With mirth, and with songs, with tabret, and with harp— The Easterns in general set out, at least in their longer journies, with music; for, when the Prefetto of AEgypt, whose journal the late Bishop of Clogher published, was preparing for his journey, he complains of his being incommoded by the songs of his eastern friends, who took leave in this manner of their relations and acquaintance before their setting out. This illustrates the complaint of Laban in this verse: Wherefore didst thou flee away secretly, and steal away from me, and didst not tell me, that I might, &c.
But the Prefetto takes no notice of a circumstance which frequently attends these travelling eastern songs, though it illustrates another passage of Scripture; and that is, the extemporaneousness of them. A guard of Arab horsemen escorted the gentlemen who visited Palmyra in the year 1751. When the business of the day was over, coffee and a pipe of tobacco, as the ingenious editor of those ruins tells us, p. 33. was their highest luxury; and when they indulged in this, sitting in a circle, one of the company entertained the rest with a song or an anecdote, and the compositions were sometimes extemporary. The extemporary devotional songs then, mentioned by the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 14:26 were by no means contrary to the turn of mind of the eastern people. The songs of the Israelitish women, when they came to meet king Saul, after the slaughter of the Philistine by David, seem to have been of the same kind; for they answered one another, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. 1 Samuel 18:7.
These valedictory songs, however, which the Prefetto takes notice of, are not to be supposed to be a constant prelude to their journies, but only to those of the most solemn kind; there is, therefore, an energy in the words of Laban which ought to be remarked: Why didst thou not tell me, that I might have sent thee away, and taken my leave of my daughters, going such a journey with all due solemnity, according to the custom of my country?