Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
After the quarrel, the two men made a treaty, and with his gigantic
strength Jacob set up a huge rock as a memorial, and a heap of stones
as a sign of their covenant. In this matter Jacob followed the example
of his fathers, who likewise had covenanted with heathen nations,
Abraham with the Jebusites, and Isaac with the Philistines. Therefore
Jacob did not hesitate to make a treaty with the Arameans.[225] Jacob
summoned his sons, calling them brethren, for they were his peers in
piety and strength, and he bade them cast up heaps of stones. Thereupon
he swore unto his father-in-law that he would take no wives beside his
four daughters, either while they were alive or after their death, and
Laban, on his part, swore that he would not pass over the heaps or over
the pillar unto Jacob with hostile intent,[226] and he took the oath by
the God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, while Jacob made mention of
the Fear of Isaac. He refrained from using the term "the God of Isaac,"
because God never unites His name with that of a living person, for the
reason that so long as a man has not ended his years, no trust may be
put in him, lest he be seduced by the evil inclination. It is true,
when He appeared unto Jacob at Beth-el, God called Himself "the God of
Isaac." There was a reason for the unusual phrase. Being blind, Isaac
led a retired life, within his tent, and the evil inclination had no
power over him any more. But though God had full confidence in Isaac,
yet Jacob could not venture to couple the name of God with the name of
a living man, wherefore he took his oath by "the Fear of Isaac."[227]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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