Study Desk

Then Rebekah and her attendants stood, and they mounted camels and followed the man. So the servant took Rebekah and went on his way.

The first came out reddish all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau (hairy).

Then his servants dug another well, and they quarreled over that also, so Isaac named it Sitnah (enmity).

He moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over that one; so he named it Rehoboth (broad places), saying, "For now the LORD has made room for us, and we shall be prosperous in the land."

They said, "We see clearly that the LORD has been with you; so we said, 'There should now be an oath between us [with a curse for the one who breaks it], that is, between you and us, and let us make a covenant (binding agreement, solemn promise) with you,

Then Isaac held a [formal] banquet (covenant feast) for them, and they ate and drank.

They got up early in the morning and swore oaths [pledging to do nothing but good to each other]; and Isaac sent them on their way and they left him in peace.

Now on the same day, Isaac's servants came and told him about the well they had dug, saying, "We have found water."

and they were a source of grief to [Esau's parents] Isaac and Rebekah.

Jacob said to them, "My brothers, where are you from?" And they said, "We are from Haran."

So he said to them, "Do you know Laban the grandson of Nahor [Abraham's brother]?" And they replied, "We know him."

And he asked them, "Is it well with him?" And they said, "He is doing well; look, here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep!"

But they said, "We cannot [leave] until all the flocks are gathered together, and the shepherds roll the stone from the mouth of the well; then we will water the sheep."

Then he set the branches which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the watering troughs, where the flocks came to drink; and they mated and conceived when they came to drink.

Jacob separated the lambs, and [as he had done with the peeled branches] he made the flocks face toward the streaked and all the dark or black in the [new] flock of Laban; and he put his own herds apart by themselves and did not put them [where they could breed] with Laban's flock.

Furthermore, whenever the stronger [animals] of the flocks were breeding, Jacob would place the branches in the sight of the flock in the watering troughs, so that they would mate and conceive among the branches;

So he took his relatives with him and pursued him for seven days, and they overtook him in the hill country of Gilead.

Then Laban said to Jacob, "What do you mean by deceiving me and leaving without my knowledge, and carrying off my daughters as if [they were] captives of the sword?

"Although you have searched through all my possessions, what have you found of your household goods? Put it here before my relatives and your relatives, so that they may decide [who has done right] between the two of us.

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?