The Mizpah Ring Fraud and Its Misleading Claims
A characteristic fraud which plays upon the ignorance of many honest people who may be somewhat superstitious over religious matters, is an attempt that is made to sell a cheap ring having upon it the word “Mizpah.” An advertisement professes to quote from an old Hebrew sage, “Desire what you may and it is yours so long as the Mizpah is on your finger.” Now the word “Mizpah” is found in Gen. 31:49. It has no such meaning as this advertisement would seem to indicate or that many people get from it. Jacob called that pillar Mizpah. It was a witness between Jacob and Laban that each should keep his covenant, that one should not take advantage of the other or war against him. It stood there as an emblem of justice, forbidding Laban to overreach into the dominion of Jacob, and a pledge that Jacob would care for Laban’s daughters and their children. It had an existence because men were suspicious of each other, and not because they loved each other. If any such advertisement as that comes to any more of our readers, as it has to one, we hope they will set it aside as utterly worthless, as probably the ring is which it advertises.