(BA) Genesis 30

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The text below is adapted from the JPS.

1 And when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and she said to Jacob, Give me children, or else idle?

2 And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, Am I in God's place, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?

3 And she said, Here is my slave Bilhah. Go to bed with her, that she may bear upon my knees, and I also may be built up through her. 4 And she gave him Bilhah her slave as wife, and Jacob went to bed with her.

5 And Bilhah conceived, and bore Jacob a son. 6 And Rachel said, God has judged my case, and has also heard my voice, and has given me a son. Therefore she called his name Dan.

7 And Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid, conceived again, and bore Jacob a second son. 8 And Rachel said, With great wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed. And she called his name Naphtali.

9 When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing, she took Zilpah her slave, and gave her to Jacob as wife. 10 And Zilpah, Leah's slave, bore Jacob a son. 11 And Leah said, Fortune has come! And she called his name Gad.

12 And Zilpah, Leah's handmaid, bore Jacob a second son. 13 And Leah said, Happy am I! For the daughters will call me happy. And she called his name Asher.

14 And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, please, some of my son's mandrakes.

15 And she said to her, Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? And would you also take away my son's mandrakes?

And Rachel said, Therefore he will lie with you tonight for your son's mandrakes.

16 And Jacob came from the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, You must come to bed with me, because I have surely hired you with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night.

17 And God listened to Leah, and she conceived, and bore Jacob a fifth son. 18 And Leah said, God has given me my wages, because I gave my slave to my husband. And she called his name Issachar.

19 And Leah conceived again, and bore a sixth son to Jacob. 20 And Leah said, God has endowed me with a good dowry. Now my husband will dwell with me, because I have borne him six sons. And she called his name Zebulun. 21 And afterwards she bore a daughter, and called her name Dinah.

22 And God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her, and opened her womb. 23 And she conceived, and bore a son, and said, God has taken away my reproach. 24 And she called his name Joseph, saying, May Y' add to me another son.

25 Now, when Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, Send me away, that I may go to my own place, and to my country. 26 Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me go, because you know what kind of work I have done for you.

27 And Laban said to him, If now I have found favor in your eyes -- I have observed the signs, and Y' has blessed me for your sake.

28 And he said, Dictate to me your wages, and I will give it.

29 And he said to him, You know how I have served you, and how your cattle have fared with me. 30 For it was little that you had before I came, and it has increased abundantly, and Y' has blessed you wherever I turned. And now when shall I provide for my own house too?

31 And he said, What shall I give you?

And Jacob said, Give me nothing, if you will only do this thing for me, I will again feed your flock [and] keep [it]. 32 I will pass through all your flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted one, and every dark one among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and let them be my wages. 33 So shall my righteousness witness against me in times to come, when you shall come to look over my wages that are before you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and dark among the sheep, if it is found with me, shall be considered stolen.

34 And Laban said, Indeed, let it be as you have said.

35 And he removed that day the he-goats that were streaked and spotted, and all the she-goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white in it, and all the dark ones among the sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons. 36 And he set three days' journey between himself and Jacob. And Jacob fed the rest of Laban's flocks. 37 And Jacob took himself rods of fresh poplar, and of the almond and of the plane tree, and peeled white streaks in them, making the white appear which was in the rods. 38 And he set the rods which he had peeled opposite the flock in the watering-troughs where the flocks came to drink; and they conceived when they came to drink. 39 And the flocks conceived at the sight of the rods, and the flocks brought forth streaked, speckled, and spotted. 40 And Jacob separated the lambs -- he also set the faces of the flocks toward the streaked and all the dark in the flock of Laban -- and put his own droves apart, and put them not by Jacob's flock.

41 Then, whenever the stronger of the flock would conceive, then Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the flock in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. 42 But when the flock were feeble, he did not put them in. So the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's. 43 And the man increased exceedingly, and had large flocks, and female and male slaves, and camels and donkeys.

(30:6) "judged". In Hebrew, the word "judged" is dan.

(30:7) "With great wrestlings I have wrestled". Hebrew naftulei ʔelohim niftalti, evidently a pun on "Naphtali". BDB, DCH, and HALOT all give "wrestlings ... wrestled" for naftulei ... niftalti. But A. B. Ehrlich read naftulei as "wiley tricks" and niftalti as "I resorted to a wiley trick" (TDOT, p. 194).

(30:10) At the beginning of this verse, the Septuagint inserts, "And Jacob went to bed with her, and she conceived" (BHK).

(30:10) "Fortune has come!" From the Qere, which reads baʾ gad. The Kethib reads bgd, which Dillmann interprets as begad, "with good fortune". The Septuagint sides with the Kethib (BHK), as does Kittel.

(30:11) "Gad". Meaning, according to the JPS notes, "Fortune".

(30:13) "Asher". Meaning, according to the JPS notes, "Happy". Dillmann reads the word as closer to "lucky", essentially being a synonym of "Gad".

(30:15) "And she said to her." The Septuagint reads, "And Leah said", while the Peshitta reads, "And Leah said to her" (BHK).

(30:16) "come to bed with me". The Samaritan Pentateuch adds "tonight" (BHK).

(30:18) "wages". Hebrew śakar, evidently a pun on the name Issachar (Hebrew yiśśakar).

(30:18) "Issachar". There is a Ktiv-Qere issue here, and Kittel gives multiple options for how it came about (BHK).

(30:19) "dwell". The Hebrew verb is zabal, and evidently a pun on "Zebulon" is meant.

(30:19) "Joseph". Both the name Joseph and "May he add" are yosef in Hebrew.

(30:24) "Y'". The Samaritan Pentateuch and Peshitta read "God" (BHK).

(30:26) "and my children". Notice, however, that Jacob only ever served Laban for his wives; he never served for his children. Kittel thinks that perhaps "and my children" is a later addition to the text (BHK).

(30:27) "for your sake". The Septuagint reads "by your coming in" (BHK, Brenton).

(30:29) "you know how I have served you". The Peshitta reads, "you know with what service I have served you" (BHK).

(30:30) "wherever I turned". Hebrew leragli, literally, "to my foot". But Kittel thinks perhaps we should read leraglai, "to my feet".

(30:31) "feed your flock [and] keep [it]." The "and" and the "it" are not found in the Hebrew text, which has struck more than one commentator as seeming to have something wrong with it. Dillmann sees "keep" as a variant form that snuck in in the process of Genesis' being compiled from its multiple authors; Kittel suggests we delete "keep" altogether (BHK).

(30:32) Says Dillmann, "The text here is corrupt, so that it is not entirely clear from the statement what the proposal really was." In verse 32, it seems that Jacob is proposing to take all the oddly coloured animals in Laban's flock the day they struck the deal, and that those animals should be his wages. But in verse 35, Laban takes the oddly colored animals for himself. And then, after verse 37, Jacob uses clever means to breed for himself oddly colored animals, which also disagrees with the proposal in verse 32. Wellhausen believed that a renegotiation of the deal was originally in the story, and later dropped out (Dillmann). Dillmann notes multiple proposals to solve the difficulties.

(30:32) "I will pass through all your flock today, removing". The Vulgate reads, "Pass through all your flock today, and remove", and the Septuagint has a similar reading (BHK). There is a certain redundancy to the description of the oddly colored animals, and Kittel suggests we follow the Septuagint and delete "from there every speckled and spotted one, and" (BHK).

(30:33) "in times to come". Literally, "tomorrow".

(30:35) See note on verse 32.

(30:35) "streaked". Kittel suggests that perhaps we should emend, and read "speckled" (BHK).

(30:36) "between him". The Samaritan Pentateuch reads "between them", but Kittel sides with the Masoretic Text here (BHK).

(30:39) "streaked". Kittel suggests that perhaps this word is a later addition to the verse (BHK).

(30:40) "he also set the faces of the flocks toward the streaked and all the dark in the flock of Laban". Kittel thinks these words are a later addition (BHK).

(30:40) "by". A Sebirin note in the Masoretic Text reads "with".

BDB. Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; and Briggs, Charles A. (1907). A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament.

BHK. Biblia Hebraica Kittel (1905).

Brenton, Lancelot Charles Lee (1844). The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament according to the Vatican Text: Translated into English".

DCH. Cline's Dictionary of Classical Hebrew.

Dillmann, A. (1897). Genesis: Critically and Exegetically Expounded. Translated from the last edition by Wm. B. Stevenson. Volume II: Genesis 12-50.

HALOT. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament.

JPS. The Jewish Publication Society version of 1917.

TDOT. Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, edited by G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, Heinz-Josef Fabry, and translated by Douglas Stott (2003). Volume XII.

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