Genesis 30:25-43 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Jacob Grows Rich by Overreaching Laban. This is a difficult section. It is taken from JE. The analysis is uncertain. To J may be assigned Genesis 30:25; Genesis 30:27; Genesis 30:29-31; Genesis 30:35 f., to E Genesis 30:26; Genesis 30:28; Genesis 30:33 f., while Genesis 30:32 is to be divided between them. Genesis 30"37- 45 is in the main from J, but in its present form is barely intelligible. Two accounts of the bargain seem to be combined, though the fragmentary character and the state of E's text make reconstruction uncertain. According to E, Jacob takes out of Laban's flock all the parti-coloured animals, and they are his pay. If at any time Laban finds animals of the normal colour in Jacob's flock, they may be taken as stolen. According to J, Jacob stipulates for no share in Laban's present flock, but presumably for any abnormally coloured that may be born hereafter in the flock he tends for Laban. So Laban takes away all the abnormally coloured he has at present, and sends them right away three days-' journey from the flock Jacob has in charge, leaving him with the normally coloured animals only, thus, since they might be expected to have normally-coloured offspring, reducing Jacob's prospective share almost to vanishing point. In either case the proportion of abnormally coloured would be small, and Jacob's commission would appear to be paltry. Jacob then sets himself to defeat the ordinary course of nature on which Laban counted, and by placing the parti-coloured rods in the drinking-troughs before the females at coupling-time, secure parti-coloured offspring. The plan succeeded admirably; and as he employed it only in the case of the stronger animals, his flock grew sturdier and Laban's more delicate.

Genesis 30:27. divined: perhaps literally meant, perhaps simply discerned by observation.

Genesis 30:32. The sheep in Syria are almost all white, the goats brown or black.

Genesis 30:37 ff. The physiological principle is well established (Driver).

Genesis 30:40. The Heb. is obscure and the text corrupt; and set. of Laban should probably be omitted as a gloss.

Related Commentaries of Genesis 30:25

Genesis 30:25-43

25 And it came to pass, when Rachel had born Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away, that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country.

26 Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served thee, and let me go: for thou knowest my service which I have done thee.

27 And Laban said unto him, I pray thee, if I have found favour in thine eyes, tarry: for I have learned by experience that the LORD hath blessed me for thy sake.

28 And he said, Appoint me thy wages, and I will give it.

29 And he said unto him, Thou knowest how I have served thee, and how thy cattle was with me.

30 For it was little which thou hadst before I came, and it is now increasedh unto a multitude; and the LORD hath blessed thee since my coming: and now when shall I provide for mine own house also?

31 And he said, What shall I give thee? And Jacob said, Thou shalt not give me any thing: if thou wilt do this thing for me, I will again feed and keep thy flock:

32 I will pass through all thy flock to day, removing from thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and of such shall be my hire.

33 So shall my righteousness answer for me in timei to come, when it shall come for my hire before thy face: every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the sheep, that shall be counted stolen with me.

34 And Laban said, Behold, I would it might be according to thy word.

35 And he removed that day the he goats that were ringstraked and spotted, and all the she goats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had some white in it, and all the brown among the sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons.

36 And he set three days' journey betwixt himself and Jacob: and Jacob fed the rest of Laban's flocks.

37 And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.

38 And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.

39 And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.

40 And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle.

41 And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods.

42 But when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's.

43 And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and maidservants, and menservants, and camels, and asses.