Review of the Book:

The Eleventh Commandment
by Francis Neilson

Oscar H. Geiger

[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, March-April, 1933. The Eleventh Commandment by Francis Neilson, was first published by The Viking Press, New York, New York]

"Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inhent in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it." Deuteronomy XIX, 14.

This, the author holds should follow verse 21, Chapter V. It should
form the eleventh commandment.

"Cursed be he that removeth his neighbors landmark" was the third curse in Israel following only the curses for the sins of Idolatry and the dishonoring of father and mother.

"Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place." The author cites Naboth's refusal to sell his vineyard to Ahab, King of Samaria, because "The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee."

Scripture, and the opinions of great Biblical students and writers, are ably presented to support the great principle of the inalienability of estates in Judea. Hosea: "The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound (landmark), therefore I will pour my wrath upon them like water." Micah: "They covet fields and take them by violence; and houses and take them away; so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage," also "We be utterly spoiled: he hath changed the portion of my people; how hath he removed it from me! Turning away he hath divided our fields."

Proverbs is quoted: "Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set." But the landmarks were removed, house was joined to house, and field laid to field; and Israel suffered. Poverty and misery were the lot of the people.

Nehemia describes the econcmic condition of Palestine at the time of Ezra: "Some also there were that said, we have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn because of the dearth.

There were also that said, we have borrowed money for the King's tribute, and that upon our lands and vineyards . . . and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and seme of our daughters are brought into bondage already; neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards."

Not only Israel suffered, but also did the world. With landmarks removed, the great mass of humanity was made landless; driven into bondage, serfdom, slavery, helotry hopelessness. It was not always so, and ancient writings and laws, and the words of Ancient Sages and philosophers are effectively quoted to show that once in olden, but not entirely forgotten, times men planted and reaped and enjoyed the products of their labor in peace. But that was in olden, very olden times.

In Israel the landmarks had been removed; elsewhere they had never been set. "Hammurabi provided for everything but economic justice. Legal justice abounds in his laws; legal equality as administered sometimes for all three classes: patricians, serfs and slaves. But the political means, the ruling classes, had all the best of it, the slaves the worst of it. It is the same old story of the growth of the state; the exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few. And, like all states, it toppled from the height of its grandeur when slavery reached the maximum, undermined by the economic cancer upon which it rose to greatness. "

And so with Greece, and so with Rome! The author has left no doubt in the mind of the reader that the expropriation of the many from the land throughout all history has spelled poverty and suffering for mankind and the destruction of states and civilizations. It is alluring to follow him through the writings of religion and philosophy in his search for justice, but space forbids the pleasure of portraying that quest here. Nor could such review, or this reviewer, do it justice.

Throughout Judea the expropriation of the people from the land is denounced by the Prophets. Their exhortations are indictments of the transgressors for the violation of that Ancient Command, "Thou shall not remove thy neighbor's landmark," yet the landmarks were removed and we find the Jews a vassal people under the Caesars when Herod ruled in Israel and Pilate sat in Jeruselem as the procurator for Rome.

The removal of the landmarks had done their work. The Prophets had scolded and raged, had denounced and cursed, had lamented and predicted, had promised and threatened, but all in vain and the people were now longing for a change, hoping against hope, waiting and looking for a messiah. Then in Galilee, poorest and most miserable, taxed and robbed from without and within, hopeless beyond description, appeared Jesus.

Jesus knew the laws and the commandments.; He knew the Prophets; He knew the violators of the laws and commandments the Prophets thundered against. Jesus knew the land was the gift of the Creator to all mankind, not to the few who were possessing it; He knew the division of the land that was made of eld amongst the tribes of Israel (To all the tribes but Levi); He knew the landmarks that had been set, and He knew the command "Thou shall not remove thy neighbor's landmark."

Jesus also knew all the promises of the Lord if His commandments were kept, as well as He knew lhat all evils and hardships the people then were suffering were because of the violation of those commandments; He knew the promises made by the Prophets of which these two by Emmanuel are examples:

"And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and Ihou shall be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths lo dwell in. If Ihou lurn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shall honour him, nol doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shall thou delight Ihyself in the Lord ; and I will cause thee lo ride upon Ihe high places of Ihe earth, and feed Ihee with heritage of Jacob thy father: for the moulh of Ihe Lord halh spoken it." Is. LVIII.

"For, behold, I creale new heavens and a new earlh: and Ihe former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. Bui be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. ...And they shall build houses and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall nol labor in vain nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass that, before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." Is. LXV.

And Jesus knew that the first duty of man was to keep the commandments of God; that in those commandments was Salvation.

Confronted by the hirelings of Herod with the question "Master ... Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar?" the author leaves no doubt in the reader's mind that the answer of Jesus summed up all the teachings and the wisdom of Judea; that it fathomed the depths of all Sacred Law and morality; that it enunciated the most fundamental of all economic principles; that it pointed the way to freedom, to justice and to happiness; that it prepared the way for the Kingdom of Heaven on earth: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."