Genesis 31:50-55

"If thou shalt afflict my daughters, and if thou shalt take wives besides my daughters, no man is with us; see, God is witness betwixt me and thee. And Laban said unto Jacob, Behold this heap, and behold this 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 to me, for harm. The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us. And Jacob sware by the Fear of his father Isaac. And Jacob offered a sacrifice in the mountain, and called his brethren to eat bread: and they did eat bread, and tarried all night in the mountain. And early in the morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them: and Laban departed and returned unto his place."

One very significant revelation in this place is resident in the names for God as invoked by the participants in this covenant. Note that Laban referred to the God of Abraham, and of Nahor, and of their father, showing that Jehovah, the one true God, was known to the ancestors of Abraham. Thus, as Francisco noted:

"When Abraham was called, it was not necessary for him to leave the God of his fathers but rather to follow him, and to purify his worship."[30]

We have repeatedly emphasized that monotheism was widely known in the pre-Abrahamic period, as witnessed by the priesthood of Melchizedek, and other evidences, including this here. In fact, the choice of Abraham and the introduction into human history of the device known as the Chosen People, was due to God's purpose of preventing the universal knowledge of the true God disappearing from the earth, which it was rapidly doing as a result of the proliferating paganism in the days reaching down to Abraham and afterward.

See the comment on "the Fear of Isaac" under Genesis 31:42.

The stipulations added by Laban here were readily agreed to by Jacob, who "sware to them." As far as is known, both men forever honored the agreement made here.

Laban's claim in Genesis 31:51 that he had set up the stone cairn-pillar does not mean that he alone had done it, but that he had called for the making of the covenant to which Jacob had assented. The text specifically says that Jacob set the pillar and ordered the gathering of the stones.