God remembered Rachel and answered her prayers for a child. I am glad the Bible says that God remembered Rachel because otherwise some may think she conceived because of the mandrakes mentioned earlier in the chapter. Rachel had a son and said, “God has taken away my reproach.” She named her son Joseph saying “The Lord shall add to me another son.” So, I googled and Joseph means “God will add”. So was this a prophetic moment for Rachel? Further along in our Biblical journey we will see that she does have another son.

After Joseph was born, Jacob was ready to leave Laban and go out on his own with his family. He was ready to go back to his own country. He told Laban to give him his wives and children for whom he had served Laban and let him go because Laban was aware of Jacob’s service for him. Laban pleaded with Jacob to stay because he realized that the Lord had blessed him for Jacob’s sake. Have you ever been blessed because of God’s favor in the life of someone you know? God blessed them and the blessing trickled down to you. Or, has someone ever been blessed because of God’s favor in your life? So in an attempt to keep him there, Laban told Jacob to name his wages and he will give it to him. Jacob responded that Laban knows how he has worked for him with his livestock. He also told Laban that Lord blessed him with a great amount of increase because of his being there. Jacob asked Laban when would he be able to provide for his own house. So Laban asked, “What shall I give you?” Jacob told him that he should not give him anything, but if he allowed him to remove the animals that were speckled and spotted (sheep and goats) and the brown among the lambs, he would again work for Laban and those animals would be his wages. Different translations refer to removing the dark colored lambs or the black sheep. Jacob told Laban that he could check on his honesty for the wages and if any livestock that was not speckled or spotted and lambs that were not brown were with him, they could be considered stolen. This was in reference to future livestock. So, Laban thought that was a good deal. That day, Laban removed all the spotted, speckled and brown livestock and put them in the care of his sons and sent them on a 3 day journey between himself and Jacob. This was an attempt to ensure that none of the remaining flock that Jacob shepherded would produce spotted, speckled or dark colored offspring. The distance would ensure that the livestock did not mix with each other. So, even though the livestock that Jacob continued to shepherd could have been mostly white in color on the outside, they still could be carrying genetic traits that would produce spotted, speckled and dark colored offspring. We all should know that it’s what’s on the inside that counts and not what we look like on the outside. Of course, Jacob must have realized what Laban was doing by trying to “pull the wool over his eyes.”

Jacob took rods of green poplar, almond and chestnut trees and peeled them until white strips were in the rods. Jacob would put the rods before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink so that they would conceive. The flocks did conceive before the rods and they had offspring that were streaked, speckled and spotted. Jacob separated the flocks. Verse 40 states in the NKJV, “…and made the flocks face toward the streaked and all the brown in the flock of Laban.” I did a lot of googling and still have difficulty grasping the full understanding of this statement. The bottom line is that Jacob managed to keep the flocks separated. When the stronger livestock conceived, Jacob had placed the rods before the livestock in the gutters. More googling indicated that while the females were drinking water and looking at the rods, that the males would come up behind them and mate. When the more feeble flocks came to drink, Jacob did not put the rods in the gutters of the trough. So Jacob ended up with the stronger flocks and Laban’s were feeble. A shepherd knows his sheep and a herdsman knows his livestock. The Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, knows His flock as well. As far as offspring being speckled, spotted, streaked, etc. has to be God’s intervention on Jacob’s behalf despite Jacob’s deceitful practice with the flocks.

Jacob became exceedingly prosperous with large flocks, female and male servants, camels and donkeys.

The next stop is Genesis 31.

To God Be The Glory!