Genesis 31:47

Gen 31:47 And Laban called it Jegarsahadutha: but Jacob called it Galeed.

Ver. 47. {See Trapp on "Gen 31:44"}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gen 31:47-53. But Jacob called it Galeed — The name Laban gave it signifies the heap of witness, in the Syrian tongue, which he used, and Galeed signifies the same in Hebrew, the language which Jacob used. It appears that the name which Jacob gave it remained to it, and not the name which Laban gave it. And Mizpah — (Gen 31:49,) This name in Hebrew signifies a watchtower. And they agreed to give it this second name to remind them and their posterity of the solemn appeal they had now mutually made to the all-seeing eye of God, whose providence watches over the actions of mankind, rewarding sincerity and punishing deceitfulness. They appeal to him, 1st, As a witness, The Lord judge between thee and me — That is, the Lord take cognizance of every thing that shall be done on either side in violation of this league. 2d, As a judge. The God of Abraham, (Gen 31:53,) from whom Jacob was descended; and the God of Nahor — Laban’s progenitor; the God of their father — From whom they were both descended; judge betwixt us. God’s relation to them is thus expressed, to intimate that they worshipped one and the same God, upon which consideration there ought to be no enmity betwixt them. Those that have one God, should have one heart: God is judge between contending parties, and he will judge righteously. Whoever does wrong, it is at his peril. Jacob sware by the Fear of his father Isaac — The God whom his father Isaac feared, who had never served other gods, as Abraham and Nahor had done: to this only living and true God he offered a sacrifice, (Gen 31:54,) in gratitude for the peace he had obtained with Laban.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Or, the heap of witness.

The one named the place in the Syrian tongue, and the other in the Hebrew tongue.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 47. Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha] יגר שהדותא yegar sahadutha, the heap or round heap of witness; but Jacob called it galed, which signifies the same thing. The first is pure Chaldee, the second pure Hebrew. אגר agar signifies to collect, hence יגר yegar and אוגר ogar, a collection or heap made up of gathered stones; and hence also אגורא egora, an altar, used frequently by the Chaldee paraphrast. See 1Kg 12:33; Jdg 6:31; 2Kg 21:3; Jer 17:1. See Castel's Lexicon. From this example we may infer that the Chaldee language was nearly coequal with the Hebrew. A gloss made by St. Jerome, and which was probably only entered by him in his margin as a note, has crept into the text of the Vulgate. It is found in every copy of this version, and is as follows: Uterque juxta proprietatem linguae suae, Each according to the idiom of his own tongue.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

47. And Laban called it. Each, in his own language, gives a name, of the same signification, to the heap. Whence it appears, that Laban used the Syrian tongue, though born of the race of Heber. But it is not wonderful that he, dwelling among Syrians, should have accustomed himself to the language as well as to the manners of the Syrians. And a little before, he is twice called a Syrian; as if Moses would describe him as degenerate, and alienated from the Hebrews. But this seems by no means accordant with the previous history, where we read that the daughters of Laban gave Hebrew names to their sons. Yet the solution is not difficult; for since the affinity between these languages was great, the inflection of one word into another was easy: besides, if the wives of Jacob were tractable, it is not surprising that they should have learned his language. And beyond doubt, he would himself make a point of this matter: seeing he knew that his family was separated from the rest of the nations. Moses, in using the name of Galeed, does it proleptically; for since he was writing for his own times, he does not scruple to give it the generally received name. Moreover we hence infer, that ceremonies and rites ought to refer to that which those who use them mutually agree upon. Which rule also ought to be applied to the sacraments; because if the word by which God enters into covenant with us be taken away, useless and dead figures will alone remain.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(47) Jegar-sahadutha.—These are two Syriac words of the same meaning as Gal-’eed, Heap of Witness. A Syriac (or Aramaic) dialect was most probably the ordinary language of the people in Mesopotamia, but it seems plain that Laban and his family also spoke Hebrew, not merely from his calling the placo Mizpah, a Hebrew word, but from the names given by his daughters to their children.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

47. And Laban called it] This verse, which anticipates and does not agree with Gen_31:48-49, must be a learned gloss.

Laban the Syrian (cf. Gen_31:20, Gen_28:5) gives an Aramaic name, Jacob the Hebrew gives a Hebrew name. In the region of Gilead, in later times, both languages were probably spoken1[25].

[25] “Pillars of testimony” occur to-day in groups at many places, especially where the traveller first catches sight of some sacred spot. Thereupon he sets stones one upon the other in the shape of a column, and says, “Oh, so and so (mentioning the name of the saint whose weli he sees), as I by this bear testimony to thee, so do thou bear testimony to me in the day of judgment” (Peters, Early Hebrew Story, p. 111f.).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If thou shall afflict my daughters,.... In body or mind, by giving them hard blows, or ill words, and by withholding from them the necessaries of life, food and raiment, and the like:

or if thou shall take other wives besides my daughters; which also would be an affliction and vexation to them, see Lev 18:18. Laban, though he had led Jacob into polygamy, and even obliged him to it, did not choose he should go further into it, for the sake of his daughters, to whom he professes now much kindness and affection, though he had shown but little to them before; as well as talks in a more religious strain than he had been used to do:

no man is with us; the sense is not that there were none with them at the present time, for the men or brethren that Laban brought with him were present: or that there were none fit to be witnesses, because these were kinsmen, for they are appealed to by Jacob as judges between them, Gen 31:33; but this refers to time to come, and may be supplied thus, "when no man be with us"; when there is none to observe what is done by either of us, contrary to mutual agreement, and to report it to one or other: then

see, take notice, and observe:

God is witness betwixt me and thee; who is omniscient and omnipresent, sees, observes all the actions of men, and deals with them accordingly; and so will be a witness for or against each of us, as we shall behave in observing, or not observing, the terms of our covenant.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Testimony. Hebrew makes Laban give this etymology, Jegar-saha-dutha; while Galaad means the hill or the witness. The Syrian language had now begun to deviate some little from the Hebrew of Jacob. --- Each, &c. This is added by the Vulgate. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Both names signify the same thing, a heap of witness; only Laban gives the name in the Syrian language; but Jacob, though he had been long conversant in Syria, and understood that language, yet he chose to give it in Hebrew, which was both a secret renouncing of the Syrian manners and religion, together with their language, and an implicit profession of his conjunction with the Hebrews, as in their tongue, so in their religion.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

47. Jegar-sahadutha… Galeed — The Aramaic and Hebrew words, respectively, for heap of witness. יגרyegar, or gar, is a dialectic variation of גל, gal, rendered heap in Gen_31:46. This incidental notice of the naming of their stone memorial shows that already, in Jacob’s time, the dialectical differences between the Aramaic and Hebrew tongues were noticeable. This was probably the origin of the name Gilead, applied to the whole range of mountains running north and south on the east of the Jordan. The particular spot where the covenant was made was probably at the northern end of the range, not at what was later known as Mizpeh of Gilead, (Jdg_11:29,) for Jacob, after this, passing southward crossed the Jabbok, (Wady Zerka,) which is itself north of the modern mount Jelad. The name Mizpah (Gen_31:49) subsequently became very common, and is applied to three other places on the east (Jos_11:3; Jdg_10:17; 1Sa_22:3) and two on the west of the Jordan. Jos_15:38; Jos_18:26.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Laban called it Jegar sahadutha: A Chaldaic term signifying "Heap of testimony," bounoav (LXX); tumulum testis (Vulgate)but Jacob called it Galeed compounded of Gal and ed and meaning, like the corresponding Aramaic term used" by Laban, "Heap of witness," bounortuv (LXX); acervum testimonii (Vulgate). "It is scarcely possible to doubt," says Kalisch, "that an important historical fact," relating to the primitive language of the patriarchs, "is concealed in this part of the narrative;" but whether that fact was that Aramaic, Syriac, or Chaldee was the mother-tongue of the family of Nahor, while Hebrew was acquired by Abraham in Canaan (Block, Delitzsch, Keil), or that Laban had deviated from the original speech of his ancestors (Jerome, Augustine), or that" Laban and Jacob both used the same language with some growing dialectic differences (Gosman in Lange, Inglis), Laban simply on this occasion giving the heap a name which would be known to the inhabitants of the district (Wordsworth), seems impossible to determine with certainty. The most that ran be reasonably inferred from the term Jegar-sahadutha is that Aramaic was the language of Mesopotamia (Rosenm besides this expression there is no other e vide nce that Laban and Jacob conversed in different dialects; while it is certain that the word Mizpah, which was probably also spoken by Laban, is not Chaldee or Aramaic but Hebrew.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jegarsahadutha

Chald, the heap of witness.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

יגר שהדותא This is the Aramaic of גלעד.

גלעד — is really two words — גל עד heap of testimony.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

He therefore called its name Galeid. He called it by the name that Yaakov had given it, but he explained it in his own way.

Sforno on the Tanakh — English translation: “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

ויקרא, each party named the monument using their own language.

יגר שהדותא, the Hebrew approximation is found in Jeremiah 51,37 והיתה בבל לגלים, “Babylon will then become a heap of stones.”

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.