Genesis 31:43 Commentary and Bible Study

Laban cannot face up to the truth of what has happened, and how God has dealt with him. He will not let go of the idea that Jacob has unjustly taken something from him. The unbelieving mind finds it very hard to make a true judgment about something that goes against its own interests. ‘These daughters are my daughters, and these children are my children, and these cattle are my cattle, and all that thou seest is mine’, he says. But that was not true, and Laban knew it, and his daughters knew it, and Jacob knew it. Jacob had come to him in the first place to obtain a wife, just as Abraham’s servant had come to obtain a wife for Isaac. Laban knew that it was entirely reasonable that Jacob should return and he could hardly go back without his wives and children. This is a case of domination on Laban’s part, in seeming to want to be the patriarchal head of a great family, part of which is being taken from him. But he sees that he is in a weak position and so makes a virtue out of necessity and reluctantly adopts a more conciliatory attitude. ‘What can I do this day?’ He can do nothing that he wants to do, because God has forbidden him to take revenge.Laban now proposes that he and Jacob make a covenant together. What is the thinking behind this and how did he come up with idea? He knows that are about to separate, probably for life. He is a man full of suspicion, even though Jacob has served him well and conscientiously. Perhaps he has some remaining genuine concern for his children; perhaps as Luther suggests he was prompted by a condemning conscience. It is his daughters that he mentions in calling on God to watch them both – he is concerned about Jacob’s treatment of them and faithfulness to them. But he had treated them so unkindly and turned their lives into a competitive misery. Nevertheless, he calls on God to watch over them both. Jacob erected a heap of stones as a tangible symbol of the covenant between them. Laban gave it the Aramaic or Syrian name, Jegarsahadutha, and Jacob gave it the Hebrew name Galeed, both names mean the same things – heap of witness.