NOTES for Gen 30:25-43
25 And it came to pass, when Rachel had born Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away, that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country. |
26 Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served thee, and let me go: for thou knowest my service which I have done thee. |
27 And Laban said unto him, I pray thee, if I have found favour in thine eyes, tarry: for I have learned by experience that the LORD hath blessed me for thy sake. |
28 And he said, Appoint me thy wages, and I will give it. |
29 And he said unto him, Thou knowest how I have served thee, and how thy cattle was with me. |
30 For it was little which thou hadst before I came, and it is now increased unto a multitude; and the LORD hath blessed thee since my coming: and now when shall I provide for mine own house also? |
31 And he said, What shall I give thee? And Jacob said, Thou shalt not give me any thing: if thou wilt do this thing for me, I will again feed and keep thy flock: |
32 I will pass through all thy flock to day, removing from thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and of such shall be my hire. |
33 So shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come, when it shall come for my hire before thy face: every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the sheep, that shall be counted stolen with me. |
34 And Laban said, Behold, I would it might be according to thy word. |
35 And he removed that day the he goats that were ringstraked and spotted, and all the she goats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had some white in it, and all the brown among the sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons. |
36 And he set three days' journey betwixt himself and Jacob: and Jacob fed the rest of Laban's flocks. |
37 And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. |
38 And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. |
39 And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted. |
40 And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle. |
41 And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. |
42 But when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's. |
43 And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and maidservants, and menservants, and camels, and asses. |
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Every worker deserves his wages. Jacob deserved his too, but his position in his father-in-law's house was such that he could hardly insist firmly on anything. He could only ask and come to an agreement. And hope for God's intervention. In general, this whole situation was a continuation of God's teaching. Jacob wanted to be a leader, as he himself thought, the leader of his tribe. God, however, wanted to see him as the leader not of a tribe, but of His people.
Here it was necessary above all to learn to rely on God entirely, while Jacob from childhood had been somewhat self-confident. The main problem was that he was accustomed to relying on his own strength. He was used to obtaining everything himself, not always without the help of others, but always on his own initiative. Jacob had his own plan for his life, which he wanted to carry out.
In this sense he is a thoroughly modern person, because in our day precisely such planning of one's own life is usually considered optimal for solving any task. It really is partly so, but with one significant correction: the plans must be God's, not human, and their realization must be first of all God's work. That is what happened with Jacob's reward for his work as a shepherd. Jacob, clearly not on his own initiative, refuses fixed pay and agrees to a certain share of the offspring, about which no one could know in advance whether it would be large or not.
Here there is precisely the complete uncertainty that Jacob generally did not like. Most likely, this was not his initiative but God's. Jacob agrees to it. This is a serious decision, not only because he can no longer be certain of anything, not even whether he will receive any reward at all for his work, but also because of the very fact of trusting God. Jacob entrusts his affairs to God, a very difficult step considering how much he generally disliked losing control of a situation. Yet God teaches Jacob precisely this, because He needs a leader for His people. Such a leader must learn to "let go" of the situation, to hand it over into God's hands, while at the same time remaining within it and acting as though he himself were directing everything and guiding everything. In this way God prepares Jacob to fulfill his mission, the mission of which Jacob had dreamed, though at first he had little idea what he wanted and what he was striving for.
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