“... We now turn to the important role that deities play as witnesses to the treaty concluded by Hattusili III and Ramesses II. According to a standard reconstruction of the Egyptian version, the deities "are with me as witnesses [hearing] these words." [...] Like the treaties surveyed in Chapter One, this biblical passage invokes the deities of the two parties as guarantors of their pact. In this case, Laban mentions the god of each party. From the narrative's apparent reference to what many scholars have taken as Isaac's deity or as his title ("The Fear"), it would appear that the patron or family god is what is meant by "the god of Abraham," and that a corresponding ancestral divinity is assumed for Laban as well. To highlight the fact that two deities are involved here, we may contrast the pact made between the Reubenites and the Gadites in Joshua 22:34, where to signal the pact they name the altar: "It is a witness between us and them that Yahweh is our god" (cf. Judges 11:10). This instance of a "witness" mentions only one god, specifically the god shared by the two parties. In contrast, in Genesis 31:53 different deities are called as witnesses to the pact. [...] the gods of the two parties are invoked in verse 53 to "judge between us." The meal that transpires in verse 54 may be designed to bring together the gods of the parties involved as much as the parties themselves. In some of the international treaties discussed in Chapter One, the deities of different treaty partners come together in an international divine meeting to mark the treaty. In this respect, the agreement between Jacob and Laban is represented as an international agreement. ...”