Study Desk

Then Jacob stood [and took action] and put his children and his wives on camels;

Laban answered Jacob, "These women [that you married] are my daughters, these children are my grandchildren, these flocks are [from] my flocks, and all that you see [here] is mine. But what can I do today to these my daughters or to their children to whom they have given birth?

"Save me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, that he will come and attack me and the mothers with the children.

But he got up that same night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and waded over the ford of the Jabbok.

Then Jacob looked up, and saw Esau coming with four hundred men. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids.

He put the maids and their children in front, Leah and her children after them, and Rachel and Joseph last of all.

Esau looked up and saw the women and the children, and said, "Who are these with you?" So Jacob replied, "They are the children whom God has graciously given your servant."

Then the maids approached with their children, and they bowed down.

Leah also approached with her children, and they bowed down. Afterward Joseph and Rachel approached, and they bowed down.

But Jacob replied, "You know, my lord, that the children are frail and need gentle care, and the nursing flocks and herds [with young] are of concern to me; for if the men should drive them hard for a single day, all the flocks will die.

"Please let my lord go on ahead of his servant, and I will move on slowly, governed by the pace of the livestock that are in front of me and according to the endurance of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir [in Edom]."

they looted all their wealth, and [took captive] all their children and their wives, even everything that was in the houses.

The children of Anah are these: Dishon and Oholibamah [Esau's wife], the daughter of Anah.

Now Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a [distinctive] multicolored tunic.

Then Judah told Onan, "Go in to your brother's widow, and perform your duty as a brother-in-law [under the levirate marriage custom]; [be her husband and] raise children for [the name of] your brother."

Jacob their father said to them, "You have bereaved me [by causing the loss] of my children. Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and you would take Benjamin [from me]. All these things are [working] against me."

But Jacob said, "My son shall not go down [to Egypt] with you; for his brother is dead, and he alone is left [of Rachel's children]. If any harm or accident should happen to him on the journey you are taking, then you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol (the place of the dead) in sorrow."

and may God Almighty grant you compassion and favor before the man, so that he will release to you your other brother [Simeon] and Benjamin. And as for me, if I am bereaved of my children [Joseph, Simeon, and Benjamin], I am bereaved."

"You shall live in the land of Goshen [the best pasture land of Egypt], and you shall be close to me—you and your children and your grandchildren, your flocks and your herds and all you have.

So Jacob set out from Beersheba; and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob and their children and their wives in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him.