| Deuteronomy 26:5
| And thou shalt speak thus in the sight of the Lord thy God: The Syrian pursued my father, who went down into Egypt, and sojourned there in a very small number, and grew into a nation great and strong, and of an infinite multitude.
| The Syrian. Laban. See Genesis xxvii. (Challoner) --- Hebrew, "My father was a Syrian, poor, (or ready to perish) and he went down," etc. The ancestors of Jacob had, in effect, come from beyond the Euphrates, and he had dwelt in Mesopotamia for twenty years. But the translation of the Septuagint seems preferable, "My father abandoned (apebalen) Syria." (Calmet)
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