t The physiological principle involved is well established. According to an authority quoted by Delitzsch, cattle-breedert now, in order to secure white lambs, surround the drinking troughs with white objects.
I This seems to be the meaning of v.*> as it stands. But many modem scholars think that the words ' and set ... of Laban ' are a gloss ; in which case the verse will merely state that the parti-coloured young, produced as described in v.^. were kept l)y themselves, and not mixed with those of uniform colour (which would be Laban's).
§ Notice the imperfect tenses in 318.
II The dream (3110-12) js mentioned as a notification to Jacob that the birth, hy natural means (and not throuirh Jacob'i artifice), of the parti-coloured young was by God's appoint ment, in compensation for Laban's treatment of him (v.i'nul).
JACOB
JACOB
529
en. 30 gives J's representation of the transactions, ch. 31 gives that of E.* Jacob takes Bight while Labiin is engaged in sheepshearing (cf. 1 S 2o" '■ ", 2 S IS*') ; lie crosses the Euphrates, and directs his steps towards Gilead (31"""). Ilachel, at the same time, steals her father's teraphim, or household gods (cf. 1 S 19"- "), as though (Ewald) to appropriate and carry with her into Cauaan the good fortune of her paternal home.
Labau, upon hearing of Jacob's departure, starts in pursuit, and overtakes him in the hill-country of Gilead. The account of the meeting is told in 31-""". Laban begins by expostulatinjj; with Jacob on the manner in which lie has left him, and especially on the theft of his houseliold gods, with which he charges him. Rachel, who was alone the guilty person, by a piece of woman's wit conceals the theft, and, in her turn, outwits her father : this gives Jacob the opportunity of retort- ing upon Laban, of reminding uiin of the 20 years which he had spent ungrudgingly in his service, and of reproaching him with tlie man}' attempts he had made to deprive him of his lawful earn- ings (w. '•"""). Laban, smitten by his conscience (vv.*'*'), and unable to reply, seeks to close the dispute by proposing a treaty of friendship. Up to this point the narrative has been clear ; but from v.^ it becomes somewhat confused, two diflerent accounts (J and E) having, it seems, been combined together, and at tlie same time enlarged with additions by a redactor. The analysis is diflicult, and some of the details are uncertain ; but it is clear that both a ' pillar' and a heap of stones dre described as erected as a witness ; tliat two distinct agreements are entered into — one (v.°°) that Jacob will in no way ill-treat Laban's daughters, tlie other (v.'-') that neither Jacob nor Laban will pass the boundary marke<l by the heap of stones with hostile intent toward tlie other ; that the heap of stones is the witness of the former agreement (vv.''""'"'), and the pillar, therefore, pre- sumably (v."-) of the latter ; and further, that each agreement is sealed by a coiiuuoii meal (v." ; v.^j.t The narrative explains in addition the name ' Gilead,' which is derived, by a popular ctymologj", from Gal-'ed, ' Heap of witness.' J There must, it seems, have been somewhere on the N.E. frontier of Gilead, a cairn of stones, with a single boulder, standing up prominently beside it, the origin of which was popularly attributed to this compact between Laban and Jacob.§ The narrative, as it stands, explains also (v.''") the name Mizprili, the 'Watch-tower,' a place of un- certain situation, but no doubt some eminence in the same neigliljourhood, which overlooked the broad plain of I.lauian, and guarded the approach from tlie direction of Damascus.ll It seems that
• Notice the frequency with which God (D'.i7K), not Jahvfeh^ occurs ill this narrtilive {vv.^- H' I8- ^- *•).
( The mark of aiiiitv and reconciliation, ns is still the case amoni; the Arabs. V.m speaks of a sarrirtce as well.
! W.llh. and Dillin. ossign vv.«-a) to J, ond vv."- »'■»* to E, treating ' Ik-lmld, this heap, and' in v. 61, 'This heap be wit- ness, and,' and 'and this pillar' in v.A'-', as glasses due to the redactor. However, n*j; (v.ci) is not the wort! that we should expect to be used of a n^;^^ ; perhaps (cf. LXX hero and v.W) we should restore, with Ball, 'no*1^. Kautzsch and Socin usi^'ii vv.Bl- 1- to J, treating the three referencf.s to the ' pillar' in these verses as glosses. The precise detemiination of the ana- i>'sis is not imjiortant ; for, in any case, the pa-ssage dt>Mcribe« two <)istinct transactions (as explaincil atwve in the text).
( Cf. Kwald, Hut. i. 317 f., 350, wlio thinks even that the real lueaning of the tradition is that ttie luountAln-range of Uilead Itself is the ' heap,' jtiUi] up by Italian and .locob as a boundary between the two nationalitleB. So also Wcllb. Hut, 32.'>f.
)| It tnoy l>« doubted whether the present KaCat ^r-Habad, a height Just on the N. of the W&dy 'AJlun, with a coinnianding pros(>ect (.Merrill, Buhl, G^offr. sii'i). is sulllciently far to the north. It ts also uncertain whether this * Mi7[>ah ' it identical with the liSI.T rvpi of Jos l;i* (on the N. frontier of Gad). Tlie abrupt way in which .Mijppah Is here Introduced leads moat orltica to regartl the notice res^ieGtl 9g II aa a gloae. VOU II. — 34