come. The time of mercy is going on now, and we cannot have mercy and judgment at once. So all is a riddle now.
William KellyAll is wrong, and will stay wrong here below until the Lord Jesus is the One who executes judgment and reigns in righteousness. He will pass over nothing. There will be no favouritism, but all will be according to God, and never before.
Summary
- Boundary — A landmark was a stone or stake marking what God had given a man. Moving it was a transgression, not a technicality.
- Theft — The verse pairs stealth with force. Land goes by a moved stone; flocks go by violence and then graze in plain sight.
- Everywhere — The same land-grabbing runs from neighbours to kings. Often the guilty are the men who should uphold the law.
- Argument — Open, unpunished evil wrecks his friends' theory that suffering proves guilt.
- Delay — Evil goes unjudged because this is the time of mercy, not of judgment. Christ will settle every account when He reigns, and He will pass over nothing.