Of even greater significance, the angel had promised the brothers: "Ye shall go up to Jerusalem again, and the Lord will deliver Laban into your hands" (3:29). Here, the legal language of "deliverance" enters the narrative. In biblical narratives, enemies are said to be "delivered": Goliath was delivered, and accounts of accidental and unintentional slayings speak of victims being delivered into the hands of the killer. However, it is always unpredictable how and when such a divine deliverance will occur.
But Laman and Lemuel immediately raise the question: "How is it possible that the Lord will deliver Laban into our hands? Behold, he is a mighty man, and he can command fifty, yea, even he can slay fifty; then why not us?" (3:31). In the book of Isaiah, it talks about commanders of fifty (Isaiah 3:3). This would have been the title of a military unit. So, when Laman and Lemuel continue to murmur that Laban could command fifty, they are not using some arbitrary number. They are referring to Laban’s actual position as an officer of an unusually sizeable force of soldiers, stationed within the walls of Jerusalem.
Although understandable, this rationalizing, murmuring, and doubting the ability of God to carry out the promise that had just been delivered by his angel now put Laman and Lemuel in the position of rebelling against God. Dishonoring their father had been serious enough (3:28), but dismissing the power of God, who was powerful enough to deliver the Israelites from the hands of the Egyptians, was next to blasphemy.