Person

Laban לבן

Rivka's brother, Yaakov's father-in-law, the archetypal deceiver

Lavan first appears running out to meet Avraham's servant—and the Torah notes that he ran after seeing the ring and the bracelets. That detail is enough to know the man.

Sixty years later his nephew Yaakov arrives—and will stay with him twenty years, fleeing his brother. Lavan greets him as "my bone and my flesh" and promptly turns him into a labourer. He substitutes the bride at the wedding, excusing himself with local custom; he changes the wages "ten times"; he pursues Yaakov when he finally leaves, and only a warning from Heaven at night restrains him. Even in parting he declares: "The daughters are mine, the sons are mine, the flocks are mine, and all that you see is mine."

Yet Leah and Rachel came from his house, and with them the whole Jewish people. Tradition holds both truths.

The Passover Haggadah sets him beside Pharaoh: Pharaoh decreed only against the boys, but Lavan sought to uproot everything.

On the timeline

2088 · 1673 BCEThe Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca 2171 · 1590 BCEIsaac's Blessings, the Dream of the Ladder and Fourteen Years in the Academy of Shem and Ever 2192 · 1569 BCEJacob's Marriage to Leah and Rachel 2193 · 1568 BCEThe Birth of the Tribes of Israel and the Birth of Joseph 2205 · 1556 BCEThe Return from Haran, the Struggle with the Angel and the Meeting with Esau

Places

Charan

Jacob Rebecca Leah Rachel

Sources

Tanakh

Bereishit 24; 29–31 — Eliezer’s arrival, the substitution of the bride, and Yaakov’s twenty years

Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar

Bereishit Rabbah 60, 70, 74 — the midrashim on Lavan’s greed
the Passover Haggadah — “an Aramean sought to destroy my father” — Lavan meant to uproot everything

Basis: stated in the Tanakh.