Study Desk

Then God remembered Rachel; he answered her prayer and made it possible for her to have children.

Give me my wives and children that I have earned by working for you, and I will leave. You know how well I have served you."

All this wealth which God has taken from our father belongs to us and to our children. Do whatever God has told you."

So Jacob got ready to go back to his father in the land of Canaan. He put his children and his wives on the camels, and drove all his flocks ahead of him, with everything that he had gotten in Mesopotamia.

Laban answered Jacob, "These young women are my daughters; their children belong to me, and these flocks are mine. In fact, everything you see here belongs to me. But since I can do nothing to keep my daughters and their children,

Save me, I pray, from my brother Esau. I am afraid—afraid that he is coming to attack us and destroy us all, even the women and children.

That same night Jacob got up, took his two wives, his two concubines, and his eleven children, and crossed the Jabbok River.

Jacob saw Esau coming with his four hundred men, so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two concubines.

He put the concubines and their children first, then Leah and her children, and finally Rachel and Joseph at the rear.

When Esau looked around and saw the women and the children, he asked, "Who are these people with you?" "These, sir, are the children whom God has been good enough to give me," Jacob answered.

Then the concubines came up with their children and bowed down;

then Leah and her children came, and last of all Joseph and Rachel came and bowed down.

Jacob answered, "You know that the children are weak, and I must think of the sheep and livestock with their young. If they are driven hard for even one day, the whole herd will die.

Please go on ahead of me, and I will follow slowly, going as fast as I can with the livestock and the children until I catch up with you in Edom."

They took everything of value, captured all the women and children, and carried off everything in the houses.

And God said to him, "I am Almighty God. Have many children. Nations will be descended from you, and you will be the ancestor of kings.

But Onan knew that the children would not belong to him, so when he had intercourse with his brother's widow, he let the semen spill on the ground, so that there would be no children for his brother.

He also said, "God has given me children in the land of my trouble"; so he named his second son Ephraim.

Their father said to them, "Do you want to make me lose all my children? Joseph is gone; Simeon is gone; and now you want to take away Benjamin. I am the one who suffers!"

May Almighty God cause the man to have pity on you, so that he will give Benjamin and your other brother back to you. As for me, if I must lose my children, I must lose them."