Prominence is given, in the ancient laws of India, to the manner in which disputed boundaries between villages, and between land owners, shall be settled; and it is made evident that a peculiar sacredness attaches to these landmarks. The king was to decide the dispute, after hearing testimony and examining evidence. Trees, and mounds, or heaps of earth, were preferred as landmarks; and tanks, wells, cisterns, and fountains, as also temples, were desired on boundary lines.[474]
Emphasis was laid on the sacredness of the local landmark, in the laws of the Hebrews; and a curse was pronounced against him who dared remove this threshold altar. “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor’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,” was an injunction in the fundamental law of the Promised Land.[475] And it passed into a proverb of duty: “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”[476] It was a reproach to a people that there were those among them who would “remove the landmarks” and disregard sacred property rights.[477] And among the curses which were to be spoken from the summit of Ebal, when Israel took possession of Canaan, was this: “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor’s landmark. And,” it was added, “all the people shall say, Amen.”[478]
Abraham and Abimelech found that their followers were quarreling over the boundary line between their respective domains on the borders of the Negeb. Abraham claimed the well at Beer-sheba as his by right, but the servants of Abimelech forcibly took possession of it. So the two chieftains met and agreed upon a border line, and made a covenant with accompanying sacrifices. “And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba” as his border landmark, “and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.”[479] Border landmarks were in the form of a pillar, a tree, a heap, or a stele, in Oriental countries generally.
When Jacob and Laban agreed to part in peace after their stormy meeting in Gilead, they set up a heap of stones and a stone pillar as a monument of witness of their mutual covenant, and as a landmark of their agreed territorial boundary. This memorial of their covenant was called “Galeed,” or “Witness Heap,” and “Mizpah,” or “Watch Tower.” “And Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap, and behold the pillar, which I have set betwixt me and thee. This heap be witness, and the pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm. The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God [or, gods] of their father, judge betwixt us.”[480] The new boundary mark was a token of a sacred covenant.