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Genesis 30

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The Birth Contest Continues: Rachel’s Desperation 1–8

1
And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. ​
2
And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? ​
3
And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her. ​
4
And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her.
5
And Bilhah conceived, and bare Jacob a son.
6
And Rachel said, God hath judged me, and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son: therefore called she his name Dan. ​
7
And Bilhah Rachel's maid conceived again, and bare Jacob a second son.
8
And Rachel said, With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed: and she called his name Naphtali. ​

Leah Offers Zilpah to Jacob 9–13

9
When Leah saw that she had left bearing, she took Zilpah her maid, and gave her Jacob to wife.
10
And Zilpah Leah's maid bare Jacob a son.
11
And Leah said, A troop cometh: and she called his name Gad. ​
12
And Zilpah Leah's maid bare Jacob a second son.
13
And Leah said, Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed: and she called his name Asher. ​

The Mandrakes Exchange 14–21

14
And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes. ​
15
And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to night for thy son's mandrakes. ​
16
And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me; for surely I have hired thee with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night. ​
17
And God hearkened unto Leah, and she conceived, and bare Jacob the fifth son.
18
And Leah said, God hath given me my hire, because I have given my maiden to my husband: and she called his name Issachar. ​
19
And Leah conceived again, and bare Jacob the sixth son.
20
And Leah said, God hath endued me with a good dowry; now will my husband dwell with me, because I have born him six sons: and she called his name Zebulun. ​
21
And afterwards she bare a daughter, and called her name Dinah. ​

God Remembers Rachel; Birth of Joseph 22–24

22
And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb. ​
23
And she conceived, and bare a son; and said, God hath taken away my reproach:
24
And she called his name Joseph; and said, The LORD shall add to me another son. ​

Jacob Negotiates His Departure from Laban 25–36

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 increased 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 time 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.

Jacob’s Strategy for Increasing his Wealth 37–43

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. ​

Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain

Study Notes for Genesis 30

Verse 1

Give me children — ‘Give’ is yahab, the imperative of Jacob’s own demand to Laban, ‘Give me my wife’ (29:21). ‘Children’ is banim, ‘sons’. ‘Envied’ (qana’) is the verb used of the Philistines toward Isaac (26:14) and of the brothers toward Joseph (37:11). Jacob’s answer in v.2 puts the matter with God.

Verse 2

Am I in God’s stead — Jacob refuses the place of God. The LORD had opened Leah’s womb (29:31), and ‘the fruit of the womb is his reward’ (Ps 127:3). Isaac’s course with a barren wife was to intreat the LORD, who ‘was intreated of him’ (25:21).

Verse 3

bear upon my knees — A child born on her knees is received as her own; Joseph’s great-grandsons were ‘brought up upon Joseph’s knees’ (50:23). Sarai set the pattern: ‘it may be that I may obtain children by her’ (16:2). ‘Obtain’ and ‘have children’ are one verb, banah, ‘to build’: the house is built through sons.

Verse 6

God hath judged me — Dan comes from din, ‘to judge’, the verb in her words, and God also ‘heard my voice’ (shama’). Jacob’s blessing returns to the root: ‘Dan shall judge his people’ (49:16). Dinah (v.21) is the feminine form of the same word. Bilhah’s son is born upon Rachel’s knees (v.3).

Verse 8

great wrestlings — The Hebrew word the KJV renders ‘great’ is Elohim, ‘God’. ‘Wrestled’ (pathal, to twine, to struggle) gives the name Naphtali. ‘Prevailed’ is yakol, the verb of Jacob at Peniel: ‘as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed’ (32:28).

Verse 11

A troop cometh — Gad means ‘troop’. Jacob’s blessing plays on the name: ‘Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last’ (49:19). Gad is the first son of Zilpah (v.10), whom Leah gave Jacob ‘to wife’ when she ‘had left bearing’ (v.9).

Verse 13

Happy am I — Asher is from ’osher, ‘happiness’; ‘call me blessed’ is ’ishsher, a verb of the same root. The same verb stands in Prov 31:28, ‘Her children arise up, and call her blessed’, and in Mal 3:12, ‘all nations shall call you blessed’.

Verse 14

mandrakes — Duda’im occurs in the KJV only here (vv.14–16) and in Song 7:13, where the mandrakes ‘give a smell’. The text names no use for them; Rachel asks, and the exchange follows. Her womb is opened not by them but when ‘God remembered Rachel’ (v.22).

Verse 15

Is it a small matter — The charge looks back to 29:30, ‘he loved also Rachel more than Leah’. ‘Small matter’ is me’at, ‘a little thing’. Rachel’s answer sets the night against the mandrakes (‘for’, tachath, in exchange for); of the outcome the text says, ‘God hearkened unto Leah’ (v.17).

Verse 16

I have hired thee — Sakar, ‘to hire’, is doubled in the Hebrew (‘hiring, I have hired thee’). The same root gives ‘hire’ in v.18 and the name Issachar, the ‘hire’ of Jacob’s flock in vv.32–33, and maskoreth, ‘wages’, in Laban’s offer at 29:15.

Verse 18

Issachar — The name is from sakar, ‘hire’, ‘he will bring a reward’. Leah’s reason is ‘because I have given my maiden to my husband’ (Zilpah, vv.9–10), not the mandrakes: ‘God hath given me my hire.’ The reward is traced to God, who ‘hearkened unto Leah’ (v.17) as he ‘heard’ Rachel in v.6.

Verse 20

a good dowry — Zabad, to endow, and zebed, a dowry, occur nowhere else, nor does zabal, ‘dwell with’, which gives the name Zebulun. ‘Now will my husband dwell with me’ is the second such hope after ‘joined unto me’ (29:34). The six sons are Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun.

Verse 21

Dinah — Dinah is the feminine of din, ‘justice’, the root of Dan (v.6). She is the one daughter named among the children born here, and no reason is given for her name. Her history is in ch. 34; 46:15 counts her with Leah’s children as ‘his daughter Dinah’.

Verse 22

God remembered Rachel — Zakar, the verb of ‘God remembered Noah’ (8:1), ‘God remembered Abraham’ (19:29) and ‘the LORD remembered’ Hannah (1 Sam 1:19). ‘Hearkened’ is shama’, the verb of ‘heard my voice’ in v.6 and of Leah in v.17. ‘Opened her womb’ is what the LORD did for Leah (29:31).

Verse 24

Joseph — The name carries two roots. At his birth Rachel said, ‘God hath taken away my reproach’ (v.23, ’asaph), and the name asks that the LORD ‘add’ (yasaf) ‘another son’. That is Benjamin (35:16–18), at whose birth she was told, ‘thou shalt have this son also’ (35:17).

Verse 25

mine own place — ‘Place’ is maqom, the word for Bethel’s ‘place’ (28:11, 16, 19); ‘Send me away’ is shalach. Bethel’s promise was ‘will bring thee again into this land’ (28:15), and the LORD later says, ‘Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee’ (31:3).

Verse 27

learned by experience — Nachash, to observe signs, to divine: the verb of Joseph’s cup, ‘whereby indeed he divineth’ (44:5, 15), and of the forbidden ‘enchantment’ (Lev 19:26). Laban credits ‘the LORD’ with blessing him for Jacob’s sake, as the LORD later ‘blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake’ (39:5).

Verse 32

speckled and spotted — Jacob asks only for the marked animals: ‘speckled’ (naqod, marked by puncture) and ‘spotted’ goats, and ‘brown’ sheep. Laban agrees (v.34), removes them himself and sets ‘three days’ journey’ between the flocks (vv.35–36). Jacob later says, ‘God hath taken away the cattle of your father, and given them to me’ (31:9).

Verse 33

my righteousness — Tsedaqah, rightness, is to ‘answer’ for Jacob ‘in time to come’, literally ‘tomorrow’ (machar), when the flock is looked over. Any animal not marked ‘shall be counted stolen with me’. Jacob recalls in 31:39 that Laban required of him even what was ‘stolen by day, or stolen by night’.

Verse 37

rods of green poplar — Poplar (livneh) and ‘white’ (laban) come from one root. The verse records only the act; Jacob’s own account is a dream in which the rams are ‘ringstraked, speckled, and grisled’ (31:10), with the words ‘I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee’ (31:12).

Verse 42

the feebler were Laban’s — ‘Feebler’ is ’atuph, to languish, and ‘stronger’ is qashar, ‘bound’, hence firm. The stronger fall to Jacob. He later tells his wives that Laban ‘changed my wages ten times; but God suffered him not to hurt me’ (31:7).

Verse 43

increased exceedingly — Paratz, to break forth, the verb of the Bethel promise, ‘thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south’ (28:14), and of Laban’s flock that ‘is now increased unto a multitude’ (v.30). ‘Exceedingly’ is doubled in the Hebrew (me’od me’od).