Between Laban's hot pursuit and his morning confrontation, something happened in a dream that the plain Hebrew text only hints at. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan makes it vivid: an angel came with a word from before the Lord, drew a sword against Laban the deceitful, and warned him, Beware lest thou speak with Jakob from good to evil (Genesis 31:24).
Read that carefully. The warning was not only against harming Jakob. It was against shifting the tone of the conversation from good to evil. Even a verbal pivot, beginning with a warm greeting and ending with a threat, was forbidden by heavenly sword-point.
This is a form of angelic intervention you rarely see spoken of openly: an angel stationed at the border of someone's speech. The threat of violence was not to the body. It was to the meaning of sentences.
The Maggid teaches: heaven takes speech seriously enough to post an armed angel beside a father-in-law's tongue. The words you use with the righteous matter. The angel's sword sometimes waits for the moment your hello turns into an accusation.