[Read the title of this post, who would you think spoke these words to Yaakov?
Surprise, surprise, his two sister-wives Leah and Rachel, vs. 16.. Actually it should not be a surprise: Adam listened to Eve’s voice, Abram listened to Sarai’s voice, Yaakov listened to Rebekah’s voice. This is contrary to the status of women in cultures today that still require women to wear veils over their faces or heads, are not allowed to get formal education, cannot drive and other deprivations that seem out of sync with the ultra-liberated feminist movement in our modern age. It appears the women—mothers or at least wife number one in the Hebrew Scriptures not only had a voice but were actually listened to and heeded by the men, the patriarchs of Israel no less!
This chapter continues the interaction between Yaakov and Lavan, all quite self-explanatory. Unbracketed commentary is from Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz; additional comments are provided by EF/Everett Fox and RA/Robert Alter, both are translators of the TORAH whose titles are the same: The Five Books of Moses –Admin1.]
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Genesis/Bereshith 31
THE FLIGHT OF JACOB
1 Now he heard the words of Lavan’s sons, (that they) said: Yaakov has taken away all that was our father’s, and from what was our father’s he has made all this weighty-wealth!Laban’s sons. See XXX,35. Jacob’s prosperity bred jealousy among his relatives.
[RA] the words of Laban’s sons. It is a reflection of the drastic efficiency of biblical narrative that Laban’s sons, who play only a peripheral role in the story, are not introduced at all until the point where they serve the unfolding of plot and theme. They are never given names or individual characters, and the first mention of them is in the previous chapter when Laban places the segregated particolored flocks in their charge. Here they are used to dramatize in a single quick stroke the atmosphere of suspicion and jealousy in Laban’s household: they make the extravagant claim that the visibly prospering Jacob “has taken everything of our father’s,” thus leaving them nothing. The anonymous sons would presumably be members of the pursuit party Laban forms to go after the fleeing Jacob.
2 And Yaakov saw by Lavan’s face: he was no longer with him as the day before.[EF] he was no longer with him: Others use “Lavan’s lmanner toward him was no longer . . . “
[RA] Jacob saw Laban’s face. The physical concreteness of the image should not be obscured, as many modern translators are wont to do, by rendering this as “manner” or “attitude.” Although the Hebrew panim does have a variety of extended or figurative meanings, the point is that Jacob looks at his father-in-law’s face and sees in it a new and disquieting expression of hostility and suspicion.
3 And YHVH said to Yaakov: return to the land of your fathers, to your kindred! I will be with you!said unto Jacob. In a dream, see v. 11.
[EF] land of your fathers. . . your kindred: Here, unlike 12:1, the land is Canaan, not Haran; I will be with you: Heb. ehye immakh, interpreted here and throughout by B-R as “I will be there with you,” stressing that it is God’s presence that is indicated by the verb hyh, “to be.” See especially Ex. 3:14.
[RA] and I will be with you. God’s words recall the language of the divine promise to Jacob in the dream-vision at Bethel.
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the land of thy fathers. Canaan.
4 So Yaakov sent and had Rahel and Lea called to the field, to his animals,
Rachel and Leah. Another instance of the dignified position of woman in ancient Israel. The Patriarchs do nothing without consulting their wives, whom they regard as their equals.
to the field. To speak with them in private. As the Midrash states, ‘Walls have ears.’
[EF] to the field: As a place where such conversations would be certain to be private.
[RA] Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah out to the field. Jacob proceeds in this fashion not only because he is busy tending the flocks, as he himself repeatedly reminds us in the dialogue, but also because he needs to confer with his wives in a safe location beyond earshot of Laban and his sons.
5 and said to them: I see by your father’s face: indeed he is no longer toward me as yesterday and the day-before. But the God of my father has been with me! 6 You yourselves know that I have served your father with all my might, 7 but you father has cheated me and has changed my wages ten times over, yet God has not allowed him to do me ill.my wages. See XXIX,15.
ten times. The phrase only means ‘several times’. Laban would naturally make attempt after attempt to alter the conditions in his favour when he found they were against him. The story here supplements what was related in the lat chapter.
[EF] ten times: Many times.
8 If he said thus: the speckled ones shall be your wages, all the animals would bear speckled ones, and if he said thus: all the streaked ones will be your wages, all the animals would bear streaked ones. 9 So God has snatched away your father’s livestock and given them to me. 10 Now it was at the time of the animals’ being in heat that I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream: here, the he-goats that mount the animals-streaked, speckled, and spotted![EF] Now it was . . . in a dream: Several times in this chapter we hear of important events secondhand, in speech rather than in action. See note to 20:13. streaked, speckled, and spotted: Heb. akkudim, nekuddim, u-veruddim. The rhyme (rare in biblical Hebrew) suggests a vision or a dream.
11 And God’s messenger said to me in the dream: Yaakov! I said: Here I am.angel of God. In v. 3, it is ‘The LORD said’. The interchange of ‘God’ and ‘angel of God’ is frequent.
[RA] God’s messenger said to me in the dream. According to the source critics, divine communication to men through dream-vision is a hallmark of the Elohist, whereas the direct narrative report of the Speckled Flock story in the previous chapter makes no mention of either a dream or divine instructions and is to be attributed to the Yahwist. Whatever the validity of such identifications, they tend to scant the narrative integrity of the completed text, the ability of the biblical Arranger—to borrow a term from the criticism of Joyce’s Ulysses—to orchestrate his sources. Jacob wants to make it vividly clear to his wives at this tense juncture of imminent flight that God has been with him and will continue to be with him. It serves this purpose to explain his spectacular prosperity not as the consequence of his own ingenuity as animal breeder but as the revelation of an angel of God. It thus makes perfect narrative sense that he should omit all mention of the elaborate stratagem of the peeled rods in the troughs.
12 He said: Pray lift up your eyes and see: All the he-goats that mount the animals-streaked, speckled, and spotted! For I have seen all that Lavan is doing to you. 13 I am the God of Bet-el, where you anointed the pillar, where you vowed a vow to me. So-now, arise, get out of this land, return to the land of your kindred!The God of Bethel. The God who appeared unto thee at Bethel, see XXVIII.
[RA] the God who appeared to you at Bethel. The Masoretic Text lacks “who appeared to you at” (which in Hebrew would be just two words plus a particle), but both major Aramaic Targums, that of Onkelos and Yonatan ben Uziel, reflect this phrase, as does the Septuagint. Although the Targums are often predisposed to explanatory paraphrase, in this instance the Masoretic Hebrew sounds grammatically off, and it seems likely that they were faithfully representing a phrase that was later lost in transmission. (The Targums, which translated the Bible into the Aramaic that had become the vernacular of Palestinian Jewry, were completed in the early centuries of the Christian Era—Onkelos perhaps in the third century and Targum Yonatan at least a century later.)
14 Rahel and Lea answered him, they said to him: Do we still have a share, an inheritance in our father’s house?[RA] any share in the inheritance. The Hebrew, literally, “share and inheritance,” is a hendiadys (two words for one concept, like “part and parcel”), with a denotative meaning as translated here and a connotation something like “any part at all.”
15 Is it not as strangers that we are thought of by him? For he has sold us and eaten up, yes, eaten up our purchase-price!strangers. He has not allowed us and our children to enjoy some of the prosperity which accrued during Jacob’s 14 years of labour for us. And now he begrudges what our husband has gained by his toil.
[RA] for he has sold us, and he has wholly consumed our money. In a socially decorous marriage, a large part of the bride-price would go to the bride. Laban, who first appeared in the narrative (chapter 24) eyeing the possible profit to himself in a betrothal transaction, has evidently pocketed all of the fruits of Jacob’s fourteen years of labor. His daughters thus see themselves reduced to chattel by their father, not married off but rather sold for profit, as though they were not his flesh and blood.
16 Indeed, all the riches that God has snatched away from our father— they belong to us and to our children. So now, whatever God has said to you, do! 17 So Yaakov arose, he lifted his children and his wives onto the camelshis sons. The word should be rendered here, ‘his children’.
18 and led away all his livestock, all his property that he had gained, the acquired-livestock of his own acquiring which he had gained in the country of Aram, to come home to Yitzhak his father in the land of Canaan.the cattle of his getting. i.e. which he had purchased; viz. camels and asses, XXX,43.
19 Now Lavan had gone to shear his flock; Rahel, meanwhile, stole the terafim that belonged to her father.gone to shear his sheep. The occasion of sheep-shearing was a time of feasting, and lasted several days.
teraphim. Images kept in the house, perhaps corresponding tot he Roman penates, to bring protection and good fortune. Laban calls them ‘my gods’ (v. 30). Why did Rachel carry them off? The Midrash answers, to prevent her father from worshipping them.
[EF] terafim: Hebrew obscure; apparently some sort of idols. Others use “household gods.”
[RA] Laban had gone to shear his flocks. Rashi reminds us that Laban had earlier set a precedent of grazing his herds at a distance of three days’ journey from Jacob’s herds. In any case, other references to shearing of the flocks in the Bible indicate it was a very elaborate procedure involving large numbers of men, and accompanied by feasting, and so would have provided an excellent cover for Jacob’s flight.
Rachel stole the household gods. The household gods, or terafim (the etymology of the term is still in doubt), are small figurines representing the deities responsible for the well-being and prosperity of the household. The often-cited parallel with the Roman penates seems quite pertinent. There is no reason to assume taht Rachel would have become a strict monotheist through her marriage, and so it is perfectly understandable that she would want to take with her in her emigration the icons of these tutelary spirits, or perhaps, symbols of possession.
20 Now Yaakov stole the wits of Lavan the Aramean, by not telling him that he was about to flee.[EF] stole-the-wits: Fooled, hoodwinked.
[RA] Jacob deceived Laban. Rachel makes off with, or steals, the household gods; Jacob deceives—literlly, “steals the heart of Laban” (the heart being the organ of attentiveness or understanding). This verb, ganav, which suggests appropriating someone else’s property by deception or stealth, will echo through the denouement of the story. Jacob, in his response to Laban, will use a second verb, gazal, which suggests taking property by force, “to rob.” In heading for Canaan with his wives, children, and flocks, Jacob is actually taking what is rightly his (note the emphasis of legitimate possession in verse 18), but he has good reason to fear that the grasping Laban will renege on their agreement, and so he feels compelled to flee in stealth, making off not with Laban’s property but with his “heart.”
21 And flee he did, he and all that was his; he arose and crossed the River, setting his face toward the hill-country of Gil’ad.passed over the River. Euphrates.
[RA] the Euphrates. The Hebrew says “the River,” a term which refers specifically to the Euphrates.
the high country of Gilead. The region in question is east of the Jordan, a little south of Lake Tiberias, and was part of Israelite territory in the First Commonwealth period. It is thus quite plausible as the setting for a border encounter between Laban the Aramean and Jacob the Hebrew.
22-54. LABAN’S PURSUIT
22 Lavan was told on the third day that Yaakov had fled; 23 he took his tribal-brothers with him and pursued him, a seven-days’ journey, and caught up with him in the hill-country of Gil’ad.the mountain of Gilead. Or, ‘the hill-country of Gilead,’ the region E. of Jordan.
brethren. Men of his clan.
[RA] pursued him a seven days’ journey. Although it would have taken Jacob, encumbered with his flocks and family, far longer to cross this distance of nearly three hundred miles, it might have been feasible for a pursuit party traveling lightly, and so the formulaic seven days actually serves to convey the terrific speed of the chase. Jacob himself will allude to this speed when instead of the more usual verb for pursuit, he refers to Laban’s “racing” after him (dalaq, a term that also means “to burn” and appears to derive from the rapid movement of fire).
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either good or bad. i.e. anything, as in XXIV,50. The phrase is the same Heb. phrase and idiom as in II,17,III,5 and 22, where it means, ‘all things.’ Here it is in negative form and means, ‘not anything.’ Laban was neither to entice him by offers of kindness, nor force him to return by threats.
[EF] be it good or ill: Lit. “from good to ill.”
[RA] either good or evil. Asin 24:50, the idiom means “lest you speak . . . anything at all.”
25 When Lavan caught up with Yaakov, –Yaakov had pegged his tent in the mountains, and Lavan along with his brothers had pegged (his tent) in the hill-country of Gil’ad— 26 Lavan said to Yaakov: What did you mean to do by stealing my wits and leading my daughters away like captives of the sword?as though captives of the sword. Without allowing them an opportunity of taking farewell of their father and brothers. Laban strikes the note of injured innocence.
[RA] driving my daughters. The common translation carrying off” fudges the brutality of Laban’s language. The verb nahag is most often used for the driving of animals and is in fact the same term used in verse 18 to report Jacob/s driving his livestock.
like captives of the sword? The daughters had spoken of their father’s treating them like chattel. Laban on his part chooses a simile with ominous military implications, suggesting that Jacob has behaved like a marauding army that seizes the young women to serve as sexual and domestic slaves. It is surely not lost on Jacob that Laban is leading a group of armed men (“My hand has the might to do you harm”).
27 Why did you secretly flee and steal away on me, without even telling me, –for I would have sent you off with joy and with song, with drum and with lyre–sons. i.e. grandsons (see on XX,12), and daughters may include Rachel, Leah and Laban’s granddaughters.
[RA] deceive me. At this point, Laban drops the object “heart” from the ver “to steal” or “to make off with,” and says instead “me,” either because he is using the idiom elliptically, or because he wants to say more boldly to Jacob, you have not merely deceived me (“stolen my heart”) but despoiled me (“Stolen me”).
with festive songs, with timbrel and lyre. The extravagance of this fantastic scene conjured up by a past master of fleecing is self-evident. “Festive songs” is a hendiadys: the Hebrew is literally “with festivity and with songs.”
28 and you did not even allow me to kiss my grandchildren and my daughters? You have done foolishly now![EF] kiss: Upon leaving, “kiss good-bye.”
[RA] my sons. In this case, the reference would have to be to grandsons, despite the fact that the term is bracketed with “my daughters,” which would refer to Rachel and Leah.
29 It lies in my hand’s power to do (all of) you ill! But yesterday night the God of your father said to me, saying: Be on your watch from speaking to Yaakov, be it good or ill!to do you hurt. It would thus seem that Laban was accompanied by a large band, which outnumbered Jacob and his servants.
30 Well now, you had to go, yes, go, since you longed, longed for your father’s house— Why did you steal my gods?[EF] you had to go: Or, “Suppose you had to go.”
[RA] but why did you steal my gods? Laban once more invokes the crucial verb ganav at the very end of his speech. Now the object is something that really has been stolen, through Jacob has no idea this is so. Laban refers to the missing figurines not as terafim, a term that may conceivably have a pejorative connotation, but as ‘elohai, “my gods,” real deities.
31 Yaakov answered and said to Lavan: Indeed, I was afraid, for I said to myself: Perhaps you will even rob me of your daughters!This verse answers the first point mentioned by Laban, viz. the secrecy with which Jacob left him.
{EF} Indeed I was afraid: Yaakov seems to be explaining why he “had to go” first, and then answering Lavan’s question in vs. 32.
32 With whomever you find your gods-he shall not live; here in front of our brothers, (see if) you recognize anything of yours with me, and take it! Yaakov did not know that Rahel had stolen them.shall not live. The Patriarch does not mean that he will himself kill the culprit, but the wrongdoer’s life will be placed in Laban’s hands; XLIV,9.
[EF] with me: In my possession.
[RA] that person shall not live. Jacob does not imagine that anyone in his household could be guilty of the theft. If he is not unwittingly condemning Rachel to death, his peremptory words at least foreshadow her premature death in childbirth.
make recognition. The thematically fraught verb haker, which previously figured in Jacob’s deception of Isaac, will return to haunt Jacob, in precisely the imperative form in which it occurs here.
33 Lavan came into Yaakov’s tent and into Lea’s tent and into the tents of the two maids, but he did not find anything. Then he went out of Lea’s tent and came into Rahel’s tent.Nachmanides explains that Laban’s search was in the following order: Jacob, Leah, Rachel, and lastly the handmaids. The narrative, however, reserves the mention of Rachel for the last, because it is upon her that interest is centred.
34 Now Rahel had taken the terafim and had put them in the basket-saddle of the camels, and had sat down upon them. Lavan felt all around the tent, but he did not find anything.saddle. The word is better translated ‘palanguin’—a sort of compartment, tied on the saddle, covered with an awning, and surrounded with curtains, in which Oriental women travel.
[EF] sat down upon them: Ridiculing the pagan gods, at least to the audience. felt all around: Recalling the “feeling” of Yitzhak in Chap. 27.
[RA] pu them in the camel cushion and sat on them. The camel cushion may be a good hiding place, but Rachel’s sitting on the terafim is also a kind of satiric glance by the monotheistic writer on the cult of figurines, as necessity compels Rachel to assume this irreverent posture toward them.
35 She said to her father: Do not let upset be in my lord’s eyes that I am not able to rise in your presence, for the manner of women is upon me. So he searched, but he did not find the terafim.rise. A child had to stand up when the father entered the room.
[EF] manner of women: The menstrual period.
[RA] for the way of women is upon me. The impotence of the irate father vis-àvis his biologically mature daughter is comically caught in the device she hits upon, of pleading her period, in order to stay seated on the concealed figurines. Her invention involves an ironic double take because it invokes all those years of uninterrupted menses before she was at last able to conceive and bear her only son.
wroth. The Patriarch’s indignation is aroused when his innocence is established; and he accuses Laban of fabricating the charge of stealing the teraphim as a pretext to search his possessions.
answered. i.e. replied to Laban’s accusations.
[RA] voiced his grievance. The verb here (there is no object noun in Hebrew) is cognate with riv, a grievance brought to a court of law. Jacob’s speech is manifestly cast as a rhetorically devised plea of defense against a false accusation. Although previous commentators have noted that his language is “elevated” (Gerhard von Rad), it has not been observed that Jacob’s plea is actually formulated as poetry, following the general conventions of parallelism of biblical verse.
What is my crime, what is my guilt . . .? These cadenced parallel questions signal the beginning of the formal plea of defense.
37 that you have felt all through my wares? What have you found from all your household wares? Set it here in front of you brothers and my brothers, that they may decide between us two!have not cast their young. Due to the skill and assiduity of the shepherd.
[EF] felt all through: Or “rifled.”
38 It has been twenty years now that I have been under you: your ewes and your she-goats have never miscarried, the rams from your flock I have never eaten. 39 none torn-by-beasts have I ever brought you– I would make good the loss, at my hand you would seek it, stolen by day or stolen by night.or by night. In these words lies the bitterness of reproach. A shepherd was entitled to his rest at night, and he could not in justice be held responsible if the damage was then done by prowling beasts, provided reasonable precautions had been taken.
According to the code of Hammurabi, which was the Common Law in Mesopotamia at the time, the shepherd gave a receipt for the animals entrusted to him, and was bound to return them with reasonable increase. He was allowed to use a certain number for food, and was not responsible for those killed by lion or lightning. Any loss due to his carelessness he had to repay tenfold. All this throws wonderful light on the relations between Jacob and Laban.
[EF] seek: I.e., seek restitution.
[RA] What was torn up by beasts . . . I bore the loss. After stating in the previous verse that he took exemplary care of the flocks, Jacob goes on to declare that he assumed a degree of responsibility above and beyond what the law requires of a shepherd. Both biblical and other ancient Near Eastern codes indicate that a shepherd was not obliged to make good losses caused by beasts of prey and thieves, where no negligence was involved.
what was stolen by day and stolen by night. Again, the key verb ganav is invoked. The grammatical form of the construct state here—genuvati—uses an archaic suffix that is a linguistic marker of poetic diction.
40 (Thus) I was: by day, parching-heat consumed me, and cold by night, and my sleep eluded my eyes.[RA] Often. The Hebrew is literally “I was,” but as E.A. Speiser notes, this verb at the beginning of a clause can be used to impart the iterative sense to what follows.
sleep was a stranger to my eyes. The Hebrew says literally, “sleep wandered from my eyes.” It is a general idiom for insomnia.
41 It is twenty years for me now in your house: I have served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your animals, yet you have changed my wages ten times over.[EF] twenty years: Yosef will be away from Yaakov for approximately the same period of time.
[RA] These twenty years in your household. When Jacob begins to work out the calculation of how many years he has served Laban in return for what, he switches from verse to prose. This enables him to repeat verbatim the words he had used in his (prose) dialogue with his wives, when he said that Laban had “switched my wages ten times over.” Understandably, what he deletes from that earlier speech is the blunt accusation that Laban “tricked me.”
42 Had not the God of my father, the God of Avraham and the Terror of Yitzhak, been-there for me, indeed, you would have sent me off now, empty-handed! But God has seen my being afflicted and the toil of my hands, and yesterday night he decided.Fear of Isaac. Or, ‘Awe of Isaac’; i.e. He whom Isaac feared. The noun, in this special use as a Divine appellation, occurs again in v. 53. See Isaiah VIII,13, where a synonymous word is used.
gave judgment. See v. 29.
[EF] terror: The intent of the Hebrew is unclear; it could be something like “Yitzhak’s champion” or “the One who inspired terror in Yitzhak.”
[RA] He determined in my favor. Jacob uses the same verb of legal vindication that he invoked in his poetic self-defense—“they shall determine between us two.”
43 Lavan gave answer, he said to Yaakov: The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the animals are my animals— all that you see, it is mine! But to my daughters-what can I do to them today, or to their children whom they have borne?Laban is unable to answer Jacob’s reproaches, and therefore repeats the claim based on primitive usage, whereby the head of the family is the nominal possessor of all that belonged to its members. He then pretends to be solicitous for the welfare of his daughters and grandchildren.
[EF] to my daughters: Others use “for my daughters.”
[RA] The daughters are my daughters. Laban begins his response by refusing to yield an inch in point of legal prerogative. But he concedes that there is nothing he can do about his daughters and all his grandsons—on the face of it, because of their evident attachment to Jacob, and, perhaps, because he fears to use the force he possesses against Jacob after the divine warning in the night-vision.
44 So now, come, let us cut a covenant, I and you, and let (something here) serve as a witness between me and you. 45 Yaakov took a stone and erected it as a standing-pillar[RA] Jacob took a stone. Invited to make a pact, Jacob immediately resorts to the language of stones, as after the Bethel epiphany and ink his first encounter with Rachel at the well. Thus, in sequence, the stones are associated with religious experience, personal experience, and now politics. Here, there is a doubling in the use of stones: a large stone as a commemorative pillar (and border marker) and a pile of smaller stones as a commemorative mound.
heap. Or, ‘cairn.’
they did eat. The meal was part of the ceremony of the covenant of friendship.
[EF] And they ate: See note to 26:30.
47 Now Lavan called it: Yegar Sahaduta, while Yaakov called it: Gal-ed.[EF] Yegar Sahaduta: Aramaic for “Mound-Witness” (Yaakov’s Gal Ed of the next verse.) Aramaic was the lingua franca of the area from the First Millennium B.C.E. on and is still spoken in some Syrian villages.
[RA] Yegar-Sahadutha . . . Gal-Ed. The international character of the transaction is nicely caught in Laban the Aramean’s use of an Aramaic term while Jacob uses Hebrew. Both names mean “mound of witness.”
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[EF] when we are hidden: Even when I cannot verify your behavior.
[RA] and Mizpah. This is an alternate name for the height of Gilead. The meaning is “lookout point,” as Laban’s next words make etymologically clear.
50 If you should ever afflict my daughters, if you should ever take wives besides my daughters . . . ! No man is here with us, (but) see, God is witness between me and you!
Laban still keeps up the pretext that the pact made between him and Jacob is for the protection of his daughters; but he immediately proceeds to set up another heap and pillar to safeguard himself from any aggression on Jacob’s part in the future.
[EF] God: Or “a god.”
51 And Lavan said to Yaakov: Here is this mound, here is the pillar that I have sunk between me and you: 52 witness is this mound, witness is the pillar that I will not cross over this mound to you and you will not cross over this mound and this pillar to me, for ill![RA] 51-52. Look, this mound, and, look, the pillar . . . witness be the mound and witness the pillar. The studied repetitions and rhetorical flourishes that characterize Laban’s speech throughout reflect its function as a performative speech-act, stipulating the binding terms of the treaty.
I will not cross over to you . . . past this pillar. At this point, the story of bitter familial struggle is also made an etiology for political history. What Laban is designating here is clearly an international border.
53 May the God of Avraham and the God of Nahor keep-justice between us-the God of their father. And Yaakov swore by the Terror of his father Yitzhak.Laban, being a descendant of Nahor (XXII,20), calls upon the deity worshipped by his family as well as upon the God worshipped by Jacob’s family to witness the covenant; but Jacob, who refuses to acknowlege the ‘god of Nahor’, swears only by the’ Fear of Isaac.’
God of their father. Each one swears by the God of his father (Nachmanides).
[RA] the gods of their fathers. These words, with the pronoun referent “they,” could not be part of Laban’s dialogue and so must be a gloss, perhaps occasioned by the discomfort of a scribe or editor with the exact grammatical equation between the god of Abraham and the god of Nahor in Laban’s oath.
Jacob swore by the Terror of his father Isaac. This denomination of the deity, which occurs only in this episode, is strange enough to have prompted some biblical scholars to argue, unconvincingly, that the name has nothing to do with terror or fear. What is noteworthy is that Jacob resists the universal Semitic term for God, ‘elohim, and the equation between the gods of Nahor and Abraham. He himself does not presume to go back as far as Abraham, but in the God of his father Isaac he senses something numinous, awesome, frightening.
54 Then Yaakov slaughtered a slaughter-meal on the mountain and called his brothers to eat bread. They ate bread and spent the night on the mountain.offered a sacrifice. Of thanksgiving to God.
[EF] bread: Or more generally, “food.”
[RA] offered sacrifice . . . ate bread. The treaty-vow is solemnly confirmed by a sacred meal. The term zeva refers both to a ceremonial meal of meat and to sacrifice. In effect, the two are combined: the fat of the animal is burned as an offering, the meat is consumed by those who offer the sacrifice. As frequently elsewhere in biblical usage, “bread” is a synecdoche for the whole meal.