Genesis Chapter 31 verse 48 Holy Bible

ASV Genesis 31:48

And Laban said, This heap is witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed:
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BBE Genesis 31:48

And Laban said, These stones are a witness between you and me today. For this reason its name was Galeed,
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DARBY Genesis 31:48

And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed,
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KJV Genesis 31:48

And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed;
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WBT Genesis 31:48

And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed:
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WEB Genesis 31:48

Laban said, "This heap is witness between me and you this day." Therefore it was named Galeed
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YLT Genesis 31:48

And Laban saith, `This heap `is' witness between me and thee to-day;' therefore hath he called its name Galeed;
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Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 48-50. - 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 ver. 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 (Judges 10:17; Judges 11:11, 19, 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 (Judges 11:34) and the seat of the sanctuary (Judges 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 (vide 'History of Israel,' vol. 1. p. 347); 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 vers. 49, 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 (Laban's concern for his daughters, though hitherto not conspicuous, may, in the hour of parting from them, have been real: his language shows that he was not quite at ease as to Jacob's integrity. Perhaps the remembrance that he had been the cause of Jacob's taking two wives made him anxious to secure that Jacob should not improve upon his evil instructions), 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. Vers 51-53. - And Laban said to Jacob, - according to Ewald the last narrator has transposed the names of Laban and Jacob (vide 'History of Israel,' vol. 1. p. 346) - Behold this heap, and behold this pillar, which I have cast (same word as in ver. 45. The Arabic version and Samaritan text read yaritha, thou hast erected, instead of yarithi, I have erected or cast up) betwixt me and thee; this heap be witness, and this pillar be witness, that (literally, if, here = that) I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar (Laban bound himself never to pass over the heap which he had erected as his witness; whereas Jacob was required to swear that he would never cross the pillar and the pile, both of which were witnesses for him) unto me, for harm. The emphatic word closes the sentence. The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge - the verb is plural, either because Laban regarded the Elohim of Nahor as different from the Elohim of Abraham (Rosenmüller, Keil, Kalisch, Wordsworth, 'Speaker's Commentary'), or because, though acknowledging only one Elohim, he viewed him as maintaining several and distinct relations to the persons named (cf. Quarry, p. 499) - betwixt us. Laban here invokes his own hereditary Elohim, the Elohim of Abraham's father, to guard his rights and interests under the newly-formed covenant; while Jacob in his adjuration appeals to the Elohim of Abraham's son. And Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac (vide supra, ver. 42).

Ellicott's Commentary