Study Desk

When Esau heard the words of his father, he let out a loud and bitter cry. He said to his father, "Bless me—me, too, my father!"

Isaac answered, "I gave Jacob the power to be master over you, and all his brothers will be his servants. And I kept him strong with grain and new wine. There is nothing left to give you, my son."

Go to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, in Northwest Mesopotamia. Laban, your mother's brother, lives there. Marry one of his daughters.

and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Northwest Mesopotamia.

So Esau saw that his father Isaac did not want his sons to marry Canaanite women.

When he came to a place, he spent the night there because the sun had set. He found a stone and laid his head on it to go to sleep.

Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, but I did not know it."

Then Jacob continued his journey and came to the land of the people of the East.

Then Jacob asked, "How is he?" They answered, "He is well. Look, his daughter Rachel is coming now with his sheep."

When Laban heard the news about his sister's son Jacob, he ran to meet him. Laban hugged him and kissed him and brought him to his house, where Jacob told Laban everything that had happened.

That evening he brought his daughter Leah to Jacob, and they had sexual relations.

(Laban gave his slave girl Zilpah to his daughter to be her servant.)

So Jacob did this, and when he had completed the week with Leah, Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as a wife.

(Laban gave his slave girl Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her servant.)

During the wheat harvest Reuben went into the field and found some mandrake plants and brought them to his mother Leah. But Rachel said to Leah, "Please give me some of your son's mandrakes."

But that day Laban took away all the male goats that had streaks or spots, all the speckled and spotted female goats (all those that had white on them), and all the black sheep. He told his sons to watch over them.

Jacob separated the young animals from the others, and he made them face the streaked and dark animals in Laban's flock. Jacob kept his animals separate from Laban's.

So Jacob told Rachel and Leah to meet him in the field where he kept his flocks.

So Jacob put his children and his wives on camels,

and they began their journey back to Isaac, his father, in the land of Canaan. All the flocks of animals that Jacob owned walked ahead of them. He carried everything with him that he had gotten while he lived in Northwest Mesopotamia.