**And hath also quite devoured our money,’ t.e, the pri paid for us by our husband, the gains accruing to Laban cet
lacob’s 14 years’ service, some part of which he would, if generous, have naturally allowed his daughters.
LACCUNUS
His sister and daughters all show duplicity and acquisitiveness ; and Laban displays an exaggera- tion of the same qualities. is leading motive is evidently self-interest ; and he is not particular in the choice of means for securing his ends. The ruse by which he passes off Leah upon his nephew inst of Rachel, is an unpardonable piece of deceit. In his subsequent dealings with his son-in- law, he does not treat him equitably. It is ad- mitted by him, expressly in J (30%), and by impli- cation in E,—for the statements in 314), ef. v.°,
ass unchallenged,—that Jacob is a good servant ;
ut Laban seeks to make out of him more than fair profits. In 30%“ he betrays his grasping disposition by closing with an arrangement which, if carried out fairly, could not but have proved an inequitable one for Jacob, and in which, therefore, Laban had no right to be surprised if he found him- self circumvented. In the narrative of E (31-“")— which (vy.*) differs from that of J in not represent- ing Jacob as taking any unfair advantage of his father-in-law (ef. ii. p. 533, note)—Laban is charged
with defrauding Jacob, and arbitrarily changing the wages that had been agreed upon, to suit his own
ends (νυν. ἢ), And his daughters own (8114 15) that he is a hard and unnatural parent.
2. A place mentioned in the obscure verse, Dt 11 (see Comm. ; or above, art. D1-ZAHAB). Nothing can be said about it, except that if the verse describes a locality in the ‘steppes of Moab,’ Laban will be the name of a place in that neighbourhood, otherwise unknown; while if, as others suppose, the verse, at least in its original context, described places passed by the Israelites in their previous wanderings, it may be identical with the LIBNAH (which see) of Nu 33° (which, to judge from ν. 17, was near a Hazéroth, as was the case also with the Laban mentioned in Dt 1’). 5. R. DrIver.
LABANA (Λαβανα), 1 Es 5°=LEBANAH, Ezr 2”.
LABOUR.—As a subst. ‘labour’ is now almost confined to what is called the abstract use —the act or state of labouring. Formerly it expressed also the fruit of labour, as Ex 23% ‘when thou hast rathered in thy labours (7¥yp) out of the field’;
ab 3” ‘The labour (n¥yD) of the olive shall fail’ (Davidson, ‘the produce of the olive’). Hence the word is frequently in the plural, as Jn 4°8 ‘other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours’ (els τὸν κόπον αὐτῶν, RV ‘into their labour’). Knox, — Hist. 92, has the word in the sense of ‘effort,’ ‘Great labours were made to make them have a good opinion of the Masse.’
The verb is used with a trans. force in 2 Mac 23! “But to use brevity, and avoid much labouring of the work (τὸ ἐξεργαστικὸν τῆς mpayuar(e)ias παραι- τεῖσθαι, KV ‘to avoid a laboured fulness in the treatment’), is to be granted to him that will make an abridgement.’ So in beg. of Pref. to AV 1611, ‘Zeale to promote the common good, whether it be by devising any thing our selves, or revising that which hath bene laboured by others, deserveth certainly much respect and esteeme, but yet findeth but cold intertainment in the world.’ ‘Cf. Hall, Works, ii. 100, ‘these are the men whose cure wee must labour’; Pref. to Rhem. NT, 1852, ‘ The poore ploughman, could then in labouring the ground, sing the hymnes and psalmes either in
nowen or unknowen languages, as they heard them in the holy Church, thongh they could neither reade nor know the sense, meaning, and mysteries of the same.’ J. HASTINGS.
LACCUNUS (Λακκοῦνος, AV Lacunus), 1 Es 9%, —The name in Ezr 10* is CHELAL, to which the Vulg. form Caleus in 1 Es approaches.
H. St. J. THACKERAY
LACE
LACE.—Lace is from Lat. laqueus, a snare, through the Old French Jags, das, and it is used in the sense of snare in Chaucer, Spenser, and others. Thus Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, 600—
* But love had broght this man in swiche a rage, And him so narwe bounden in his las, Al for the love of Cleopataras, That al the world he sette at no value.’ Then it is used for any cord or band, as Fuller, Holy Warre, 123, ‘Pitie it was that Rahabs red lace was not tied at his window.’ This is the meaning of the word in AV, where it occurs only as tr. of n= pdathil,* Ex 28° (* And they shall
bind the Peoatp late by the rings thereof unto the |
rings of the ep od with a lace of blue’) 2857 3051. 1 ; and of κλῶσμα in Sir 6° ‘her bands are purple lace’ (κλῶσμα ὑακίνθινον, AVm ‘a ribband of blue silk’ ; RV ‘a ribband of blue’; Fritzsche, ‘ purple-blue threads’; Bissell, ‘hyacinthine threads’). Cf. Shaks. Winter’s Tale, 11. ii. 174— “0, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it, Break too.’ J. HASTINGS.
LACEDZMONIANS. — The word λΛακεδαιμόνιοι occurs only once in LXX, and its Eng. equivalent only once in RV, viz. 2Mac 5°. Jason, the head of the Hellenizing party in Jerus., who had bought the high priesthood from his brother Onias II. during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, was himself outbidden and expelled from the office by Menelaus his brother (Jos. Ant. XII. v. 1 and XV. ili. 1), or, according to 2 Mac 4%, the brother of Simon, a former governor of the temple. Ona false report of the death of Antiochus, Jason made