Genesis 31:48-50 - Exposition

And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. The historian adding— Therefore was the name of it called (originally by Jacob, and afterwards by the Israelites from this transaction) Galeed ( vide on Genesis 31:21 ). The stony character of the regon may have suggested the designation. And Mizpah ;—watchtower from Tsaphah, to watch. Mizpah afterwards became the site of a town in the district of Gilead ( 10:17 ; 11:11 , 11:19 , 11:34 ); which received its name, as the historian intimates, from the pile of witness erected by Laban and his kinsmen, and was later celebrated as the residence of Jephthah ( 11:34 ) and the seat of the sanctuary ( 11:11 ). Ewald supposes that the mound (Galeed) and the watch tower (Mispah) were different objects, and that the meaning of the (so-called) legend is that, while the former (the mountain) was riled up by Jacob and his people, the latter (now the city and fortress of Mizpah on one of the heights of Gilead) was constructed by Laban and his followers; but the " grotesqusnesa " of this interpretation of the Hebrew story is its best refutation— for he ( i . e . Laban) said, The Lord —Jehovah; a proof that Genesis 31:49 , Genesis 31:50 are a Jehovistic interpolation (Tuch, Bleek, Colenso, Kalisch); an indication of their being a subsequent insertion, though not warranting the inference that the entire history is a complication (Keil); a sign that henceforth Laban regarded Jehovah as the representative of his rights (Lange); but probably only a token that Laban, recognizing Jehovah as the only name that would bind the conscience of Jacob (Hengstenberg, Quarry), had for the moment adopted Jacob's theology ('Speaker's Commentary'), but only in self-defense (Wordsworth)— watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another— literally, a man from his companion . If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us ;—either then they stood apart from Laban's clan followers (Inglis); or his meaning was that when widely separated there would be no one to judge betwixt them, or perhaps even to observe them (Rosenmüller), but —see, God (Elohim in contrast to man) is witness betwixt me and thee.