Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purpor ...

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Rebekah, the woman who married

Isaac Isaac ( ; ; ; ; ; ) is one of the three patriarchs (Bible), patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith. Isaac first appears in the Torah, in wh ...

and bore

Jacob Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother E ...

. Laban welcomed his nephew, and set him the stipulation of seven years' labour before he permitted him to marry his daughter

Rachel Rachel () was a Bible, Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph (Genesis), Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel. Rachel's father was Laban (Bible), Laban. Her older siste ...

. Laban tricked Jacob into marrying his elder daughter

Leah Leah () appears in the Hebrew Bible as one of the two wives of the Biblical patriarch Jacob. Leah was Jacob's first wife, and the older sister of his second (and favored) wife Rachel. She is the mother of Jacob's first son Reuben. She has thr ...

instead. Jacob then took

Rachel Rachel () was a Bible, Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph (Genesis), Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel. Rachel's father was Laban (Bible), Laban. Her older siste ...

as his second wife, on condition of serving an additional seven years' labour. Laban and his family were described as dwelling in Paddan Aram, in

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

.

Hebrew Bible

Laban first appears in the Hebrew Bible in as the grown spokesman for his father

Bethuel Bethuel ( – ''Bəṯūʾēl''), in the Hebrew Bible, was an Aramean man, the youngest son of Nahor and Milcah, the nephew of Abraham, and the father of Laban and Rebecca. Bethuel was also a town in the territory of the tribe of Simeon, ...

's house; he was impressed by the gold jewelry given to his sister on behalf of Isaac, and played a key part in arranging their marriage. Twenty years later, Laban's nephew Jacob was born to Isaac and Rebekah. When grown, Jacob comes to work for Laban. The biblical narrative provides a framework for dating these events: Jacob begat Joseph 14 years after his flight to Laban; Joseph entered Pharaoh's service at age 30; and from that point, after seven years of plenty and two years of famine, Jacob met Pharaoh and stated his age as 130. Subtracting yields an age of 77 (Jacob at his flight to Laban). Laban was more than 30 years older than Jacob, and employed him for 20 years. Laban promised his younger daughter

Rachel Rachel () was a Bible, Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph (Genesis), Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel. Rachel's father was Laban (Bible), Laban. Her older siste ...

to Jacob in return for seven years' service, only to trick him into marrying his elder daughter

Leah Leah () appears in the Hebrew Bible as one of the two wives of the Biblical patriarch Jacob. Leah was Jacob's first wife, and the older sister of his second (and favored) wife Rachel. She is the mother of Jacob's first son Reuben. She has thr ...

instead. Jacob then served another seven years in exchange for the right to marry his choice, Rachel, as well (). Laban's flocks and fortunes increased under Jacob's skilled care, but there was much further trickery between them. Six years after his promised service has ended, Jacob, having prospered largely by proving more cunning than his father-in-law, finally left. Laban pursued him, but they eventually parted on good terms ().

Interpretations

Though the biblical text itself does not attest to this, rabbinic sources also identify Laban as the father of Bilhah and Zilpah, the two concubines with whom Jacob also has children. According to Seder HaDoroth, Laban's wife and the mother of Leah and Rachel was Adinah. Sefer haYashar reports that Laban was also the father of Beor the father of Balaam and Balaam's sons were Jannes and Jambres. Other Jewish traditions identify Laban as Kushan Rishatayim, king of Aram Nahariyim who oppressed the Jews in the era of the Judges and another Jewish tradition identifies Laban and Balaam as the same person—indeed, both were known for their sorcery. According to the Midrash, the wall against which Balaam's leg was crushed by his donkey was the very mound of stones from Laban and Jacob's covenant. By plotting to harm the Jews, Balaam was violating the covenant he had made to never harm Jacob's descendants Laban can be seen as symbolizing those whose concern for the welfare of their immediate family, nominally a virtue, is taken to the point where it has lasting negative ramifications. Laban's urge to ensure his older daughter not be left unmarried can be interpreted as leading to the

Exile Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

in Egypt; his anxiety over seeing his son-in-law throw away his family's comfortable position in Aram in search of a risky new beginning back in

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

leads him to oppose the return of the Children of Israel to the

Promised Land In the Abrahamic religions, the "Promised Land" ( ) refers to a swath of territory in the Levant that was bestowed upon Abraham and his descendants by God in Abrahamic religions, God. In the context of the Bible, these descendants are originally ...

. His name can also be seen as symbolic in this matter: it means "white", the visual representation of purity, without visible stain, symbolizing those without apparent evil motives whose actions nevertheless result in undesirable outcomes.

Laban and Passover

Laban is referenced significantly in the Passover Haggadah, in the context of the answer to the traditional child's question, "Why is this night different from all other nights?" The prescribed answer begins with a quote from : "''arami oved avi''": normally translated as "a wandering Aramean was my father", alluding either to Abram or

Jacob Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother E ...

, but here interpreted unusually as "''ibbed Arami et-avi''", "an Aramean ''destroyed'' my father", as made clear by the

rabbi A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...

nical exegesis read in the Seder: :Come and learn what Laban the Aramean sought to do our father Jacob. For Pharaoh issued his edict against only the males, but Laban sought to uproot all, as it is said, 'An Aramean would have destroyed my father, and he went down to Egypt and he became there a nation, great, mighty and populous.' There may also be a play on words here, using ''arami'' in two senses – as both ''arami'', "an Aramean", and ''rama′i'', "a deceiver", since Laban cheated Jacob ( Genesis Rabbah 70:19). In this interpretation, ''arami'' personifies the Israelite peoples’ bitter enemy. The question of what the connection is between the apparently disjoint tales of Laban and Pharaoh is interpreted in several ways by rabbinical authorities. Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer explains in his ''Hukkat HaPesach'' that Laban was, in fact, the driving force of the entire

Exile Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

and Exodus saga. Rachel was Jacob's divinely intended wife and could hypothetically have given birth to Joseph as Jacob's firstborn with rights of

primogeniture Primogeniture () is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn Legitimacy (family law), legitimate child to inheritance, inherit all or most of their parent's estate (law), estate in preference to shared inheritance among all or some childre ...

. In this counterfactual, Jacob's favoring Joseph's succession as the leader of the fledgling nation of Israel would have been seen as perfectly normal and fitting, given the customs of the time. No older brothers would have felt cheated and jealous, and Joseph would not have been sold into slavery. Thus, there would have been no need for Jacob's family to be sent to Egypt to unite with Joseph. In actuality, Laban married Jacob to Leah first, causing Leah's sons to precede Joseph in birth order, so that they felt justifiably outraged when their father seemed to violate societal norms by treating his second-youngest son as his heir, in preference to his older sons' natural and legal rights. In this way, Laban can be seen as "seeking to uproot all", by attempting to sever the

family tree A family tree, also called a genealogy or a pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. More detailed family trees, used in medicine and social work, are known as genograms. Representations of ...

of the Patriarchs between Jacob and Joseph before the Children of Israel could become more than a single small family. Devora Steinmetz,

assistant professor Assistant professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...

of

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

at the

Jewish Theological Seminary of America The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a Conservative Jewish education organization in New York City, New York. It is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism as well as a hub for academic scholarship in Jewish studies ...

, says that the story of Jacob and Laban also resonates with the covenant with Abraham, more frequently interpreted as applying to the Exodus: "''your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them and they shall afflict them ... Afterward they shall come out with great wealth''" ( Genesis 15:13–16). Jacob lived in the strange land of Aram, served Laban, and was afflicted by him; then he left with great wealth and returned to the Promised Land. The story thus serves to reinforce one of the central messages of the Passover Haggadah; that the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

cycle of exile, persecution and return recurs again and again, and links the observant Jew in the

Diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...

to the Land of Israel.

References

External links

Laban in Jewish encyclopedia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laban Book of Genesis people Arameans 20th-century BC people