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 of the Patriarchs between Jacob and Joseph before the Children of Israel could become more than a single small family. Devora Steinmetz, assistant professor of Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 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 cycle of exile, persecution and return recurs again and again, and links the observant Jew in the Diaspora to the Land of Israel. The Book of Jasher reports Laban was also the father of Boer the father of Balaam and Balaam's sons were Jannes and Jambres. References External links Laban in Jewish encyclopedia Book of Genesis people Arameans 20th-century BC people