Jacob Increases (Genesis 30:25-43)

Sometime after his second seven-year service, and after Joseph is born, Jacob tells Laban he is ready to take his family and go home. But Laban has prospered greatly with Jacob’s presence, and he knows it is God who is causing the blessing. He does not want Jacob to leave. He wants to continue to take advantage of Jacob. Jacob proposes an arrangement for his continued service.

This is where Jacob’s story has always gone from being a theological challenge to a detail one. If I understand the details correctly, it seems he suggests that all of the spotted and striped sheep and goats born to the solid-colored flocks he tends will be his. He allows Laban to remove the spotted and stripped sheep and goats to begin. Even with no knowledge of genetics back then, shepherding people understood that solid animals bear solid offspring. With no spotted or striped stock, Jacobs offer seems foolish.

But Laban was right. God was prospering Jacob as the promise to Abraham had… promised. And, even though Jacob uses some prescientific processes to sway things his way, what sheep look at while they are pairing does not influence the offspring. God does. And Jacob turns the tables on Laban at last. His new flocks grew in number and vitality while the solid flocks he tended for Laban did not reproduce as greatly and became weaker.

In Jacob’s time of exile, God was faithful. Jacob went from being a lone, penniless wanderer, to a man with a large family and great wealth.

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