Speckled, spotted and streaked

Gen. 30:15-43. Jacob had worked years for father-in-law, Laban, and after the birth of his son, Joseph, thought it was high time that he headed back home to his parents. He certainly didn’t owe Laban a thing, having worked steadfastly during all his time in Padan Aram.

Laban knew a good thing when he saw it though, and admitted that the Lord had blessed him because of Jacob’s wise management of his possessions. He told Jacob that he could “name his wages” if he’d stay and work for him.

Jacob too knew that “the Lord has blessed [Laban] wherever [Jacob] had been” and he came up with a suggestion for building his own flocks, based on whether they were speckled, streaked or spotted. Laban agreed to the wage suggestion, but removed all the spotted, streaked and speckled males from his flocks and removed himself from Jacob by a three-day journey.

I know nothing about animal husbandry, but Jacob managed to induce the flocks to produce spotted, streaked and speckled lambs and he became increasingly prosperous, coming “to own large flocks, and maidservants and menservants, and camels and donkeys.” So trickster Laban was outwitted by his son-in-law, who this time, did not use treachery as he had in his youth, but the knowledge he had gained by years of working with the flocks and by God’s blessing and provision (see Genesis 31:10-12).

Genesis 31:1-21. Such prosperity did not go unnoticed by Laban’s sons, who essentially accused Jacob of stealing from their father. At this point, the Lord Himself intervened and told Jacob to do what Jacob had wanted to do all along: “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.” God had been with Jacob all along, as was obvious by the way Jacob had prospered, but there must have been times when Jacob wondered whether God was actually present as he suffered under Laban’s self-centered control.

Jacob distrusted Laban and his family enough to call Leah and Rachel to come out to the fields for a family conference. He presented his case to them of the need to leave the area, saying that their father had continually cheated him, but he affirmed the fact that God had protected him and prospered him in spite of Laban’s efforts to undermine him. Apparently Rachel and Leah felt that their father had misused them as well, since they indicated their own dissatisfaction with the current living arrangements and agreed eagerly to leave and “do whatever God has told you.” So Jacob and his family fled with all they had, heading for the hill country of Gilead. What Jacob did not know was that Rachel had stolen her father’s household gods on her way out of town.

Jacob could have become a bitter man by this point. Although he was a man of wealth, it had not come to him easily, and he had been mistreated by his father-in-law for years. His situation was somewhat similar to that which his descendants would later endure when they spent forty years in the desert waiting to enter the promised land. Jacob might have resonated with what Moses said to the Israelites hundreds of years later: “The Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through the vast desert. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you and you have not lacked anything.” (Deut. 2:7) Hopefully, in the waiting pattern of life with Laban, Jacob had been aware of God’s presence and had felt His hand protecting and guiding him. Blessing had come to him even in the midst of difficulty.

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