by Ricky Doc Sauceda
Genesis 31:43-49
The Covenant of Mizpah
Then Laban replied to Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, and the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day to these my daughters or to their children whom they have borne? “So now come, let us make a covenant, you and I, and let it be a witness between you and me.” Then Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. Jacob said to his kinsmen, “Gather stones.” So they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap. Now Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed. Laban said, “This heap is a witness between you and me this day.” Therefore it was named Galeed, and Mizpah, for he said, “May the LORD watch between you and me when we are absent one from the other.
In the late 80s when I worked with A&G Produce Company...Old Man Harris Pappas would call in an order and place it in Greek on the answering machine. I had to call my boss at home late at night to interpret the order in English to me. These orders were to be delivered at his residence, not any of the many restaurants that he owned and operated along with his family. He always ordered a case of fresh cherries, even if they were out of season. My boss George Gavrilos would personally take him some kind of fruit that always pleased him.
They are both from the old country, of course.
(Old Man Harris Pappas has long since passed into the heavenly realm above.)