Genesis 30:30-43

30:30 Indeed, ¹  you had little before I arrived, ²  but now your possessions have increased many times over. ³  The Lord has blessed you wherever I worked. ⁴  But now, how long must it be before I do something for my own family too?” ⁵ 

30:31 So Laban asked, ⁶  “What should I give you?” “You don’t need to give me a thing,” ⁷  Jacob replied, ⁸  “but if you agree to this one condition, ⁹  I will continue to care for ¹⁰  your flocks and protect them: 30:32 Let me walk among ¹¹  all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb, ¹²  and the spotted or speckled goats. ¹³  These animals will be my wages. ¹⁴  30:33 My integrity will testify for me ¹⁵  later on. ¹⁶  When you come to verify that I’ve taken only the wages we agreed on, ¹⁷  if I have in my possession any goat that is not speckled or spotted or any sheep that is not dark-colored, it will be considered stolen.” ¹⁸  30:34 “Agreed!” said Laban, “It will be as you say.” ¹⁹ 

30:35 So that day Laban ²⁰  removed the male goats that were streaked or spotted, all the female goats that were speckled or spotted (all that had any white on them), and all the dark-colored lambs, and put them in the care ²¹  of his sons. 30:36 Then he separated them from Jacob by a three-day journey, ²²  while ²³  Jacob was taking care of the rest of Laban’s flocks.

30:37 But Jacob took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond, and plane trees. He made white streaks by peeling them, making the white inner wood in the branches visible. 30:38 Then he set up the peeled branches in all the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink. He set up the branches in front of the flocks when they were in heat and came to drink. ²⁴  30:39 When the sheep mated ²⁵  in front of the branches, they ²⁶  gave birth to young that were streaked or speckled or spotted. 30:40 Jacob removed these lambs, but he made the rest of the flock face ²⁷  the streaked and completely dark-colored animals in Laban’s flock. So he made separate flocks for himself and did not mix them with Laban’s flocks. 30:41 When the stronger females were in heat, ²⁸  Jacob would set up the branches in the troughs in front of the flock, so they would mate near the branches. 30:42 But if the animals were weaker, he did not set the branches there. ²⁹  So the weaker animals ended up belonging to Laban ³⁰  and the stronger animals to Jacob. 30:43 In this way Jacob ³¹  became extremely prosperous. He owned ³²  large flocks, male and female servants, camels, and donkeys.

Genesis 31:18

31:18 He took ³³  away all the livestock he had acquired in Paddan Aram and all his moveable property that he had accumulated. Then he set out toward the land of Canaan to return to his father Isaac. ³⁴ 

Exodus 12:35-36

12:35 Now the Israelites had done ³⁵  as Moses told them – they had requested from the Egyptians ³⁶  silver and gold items and clothing. 12:36 The Lord ³⁷  gave the people favor ³⁸  in the sight of the Egyptians, and they gave them whatever they wanted, ³⁹  and so they plundered Egypt. ⁴⁰ 

Deuteronomy 8:17-18

8:17 Be careful ⁴¹  not to say, “My own ability and skill ⁴²  have gotten me this wealth.” 8:18 You must remember the Lord your God, for he is the one who gives ability to get wealth; if you do this he will confirm his covenant that he made by oath to your ancestors, ⁴³  even as he has to this day.

Deuteronomy 8:2

8:2 Remember the whole way by which he ⁴⁴  has brought you these forty years through the desert ⁴⁵  so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not.

Deuteronomy 5:26

5:26 Who is there from the entire human race ⁴⁶  who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the middle of the fire as we have, and has lived?

Deuteronomy 8:9

8:9 a land where you may eat food ⁴⁷  in plenty and find no lack of anything, a land whose stones are iron ⁴⁸  and from whose hills you can mine copper.

[30:30]  ¹ tn Or “for.”

[30:30]  ² tn Heb “before me.”

[30:30]  ³ tn Heb “and it has broken out with respect to abundance.”

[30:30]  ⁴ tn Heb “at my foot.”

[30:30]  ⁵ tn Heb “How long [until] I do, also I, for my house?”

[30:31]  ⁶ tn Heb “and he said.” The referent (Laban) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[30:31]  ⁷ tn The negated imperfect verbal form has an obligatory nuance.

[30:31]  ⁸ tn The order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[30:31]  ⁹ tn Heb “If you do for me this thing.”

[30:31]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I will return, I will tend,” an idiom meaning “I will continue tending.”

[30:32]  ¹¹ tn Heb “pass through.”

[30:32]  ¹² tn Or “every black lamb”; Heb “and every dark sheep among the lambs.”

[30:32]  ¹³ tn Heb “and the spotted and speckled among the goats.”

[30:32]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and it will be my wage.” The referent collective singular pronoun (“it) has been specified as “these animals” in the translation for clarity.

[30:33]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “will answer on my behalf.”

[30:33]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “on the following day,” or “tomorrow.”

[30:33]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “when you come concerning my wage before you.”

[30:33]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “every one which is not speckled and spotted among the lambs and dark among the goats, stolen it is with me.”

[30:34]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and Laban said, ‘Good, let it be according to your word.’” On the asseverative use of the particle לוּ (lu) here, see HALOT 521 s.v. לוּ.

[30:35]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Laban) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[30:35]  ²¹ tn Heb “and he gave [them] into the hand.”

[30:36]  ²² tn Heb “and he put a journey of three days between himself and Jacob.”

[30:36]  ²³ tn The disjunctive clause (introduced by the vav with subject) is circumstantial/temporal; Laban removed the animals while Jacob was taking care of the rest.

[30:38]  ²⁴ sn He put the branches in front of the flocks…when they came to drink. It was generally believed that placing such “visual aids” before the animals as they were mating, it was possible to influence the appearance of their offspring. E. A. Speiser notes that “Jacob finds a way to outwit his father-in-law, through prenatal conditioning of the flock by visual aids – in conformance with universal folk beliefs” (Genesis [AB], 238). Nevertheless, in spite of Jacob’s efforts at animal husbandry, he still attributes the resulting success to God (see 31:5).

[30:39]  ²⁵ tn The Hebrew verb used here can mean “to be in heat” (see v. 38) or “to mate; to conceive; to become pregnant.” The latter nuance makes better sense in this verse, for the next clause describes them giving birth.

[30:39]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the sheep.” The noun has been replaced by the pronoun (“they”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[30:40]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and he set the faces of.”

[30:41]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and at every breeding-heat of the flock.”

[30:42]  ²⁹ tn Heb “he did not put [them] in.” The referent of the [understood] direct object, “them,” has been specified as “the branches” in the translation for clarity.

[30:42]  ³⁰ tn Heb “were for Laban.”

[30:43]  ³¹ tn Heb “the man”; Jacob’s name has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[30:43]  ³² tn Heb “and there were to him.”

[31:18]  ³³ tn Heb “drove,” but this is subject to misunderstanding in contemporary English.

[31:18]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and he led away all his cattle and all his moveable property which he acquired, the cattle he obtained, which he acquired in Paddan Aram to go to Isaac his father to the land of Canaan.”

[12:35]  ³⁵ tn The verbs “had done” and then “had asked” were accomplished prior to the present narrative (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 99). The verse begins with disjunctive word order to introduce the reminder of earlier background information.

[12:35]  ³⁶ tn Heb “from Egypt.” Here the Hebrew text uses the name of the country to represent the inhabitants (a figure known as metonymy).

[12:36]  ³⁷ tn The holy name (“Yahweh,” represented as “the Lord” in the translation) has the vav disjunctive with it. It may have the force: “Now it was Yahweh who gave the people favor….”

[12:36]  ³⁸ sn God was destroying the tyrant and his nobles and the land’s economy because of their stubborn refusal. But God established friendly, peaceful relations between his people and the Egyptians. The phrase is used outside Exod only in Gen 39:21, referring to Joseph.

[12:36]  ³⁹ tn The verb וַיַּשְׁאִלוּם (vayyash’ilum) is a Hiphil form that has the root שָׁאַל (sha’al), used earlier in Qal with the meaning “requested” (12:35). The verb here is frequently translated “and they lent them,” but lending does not fit the point. What they gave the Israelites were farewell gifts sought by demanding or asking for them. This may exemplify a “permissive” use of the Hiphil stem, in which “the Hiphil designates an action that is agreeable to the object and allowed by the subject” (B. T. Arnold and J. H. Choi, A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 52).

[12:36]  ⁴⁰ sn See B. Jacob, “The Gifts of the Egyptians; A Critical Commentary,” Journal of Reformed Judaism 27 (1980): 59-69.

[8:17]  ⁴¹ tn For stylistic reasons a new sentence was started at the beginning of v. 17 in the translation and the words “be careful” supplied to indicate the connection.

[8:17]  ⁴² tn Heb “my strength and the might of my hand.”

[8:18]  ⁴³ tc Smr and Lucian add “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” the standard way of rendering this almost stereotypical formula (cf. Deut 1:8; 6:10; 9:5, 27; 29:13; 30:20; 34:4). The MT’s harder reading presumptively argues for its originality, however.

[8:2]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[8:2]  ⁴⁵ tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NRSV, NLT); likewise in v. 15.

[5:26]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “who is there of all flesh.”

[8:9]  ⁴⁷ tn The Hebrew term may refer to “food” in a more general sense (cf. NASB, NCV, NLT) or “bread” in particular (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[8:9]  ⁴⁸ sn A land whose stones are iron. Since iron deposits are few and far between in Palestine, the reference here is probably to iron ore found in mines as opposed to the meteorite iron more commonly known in that area.