Galeed

Gal’e-ed. (the heap of witness). The name given by Jacob, to the heap which he and Laban made on Mount Gilead, in witness of the covenant then entered into between them. Gen 31:47-48. Compare Gen 31:23; Gen 31:25.

("a witness heap".) A Hebrew name given by Jacob to the heap which he and Laban reared on mount Gilead, a memorial of their brotherly covenant (Gen 31:47-48). Laban called it in Aramaic (Chaldee or Syriac), Jegar-Sahadutha. (See JEGAR-SAHADUTHA.) Apparently Nahor’s family originally spoke Syriac, and Abraham and his family acquired Hebrew in Canaan, where the Hebrew was indigenous when he first settled there, the Hamitic Canaanites having learned it from an earlier Semitic race. The memorial heap marked the crisis in Jacob’s life when he became severed from his Syrian kindred, and henceforth a sojourner in, and heir of, Canaan.

(Heb. Galed’, גִּלַעֵד, the heap of the witness; Sept. βουνὸς μάρτυς and βουνὸς μαρτυρεῖ; Vulg. Acervus testimonii and Galaad), the name given by Jacob to the pile of stones SEE GILGAL erected by him and Laban to attest their league of friendship SEE GILEAD, but called by Laban (Gen 31:47-48) by the snynonymous Syriac title of JEGAR-SAHADUTHA SEE JEGAR-SAHADUTHA (q.v.). Traces of a similar custom appear in the consecreted mounds of the Druids end of the North-American aborigines of the Western States. SEE ALTAR; SEE STONE.

The name given by Jacob to the heap of stones raised to witness the covenant made between him and Laban. It signifies, as in the margin, "heap of witness." Gen 31:47-48.

GALEED (‘cairn of witness’).—The name which, according to Gen 31:47, was given by Jacob to the cairn erected on the occasion of the compact between him and Laban. There is evidently a characteristic attempt also to account in this way for the name Gilead. The respective proceedings of Jacob and of Laban are uncertain, for the narrative is not only of composite origin, but has suffered through the introduction of glosses into the text. It is pretty certain that we should read ‘Laban’ instead of ‘Jacob’ in Gen 31:45. The LXX [Note: Septuagint.] seeks unsuccessfully to reduce the narrative to order by means of transpositions.

gal´ē̇-ed (גּלעד, gal‛ēdh): Derived from the Hebrew gal, “a heap of stones,” and ‛ēdh, “witness.” The meaning therefore is “cairn” or “heap of witness,” corresponding to y^eghar-sāhădhūthā’ in Aramaic (Gen 31:47). It is applied to the cairn raised by Jacob and Laban, beside which they sealed their covenant in a common meal, the memory of which they appealed to the silent cairn to preserve. The ancient custom of associating events with inanimate objects as witnesses is often illustrated in Hebrew history (Jos 4:4, etc.). There may be in this narrative a suggestion of how the name “Gilead” came to be applied to that country.