Study Desk

And it came to pass, when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, Let me go that I may take my journey, unto my place, and to my land.

Come, give me my wives and my children for whom I have served thee and let me take my journey, - for, thou, knowest my service wherewith I have served thee.

And Laban said unto him, If, I pray thee, I have found favour in thine eyes, …I have divined that Yahweh hath blessed me for thy sake.

And he said, - Come, fix thy wages for me, that I may give it!

And he said unto him, Thou, knowest how I have served thee, - and how thy cattle have fared, with me.

For it was, little I that thou hadst - before I came and then it brake forth into multitude, and Yahweh blessed thee at my every step. Now, therefore, when am, I, also to do something for my own house?

And he said, What shall I give thee? And Jacob said: Thou shall give me, nothing at all, If thou wilt do for me this thing, I will return, I will shepherd thy flock I will keep it:

Let me pass through all thy flock to-day, removing from thence every young one that is speckled and spotted and every young one that is dark-coloured among the young sheep, and spotted and speckled among the goats, and they shall he my wages.

And my righteousness shall answer for me on a future day, when thou shall come in respecting my hire that is before thee, Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and dark-coloured among the young sheep, stolen, shall it be accounted, if found with me.

Then said Laban, Lo! would it might he according to thy word!

So he removed, on that day, the he-goats that were striped and spotted and all the she-goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white in it, and every dark-coloured one among the young sheep, - and delivered then into the hand of his sons;

then put he a journey of three days between himself and Jacob, - but, Jacob himself, continued tending the flocks of Laban that were left.

So then Jacob took him rods of young storax, and hazel and maple, - and peeled in them white stripes, laying bare the white which was on the rods.

And he set the reds which he had peeled, in the channels in the troughs of water, - where the flocks came in to drink straight before the flocks, and the females of the flock used to be in heat when they came in to drink;

and the males of the flock were in heat before the rods, - so the flocks brought forth ring-straked, speckled, and spotted.

The rams also, did Jacob separate, and then set the faces of the flocks towards the ring-straked and all the dark-coloured, among the flocks of Laban, - and he put his own droves by themselves, and put them not with the flocks of Laban.

So it came to pass whensoever the stronger of the flocks were in heat, that Jacob set the rods before the eyes of the flocks in the channels, - that the females might be in heat among the rods;

but, when the flocks were late in bearing, he did not set them, - and so the late-born were Laban's, out the strong ones Jacob's.

Thus did the man break forth, exceedingly, - thus came he to have flocks in abundance, and maid-servants, and men-servants and camels and asses.