NOTES for Gen 30:25-43
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.