The Canaanitish city near which Jacob had raised the monument of his dream bore the name of Luz. In Israelitish days, however, the name of the monument was transferred to that of the city, and Luz itself was called the Beth-el, or "House of God." The god worshipped there when the Israelites first entered Canaan appears to have been entitled On,--a name derived, perhaps, from that of the city of the Sun-god in Egypt. Bethel was also Beth-On, "the temple of On," from whence the tribe of Benjamin afterwards took the name of Ben-Oni, "the Onite." Beth-On has survived into our own times, and the site of the old city is still known as Beitîn. It is not needful to follow the adventures of Jacob in Mesopotamia. His new home lay far away from the boundaries of Palestine, and though the kings of Aram-Naharaim made raids at times into the land of Canaan and caused their arms to be feared within the walls of Jerusalem, they never made any permanent conquests on the coasts of the Mediterranean. In the land of the Aramaeans Jacob is lost for awhile from the history of patriarchal Palestine. When he again emerges, it is as a middle-aged man, rich in flocks and herds, who has won two wives as the reward of his labours, and is already the father of a family. He is on his way back to the country which had been promised to his seed and wherein he himself had been born. Laban, his father-in-law, robbed at once of his daughters and his household gods, is pursuing him, and has overtaken him on the spurs of Mount Gilead, almost within sight of his goal. There a covenant is made between the Aramaean and the Hebrew, and a cairn of stones is piled up to commemorate the fact. The cairn continued to bear a double name, the Aramaean name given to it by Laban, and the Canaanitish name of Galeed, "the heap of witnesses," by which it was called by Jacob. The double name was a sign of the two populations and languages which the cairn separated from one another. Northward were the Aramaeans and an Aramaic speech; southward the land of Canaan and the language which we term Hebrew. The spot where the cairn was erected bore yet another title. It was also called Mizpah, the "watch-tower," the outpost from which the dweller in Canaan could discern the approaching bands of an enemy from the north or east. It protected the road to the Jordan, and kept watch over the eastern plateau. Here in after times Jephthah gathered around him the patriots of Israel, and delivered his people from the yoke of the Ammonites.