Beginning
30 When Rachel realized she couldn’t have Jacob’s children, she grew envious of her sister and complained to Jacob.
Rachel: I’ll just die if you don’t give me children!
2 Jacob became angry with Rachel.
Jacob: Am I God? He’s the One responsible for you not getting pregnant, not me!
Rachel: 3 Here’s my servant, Bilhah. Sleep with her so she can be a surrogate for me. I’ll have my children through her.
What Rachel suggests is not at all improper for her time. As you may recall, Sarah and Abraham had a similar situation with Hagar (16:1–4). Custom allows for these kinds of arrangements, just as technology today allows for an infertile woman to have a child through a surrogate. Any child born to Bilhah is regarded as Rachel’s, because she has the right to name the child. As we have seen, the naming of a child carries great significance.
4 So she gave Jacob her servant Bilhah to be another one of his wives, and Jacob slept with her. 5 Bilhah conceived and gave birth to Jacob’s son.
Rachel: 6 God has absolved me. He has heard my plea and has given me a son after all!
So this is why Rachel named her son Dan. 7 Rachel’s servant Bilhah soon conceived again and gave birth to a second son for Jacob.
Rachel: 8 I have had to wrestle with my own sister as I’ve wrestled with God, but I have prevailed.
So Rachel named this son Naphtali.
9 When it seemed Leah was not going to have any more children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob to be a wife as well. 10 So Leah’s servant Zilpah gave birth to a son for Jacob.
Leah: 11 Good fortune has arrived!
This is why she named him Gad.
12 Then Leah’s servant Zilpah gave birth to a second son for Jacob. 13 Leah named him Asher to express her joy.
Leah: I am so happy! All of the women can see how happy I am!
14 When it came time to harvest the wheat, Reuben went out and found some mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Rachel heard about this and approached her sister.
Rachel: Would you please give me some of the mandrakes your son found?
Leah: 15 You know it is no small matter that you’ve stolen the attentions of my husband. Now you want my son’s mandrakes too?
Rachel: Then he can sleep with you tonight in exchange for some of your son’s mandrakes!
16 So when Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him.
Leah: Tonight you must sleep with me because I have hired you for a good price—some of my son’s mandrakes.
So he slept with her that night. 17 God listened to Leah and showed her His favor, and after many years she again conceived and gave birth to her fifth son for Jacob.
Leah: 18 God has paid me my wages, since I gave my servant to my husband.
This is why she named her son Issachar.
19 And God’s favor didn’t stop with him; Leah conceived again and gave birth to a sixth son for Jacob.
Leah: 20 God has given me a plentiful gift. Now my husband will surely honor me, because I have given him six sons.
This is why she named her sixth son Zebulun. 21 And at last after that, she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.
22 Then God remembered Rachel. He heard her prayer and made her fertile. 23 She conceived and gave birth to her first son.
Rachel: God has taken away my shame.
24 She decided to name him Joseph.
Rachel: May the Eternal One add to me another son!
25-26 After Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob asked Laban for release.
Jacob: It’s time for me to return home, to my own people and country. Please release me with my wives and my children. I have worked for you a long time to obtain them, and you know how well I have served you.
Laban: 27 If you look upon me with favor, please stay here. You are a good omen. The Eternal One has blessed me because of you. 28 Name your price, and I will give it to you.
Jacob: 29 You know how well I have served you. You have seen your livestock flourish and your herds grow under my supervision. 30 You had little before I arrived, but your wealth has increased significantly since the Eternal One has blessed you in whatever I did for you. But now, when will it be time for me to provide for my own household?
Laban: 31 What do you want me to give you?
Jacob: I don’t want you to give me anything. I only ask for one favor. Do this for me, and I’ll keep on feeding and taking care of your flocks. 32 Let me go through the flock today and put aside for myself every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and also the spotted and speckled goats, and this is how you can pay me. 33 My honesty will be evident when you come to check on me. If you find one lamb or goat among my flocks that isn’t speckled, spotted, or black, then you may count it as stolen.
Laban: 34 Agreed. Do this exactly as you have said.
35 But that day, Laban secretly removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, all the female goats that were speckled and spotted—every one with any white on it at all—and every lamb that was black. He put them under the watch of his sons. 36 Then he set off with his sons and those mottled animals a three-day distance away from Jacob to make sure the flocks would stay separated. Meanwhile Jacob was pasturing the rest of Laban’s flock.
Jacob soon figures out what Laban has done. The deceiver has once again been deceived.
37 But Jacob cut some fresh branches of poplar, almond, and plane trees; and he striped off the bark in streaks exposing the white wood beneath. 38 He set the striped branches in front of the flocks in the troughs—the water troughs, that is—where they came to drink. Since they would mate when they came to drink, 39 the flocks mated in front of the branches and produced young that were striped, speckled, and spotted. 40 Jacob separated these newly born lambs from Laban’s flock, and when they mated again he faced Laban’s animals toward the striped and black animals. He kept his own droves separate from Laban’s. This is how he increased his own flock. 41 Whenever the stronger females of the flock were ready to mate, Jacob laid the striped branches in the troughs right in front of them, so that they would breed among them. 42 But when he saw the feebler animals ready to mate, he didn’t lay the rods out so that in the end, the feebler of the animals became Laban’s and the stronger became Jacob’s. 43 In this way, Jacob grew extremely rich, and he ended up with very large flocks, male and female slaves, and camels and donkeys too.
Jacob, the heel-catcher, has met a kindred spirit. Both men are deceivers and manipulators. Both do whatever they can to get the better of the other. It just comes naturally. Laban tricks Jacob first by marrying him to Leah before Rachel. Then, after Jacob and he agree on a clear strategy to separate the flocks, Laban goes behind his back and takes away the animals that rightfully belong to Jacob. But Jacob is crafty, too, and he devises a way to produce striped, speckled, and spotted animals from Laban’s flocks. After the many years of service, Jacob finally outwits Laban and gains a more valuable flock in the process. Deception may work for a while, but there are dire consequences that come with it. Jacob’s situation is about to change, and it isn’t long before his deceptive days are behind him.
31 As time went on, Jacob overheard what Laban’s sons were saying about him.
Laban’s Sons: Jacob has taken everything that belonged to our father; he gained all his wealth from taking advantage of him.
2 And Jacob also noticed a change in how Laban looked at him and treated him. He seemed colder toward him than before.
Eternal One (to Jacob): 3 You must now return to the land of your ancestors and to your own family. I will be with you always.
4 So Jacob called his wives Rachel and Leah to meet him in the field where his flock was grazing.
Jacob: 5 I notice your father’s attitude toward me has changed; he doesn’t regard me with the same respect as he did before. But the God of my father has been with me. 6 You both know how well I have served your father—with all my strength. 7 However your father cheated me by changing the terms of my salary 10 times, but beyond that my God did not allow him to harm me. 8 If your father said, “The speckled will be your payment,” then all of the flock became speckled; and if he said, “the striped will be your payment,” then all of the flock became striped. 9 In this way, God has taken away your father’s livestock and given them to me. 10 During the mating season of the flock, I once paid attention to a dream, and in the dream, I saw the male goats that mated with the flock were striped, speckled, and mottled. 11 Then God’s messenger said to me in the dream, “Jacob!” and I answered, “I’m here.” 12 And the messenger said, “Look up right now, and see all of the goats that are mating with the flock are striped, speckled, and mottled because I have noticed everything Laban is doing to you. 13 I am the God of Bethel, the place where you poured oil on a pillar and made a vow to Me.[a] Now get up, leave this land, and return to the land where you were born.”
Rachel and Leah: 14 Is there any inheritance at all left for us from our father’s house? 15 He regards us as foreigners now that we’ve married you. He sold us in exchange for your years of labor, and he has been using up all of the money that should have been ours. 16 All of the property God has taken from our father and given to you actually belongs to us and to our children anyway! So do whatever God said to do.
17 So Jacob got up, and he put his children and his wives on camels for the journey. 18 He rounded up all of his livestock and all of the property he had gained, including the livestock he had acquired in Paddan-aram, and he began to drive them to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan. 19 Meanwhile Laban had gone off to shear his sheep. While he was out, Rachel stole her father’s household idols. 20 And Jacob likewise deceived Laban the Aramean by hiding from him the fact that he was leaving. 21 He just left quickly with everything he had. He crossed the Euphrates River and set pace south toward the hill country of Gilead.
22 Three days later, Laban was told that Jacob had left. 23 So he gathered a group of his relatives, and together they pursued him for seven days until they closed in on Jacob in the hill country of Gilead. 24 Then God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream during the night with a message.
Eternal One: Be careful what you say and do to Jacob.
25 Laban caught up to Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent and set up camp in the hill country; and Laban, along with his relatives, also camped in the hill country of Gilead. Laban went out to meet Jacob.
Laban (to Jacob): 26 What have you done, deceiving me and carrying off my daughters as if they were your prisoners of war? 27 Why did you run out on me and try to trick me? Why didn’t you just tell me you were going? I would have sent you off with celebration and songs, with the joyful sounds of the tambourine and lyre. 28 And why didn’t you even allow me to kiss my daughters and grandchildren good-bye? What you have done is foolish. 29 It is certainly in my power to punish you, but the God of your father Isaac spoke to me last night and said, “Be careful what you say and do to Jacob.” 30 Now you have left because you missed your father’s household—I can understand that—but why did you have to steal my family gods?
Jacob (answering Laban): 31 I left because I was afraid, and because I thought you would take your daughters away from me by force. 32 But I pledge to you that anyone who stole your gods will not live. I certainly did not take them. Here in the presence of all of our relatives, search the camp and let’s see if anything I have is yours. If there is, you can take it back!
Of course, Jacob had no idea Rachel had stolen the idols.
33 So Laban went into Jacob’s tent, into Leah’s tent, and into the two female servants’ tent; he searched, but he did not find them. Then he came out of Leah’s tent and into Rachel’s. 34 Now Rachel had taken the household gods and concealed them in the camel’s saddle, and she sat on them. Laban looked around and felt everything in the tent, but he did not find them.
Rachel (to her father): 35 Please don’t be angry that I cannot get up for you, sir, but I am in the midst of my “time of month.”
Rachel has learned the art of deception well from her father and her husband.
So Laban searched, but he did not find the household gods.
36 When Jacob saw that Laban’s search had come up empty, he became angry and confronted Laban.
Jacob: What is my offense? What have I done that is so wicked to make you pursue me like a common criminal? 37 You searched through all of my things, and what have you found that belonged to you? Whatever it is, set it down here between your family and mine, and they can decide whose it is. 38 I’ve worked for you for 20 years. Your ewes and your female goats have never miscarried under my care. I have never feasted on any of the rams in your flocks. 39 When wild animals attacked, I didn’t bring the carcass to you to deal with; I bore the cost myself. You required me to cover any losses, whether the animals were stolen by day or night, and I did so. 40 There I was—at your service—during the day I was hounded by heat; during the night I was cold and couldn’t get a good night’s sleep. 41 For 20 years, I have been in your household. I served you 14 of those years in return for your two daughters, and six years for your flock. And you have altered my payment 10 times. 42 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. But God knows my plight and how hard I’ve labored for you, and it was He who reprimanded you last night!
Laban: 43 The daughters you speak of are my daughters; the children are my grandchildren; the flocks are my flocks; all you see is mine. But what can I do today about these daughters of mine and the children from their wombs? 44 Come, let’s make a covenant between us, you and me, and let there be a witness to our agreement.
45 So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. 46 He told his relatives to gather up more stones. So they all took stones and made a large pile of them. Then they ate there by the pile. 47 Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha (Aramaic for “witness-pile”) and Jacob called it Galeed (Hebrew for “witness-pile”).
Laban: 48 This pile of stones stands as a witness to the agreement we have made today.
This is why he called it Galeed. 49 The pillar was called Mizpah, which means “watch post.”
Laban: May the Eternal One watch us when we are away from one another. 50 If you in any way mistreat my daughters or if you take wives in addition to my daughters, even though no one else is with us, remember that God is a witness between you and me.
51 See this pile of stones and this pillar which I have set between us. 52 This pile is a witness and this pillar is a witness that I will not pass beyond this pile of stones to harm you, and you will not pass beyond this pile and this pillar to harm me. 53 May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor (the God of their father Terah) serve as judge between us.
This is no sweet farewell. It is a parting of the ways between two men who don’t trust one another. Both are tricksters, but they are family. It is probably best from now on if they avoid each other completely.
So Jacob swore an oath on the Fear of Isaac, his father; 54 and Jacob offered a sacrifice on the hill there and called all of his relatives together to eat bread. And they all ate bread and spent the rest of the night in the hill country. 55 Early the next morning, Laban got up, kissed his grandchildren and his daughters, and blessed them; and then he left and returned home.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.