January 10
Genesis 30:1 — 31:55
January 10
Genesis 30:1 —
31:55
30
When Rachel came to see that she had borne nothing to Jacob, Rachel got jealous
of her sister and began to say to Jacob: “Give me children or otherwise I shall
be a dead woman.”
2 At
this Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel and he said: “Am I in the place of God,
who has held back the fruit of the belly from you?”
3 So she
said: “Here is my slave girl Bilhah. Have relations with her, that she may give
birth upon my knees and that I, even I, may get children from her.”
4 With
that she gave him Bilhah her maidservant as wife, and Jacob had relations with
her.
5 And
Bilhah became pregnant and in time bore Jacob a son.
6 Then
Rachel said: “God has acted as my judge and has also listened to my voice, so
that he gave me a son.” That is why she called his name Dan.
7 And
Bilhah, Rachel’s maidservant, became pregnant once more and in time bore a
second son to Jacob.
8 Then
Rachel said: “With strenuous wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister. I have
also come off winner!” So she called his name Naphtali.
9 When
Leah came to see that she had left off giving birth, she proceeded to take Zilpah
her maidservant and to give her to Jacob as wife.
10 In
time Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant, bore a son to Jacob.
11 Then
Leah said: “With good fortune!” So she called his name Gad.
12 After
that Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant, bore a second son to Jacob.
13 Then
Leah said: “With my happiness! For the daughters will certainly pronounce me
happy.” So she called his name Asher.
14 Now
Reuben went walking in the days of the wheat harvest and got to find mandrakes
in the field. So he brought them to Leah his mother. Then Rachel said to Leah:
“Give me, please, some of your son’s mandrakes.”
15 At
this she said to her: “Is this a little thing, your having taken my husband,
with your now taking also my son’s mandrakes?” So Rachel said: “For that reason
he is going to lie down with you tonight in exchange for your son’s mandrakes.”
16 When
Jacob was coming from the field in the evening, Leah went on out to meet him
and then said: “It is with me you are going to have relations, because I have
hired you outright with my son’s mandrakes.” Accordingly he lay down with her
that night.
17 And
God heard and answered Leah and she became pregnant and in time bore to Jacob a
fifth son.
18 Then
Leah said: “God has given me a hireling’s wages, because I have given my
maidservant to my husband.” So she called his name Issachar.
19 And
Leah became pregnant once more and in time bore a sixth son to Jacob.
20 Then
Leah said: “God has endowed me, yes, me, with a good endowment. At last my
husband will tolerate me, because I have borne him six sons.” So she called his
name Zebulun.
21 And
afterward she bore a daughter and then called her name Dinah.
22 Finally
God remembered Rachel, and God heard and answered her in that he opened her
womb.
23 And
she became pregnant and brought a son to birth. Then she said: “God has taken
away my reproach!”
24 So
she called his name Joseph, saying: “Jehovah is adding another son to me.”
25 And
it followed that when Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob immediately said
to Laban: “Send me away that I may go to my place and to my country.
26 Give
over my wives and my children, for whom I have served with you, that I may go;
for you yourself must know my service which I have rendered you.”
27 Then
Laban said to him: “If, now, I have found favor in your eyes,—I have taken the
omens to the effect that Jehovah is blessing me due to you.”
28 And
he added: “Stipulate your wages to me and I shall give them.”
29 So he
said to him: “You yourself must know how I have served you and how your herd has
fared with me;
30 that
it was little that you actually had before my coming, and it went expanding to a
multitude, in that Jehovah blessed you since I stepped in. So now when am I to
do something also for my own house?”
31 Then
he said: “What shall I give you?” And Jacob went on to say: “You will give me
nothing whatsoever! If you will do this thing for me, I shall resume shepherding
your flock. I shall continue guarding it.
32 I
will pass among your whole flock today. You set aside from there every sheep
speckled and with color patches, and every dark-brown sheep among the young rams
and any color-patched and speckled one among the she-goats. Hereafter such must
be my wages.
33 And
my right-doing must answer for me on whatever future day you may come to look
over my wages; every one that is not speckled and color-patched among the
she-goats and dark brown among the young rams is something stolen if it is with
me.”
34 To
this Laban said: “Why, that is fine! Let it be according to your word.”
35 Then
he set aside on that day the he-goats striped and color-patched and all the
she-goats speckled and color-patched, every one in which there was any white and
every one dark brown among the young rams, but he gave them over into the hands
of his sons.
36 After
that he set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and
Jacob was shepherding the flocks of Laban that remained over.
37 Then
Jacob took for his use staffs still moist of the storax tree and of the almond
tree and of the plane tree and peeled in them white peeled spots by laying bare
white places which were upon the staffs.
38 Finally
the staffs that he had peeled he placed in front of the flock, in the gutters,
in the water drinking troughs, where the flocks would come to drink, that they
might get into a heat before them when they came to drink.
39 Consequently
the flocks would get in heat before the staffs, and the flocks would produce
striped, speckled and color-patched ones.
40 And
Jacob separated the young rams and then turned the faces of the flocks to the
striped ones and all the dark-brown ones among the flocks of Laban. Then he set
his own droves by themselves and did not set them by the flocks of Laban.
41 And
it always occurred that whenever the robust flocks would get in heat, Jacob
would locate the staffs in the gutters before the eyes of the flocks, that they
might get in heat by the staffs.
42 But
when the flocks showed feebleness he would not locate them there. So the feeble
ones always came to be Laban’s, but the robust ones Jacob’s.
43 And
the man went on increasing more and more, and great flocks and maidservants and
menservants and camels and asses came to be his.
31
In time he got to hear the words of the sons of Laban, saying: “Jacob has taken
everything that belonged to our father; and from what belonged to our father he
has amassed all this wealth.”
2 When
Jacob would look at the face of Laban, here it was not with him as formerly.
3 Finally
Jehovah said to Jacob: “Return to the land of your fathers and to your
relatives, and I shall continue with you.”
4 Then
Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah out to the field to his flock,
5 and he
said to them:
“I am
seeing the face of YOUR father, that he is not the same toward me as formerly;
but the God of my father has proved to be with me.
6 And
YOU yourselves certainly know that with all my power I have served YOUR father.
7 And
YOUR father has trifled with me and he has changed my wages ten times, but God
has not allowed him to do me harm.
8 If
on the one hand he would say, ‘The speckled ones will become your wages,’ then
the whole flock produced speckled ones; but if on the other hand he would say,
‘The striped ones will become your wages,’ then the whole flock produced striped
ones.
9 So God
kept taking the herd of YOUR father away and giving it to me.
10 At
last it came about at the time when the flock got in heat that I raised my eyes
and saw a sight in a dream and here the he-goats springing upon the flock were
striped, speckled and spotty.
11 Then
the angel of the [true] God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob!’ to which I said,
‘Here I am.’
12 And
he continued, ‘Raise your eyes, please, and see all the he-goats springing upon
the flock are striped, speckled and spotty, for I have seen all that Laban is
doing to you.
13 I
am the [true] God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you vowed a
vow to me. Now get up, go out of this land and return to the land of your
birth.’”
14 At
this Rachel and Leah answered and said to him: “Is there a share of inheritance
for us anymore in the house of our father?
15 Are
we not really considered as foreigners to him since he has sold us, so that he
keeps eating continually even from the money given for us?
16 For
all the riches that God has taken away from our father are ours and our
children’s. So now everything God has said to you do.”
17 Then
Jacob got up and lifted his children and his wives onto the camels;
18 and
he began driving all his herd and all the goods that he had accumulated, the
herd of his acquisition that he had accumulated in Paddan-aram, in order to go
to Isaac his father to the land of Canaan.
19 Now
Laban had gone to shear his sheep. Meantime Rachel stole the teraphim that
belonged to her father.
20 So
Jacob outwitted Laban the Syrian, because he had not told him that he was
running away.
21 And
he proceeded to run away and to get up and cross the River, he and all he had.
After that he directed his face to the mountainous region of Gilead.
22 Later,
on the third day, it was told to Laban that Jacob had run away.
23 With
that he took his brothers with him and went chasing after him for a distance of
seven days’ journey and caught up with him in the mountainous region of Gilead.
24 Then
God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night and said to him: “Watch
yourself that you do not go speaking either good or bad with Jacob.”
25 So
Laban approached Jacob, as Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountain and
Laban had encamped his brothers in the mountainous region of Gilead.
26 Then
Laban said to Jacob: “What have you done, in that you resorted to outwitting me
and driving my daughters off like captives taken by the sword?
27 Why
did you have to run away secretly and outwit me and not tell me, that I might
send you away with rejoicing and with songs, with tambourine and with harp?
28 And
you did not give me a chance to kiss my children and my daughters. Now you have
acted foolishly.
29 It is
in the power of my hand to do harm to YOU people, but the God of YOUR father
talked to me last night, saying, ‘Watch yourself against speaking either good or
bad with Jacob.’
30 While
you have actually gone now because you have been yearning intensely for the
house of your father, why, though, have you stolen my gods?”
31 In
answer Jacob proceeded to say to Laban: “It was because I was afraid. For I
said to myself, ‘You might tear your daughters away from me.’
32 Whoever
it is with whom you may find your gods, let him not live. Before our brothers,
examine for yourself what is with me and take them for yourself.” But Jacob did
not know that Rachel had stolen them.
33 So
Laban went on into the tent of Jacob and into the tent of Leah and into the
tent of the two slave girls, but did not find them. Finally he went out of Leah’s
tent and went on into Rachel’s tent.
34 Now
Rachel had taken the teraphim, and she resorted to putting them in the woman’s
saddle basket of the camel, and she kept sitting upon them. So Laban went
feeling through the whole tent, but did not find them.
35 Then
she said to her father: “Do not let anger gleam in the eyes of my lord, because
I am not able to get up before you, for the customary thing with women is upon
me.” So he searched on carefully, but did not find the teraphim.
36 And
Jacob became angry and began to quarrel with Laban, and in answer Jacob went on
to say to Laban: “What is the revolt on my part, what the sin of mine, as a
reason why you have hotly pursued after me?
37 Now
that you have felt through all my goods, what of all the goods of your house
have you found? Put it here in front of my brothers and your brothers, and let
them decide between us two.
38 These
twenty years I have been with you. Your female sheep and your she-goats did not
suffer abortions, and the rams of your flock I never ate.
39 Any
animal torn to pieces I did not bring to you. I myself would stand the loss of
it. Whether one was stolen by day or was stolen by night, you would put in a
claim for it from my hand.
40 It
has been my experience that by day the heat consumed me and the cold by night,
and my sleep would flee from my eyes.
41 This
makes twenty years for me in your house. I have served you fourteen years for
your two daughters and six years for your flock, and you kept changing my wages
ten times.
42 If
the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Dread of Isaac, had not proved
on my side, you would now have sent me away empty-handed. My wretchedness and
the toil of my hands God has seen, and so he reproved you last night.”
43 Then
Laban in answer said to Jacob: “The daughters are my daughters and the children
my children and the flock my flock, and everything you are looking at is mine
and my daughters’. What can I do against these today or against their children
whom they have borne?
44 And
now, come, let us conclude a covenant, I and you, and it must serve as a witness
between me and you.”
45 Accordingly
Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar.
46 Then
Jacob said to his brothers: “Pick up stones!” And they went taking stones and
making a heap. After that they ate there on the heap.
47 And
Laban began calling it Jegar-sahadutha,
but Jacob called it Galeed.
48 And
Laban proceeded to say: “This heap is a witness between me and you today.” That
is why he called its name Galeed,
49 and
The Watchtower, because he said: “Let Jehovah keep watch between me and you when
we are situated unseen the one from the other.
50 If
you go to afflicting my daughters and if you go to taking wives in addition to
my daughters, there is no man with us. See! God is a witness between me and
you.”
51 And
Laban went on to say to Jacob: “Here is this heap and here is the pillar that I
have erected between me and you.
52 This
heap is a witness, and the pillar is something that bears witness, that I will
not pass this heap against you and that you will not pass this heap and this
pillar against me for harm.
53 Let
the god of Abraham and the god of Nahor judge between us, the god of their
father.” But Jacob swore by the Dread of his father Isaac.
54 After
that Jacob sacrificed a sacrifice in the mountain and invited his brothers to
eat bread. Accordingly they ate bread and passed the night in the mountain.
55 However,
Laban got up early in the morning and kissed his children and his daughters and
blessed them. Then Laban got on his way that he might return to his own place.