The intensities of dysfunction were at danger levels in Jacob’s house, like trying to thread a needle when the thread and the needle are both on fire; it’s not if you’re going to get burnt but how big will the skin graft need to be. His wives envied each other into a baby race, which included Leah and Rachel giving Jacob their servants to be his wives as well. In around seven years Jacob fathered eleven sons and (at least) one daughter. This not a Brady Bunch comedy, the antics are not fun as in Cheaper by the Dozen. This was heavy duty bitterness and bartering over whose bed Jacob would sleep in.

About the same time that Rachel had her first son Jacob was finishing his bridal contract with his father-in-law. Jacob completed fourteen years of work in which he got more than he bargained for. But now that his contract was ending, his favorite wife now had a son, and Esau had to be less angry, it was a good time for Jacob to start thinking about going home.

But he had more mouths to feed than when he made the trip from Canaan to Haran and, if he left now, no provision to feed those mouths.

He approaches his uncle to announce that he’s leaving anyway because he’s tired of being under his uncle’s control and also eager to return to the land the LORD promised him. But Laban doesn’t want him to go. Jacob has been good for business. Laban suggests that if Jacob stays a little longer, then Jacob could leave without being empty-handed. He could earn something for his own household.

There are two parts to the last half of chapter 30, Brokering Another Deal (verses 25-34) and Breeding a New Flock (verses 35-43).

Brokering Another Deal (verses 25-34)

Because Rachel gave birth to Joseph about the same time as the second seven years was coming to an end, Jacob felt as if the latch unlocked on the door to his cage. As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country. Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.” Jacob is not really asking for permission, he is telling his superior to send him away. It’s sort of his two-weeks’ notice. He puts his imperative in “Let me leave and let me have” terms because he’s living under Laban’s conditions, but he doesn’t even say “Please.” This begins a back and forth negotiation through verse 34.

Laban is not ready to let go. But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you. Name your wages, and I will give it.” First, this has nothing to do with Laban loving his family, this is all about his finances. Second, this is patronizing. Laban doesn’t care if he’s found favor in Jacob’s eyes. Laban isn’t making a humble request in return, he’s asking Jacob to indulge him while he refuses to give a straight answer. The name your wages comment comes because he knows that his daughters were the only wage Jacob had earned in their previous contract. Another deal is required if more wages are to be paid.

Third, this was pure selfishness on Laban’s part. The ESV translates, I have learned by divination, in other words, other spirits revealed to Laban that Yahweh was responsible for the Laban’s profit by Jacob. Some have translated it, “I have learned by experience,” but experience doesn’t reveal Yahweh. I don’t have a problem thinking that Laban learned the truth through his false worship. And if he did, why did he wait till now to say so? How about a service award? How about just a “thank you”?

Jacob affirms that Laban didn’t need supernatural help to count the sheep. ”You yourself know how I have served you, and how your livestock has faired with me. For you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly, and the LORD has blessed you wherever I turned. But now when shall I provide for my own household?” When Jacob said wherever I turned, the Hebrew could be translated, “at my foot,” so wherever he stepped there were good things popping up. But all those good things were accounted as Laban’s assets. When could Jacob claim his own dependents on his own paycheck? This is Jacob’s concern before he heads home.

Everything Jacob said is true, and it’s all understandable from his perspective. But it’s also true that Laban didn’t agree to give anything else to Jacob. Jacob got what he agreed to: two wives. And actually, Bilhah and Zilpah were Laban’s servants that he gave to Jacob, and now there were twelve children, too. So was Laban being generous to Jacob? No. But was Laban cheating Jacob out of anything he promised. Technically, no.

Laban knew he had the upper hand. He said, “What shall I give you?”

He must have said it like Jacob was a child, though Jacob was around 90 years old. Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything.” Jacob got Laban’s attitude. Laban wasn’t going to give Jacob anything else, he already gave him what he worked for. Jacob would have to work more if he wanted anything more.

Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it: let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and they shall be my wages. So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.” (Genesis 30:31–33)

According to some studies, 20% ownership of the flock would be a good wage for a shepherd, and the speckled and spotted sheep usually didn’t account for that much, and every black lamb is probably just another way to say it. A similar percentage applied to the goats. Jacob was negotiating for a less-than-usual wage; he knew Laban was the kind of man who only bothered to look at low bids. Jacob would keep shepherding two flocks, Laban’s pure colored and his own piebald (i.e., those with patches of two colors). At any given time the solid could be distinguished from the spotted without any funny business.

Laban said, “Good! Let it be as you have said.” But he wouldn’t agree that easily, right? He didn’t.

But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in the charge of his sons. And he set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban’s flock. (Genesis 30:35–36)

This was not the agreement. Laban separated the striped, speckled, and spotted rather than Jacob doing it, and Laban gave them to his sons. They were supposed to be Jacob’s. When Jacob came to go through the flock, there weren’t any for him. He had to start from scratch, which required him to stay much longer than he intended. Laban even set a distance of three day’s journey between himself and Jacob. You can never be too careful when you hired a deceiver. As John Calvin remarked, “dishonest men are wont to measure others by their own standard; whence it happens that they are always distrustful and alarmed.”

Breeding a New Flock (verses 37-43)

Jacob got to work and, according to Genesis 31:41, this paragraph of work took six years. It involves three things: 1) superstition, 2) good sense, 3) time.

“The flock tended by Jacob had only monochrome animals in respect” to the observable characteristics. But in respect to the unobservable characteristics, that is, the genetics of the lambs, some of them had genes for only one tone and others had genes for multiple tones. If Jacob could breed those with genes for multiple tones together, some of them would be spotted according to the laws of heredity (Hamilton).

The superstition was in Jacob’s belief that whatever a sheep viewed while that sheep was mating determined the color of the baby sheep’s wool. There are a number of problems with that. Do sheep see colors? Some experiments suggest that they do react differently to different colors. Okay, then how do their eyes relate to their eggs? Isn’t this more “white magic,” an old farmer’s tale, similar to Rachel’s hope in fertility fruit?

Jacob does exert a lot of effort to make it happen; it’s described in verse 37-38 and again in verse 41. He thought it was doing something.

He also took care to identify the stronger and the weaker. This was not natural selection, though it was selection based on natural qualities.

Was Jacob right to do this? He had agreed to pastor Laban’s flock, and he was technically, though not he isn’t exactly working for their flourishing. He will tell Laban in the next chapter that he protected them from being eaten and, of course, feebler is comparative. So it doesn’t mean that the were sickly, just that they weren’t the strongest. Jacob bred the strongest for himself.

All that took time, though sheep can give birth approximately every five months. But it was working.

Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys (verse 43). The description increased greatly could be translated “spread out,” the same as in 30:30. He is “exceedingly prosperous” (NASB, NIV).

We’ll see in the next chapter that it wasn’t Jacob’s pastoral ministry that caused him to increase so greatly, it was the LORD. “God did not permit [Laban] to harm me” (31:8) followed by descriptions of striped, spotted, and speckled births. The “angel of God said…’Lift up your eyes and see, all the goats that mated with the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you” (31:11-12). God gives increase and God get the credit.

Conclusion

What do we learn from this passage?

Though not the primary point, we do see that some characters are ugly. How do we treat those around us—in our business arrangements, financial contracts, family relationships? That reveals who we are. Laban in particular is an unpleasant man, and we ought not to act like him even if we are “technically” right.

We also learn that receiving the promises of God does not always feel awesome. Was God fulfilling His word to Jacob in all of this? Absolutely. Jacob is “spreading out” as God said he would in 28:14; that word is used only there and in 30:30 and verse 43 in Genesis. But it took 20 years. Jacob could read from his journal: “by day the heat consumed me; cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes” (31:40). And it wasn’t just physical inconvenience and pains, it was relational burdens, between his wives and with his boss. “If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed” (31:42).

But now he had wives, offspring, and he had “increased greatly.” It didn’t feel awesome while he was going through it, while he was working but by grace God caused Jacob to prosper. Let us be thankful for all the grace we can spot.