Genesis
Genesis 31
1Jacob heard Laban’s sons’ words, saying, “Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s. He has obtained all this wealth from that which was our father’s.” 2Jacob saw the expression on Laban’s face, and, behold, it was not toward him as before. 3Yahweh said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers, and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”
4Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field to his flock, 5and said to them, “I see the expression on your father’s face, that it is not toward me as before; but the God of my father has been with me. 6You know that I have served your father with all of my strength. 7Your father has deceived me, and changed my wages ten times, but God didn’t allow him to hurt me. 8If he said, ‘The speckled will be your wages,’ then all the flock bore speckled. If he said, ‘The streaked will be your wages,’ then all the flock bore streaked. 9Thus God has taken away your father’s livestock, and given them to me. 10During mating season, I lifted up my eyes, and saw in a dream, and behold, the male goats which leaped on the flock were streaked, speckled, and grizzled. 11The angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am.’ 12He said, ‘Now lift up your eyes, and behold, all the male goats which leap on the flock are streaked, speckled, and grizzled, for I have seen all that Laban does to you. 13I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar, where you vowed a vow to me. Now arise, get out from this land, and return to the land of your birth.’ ”
14Rachel and Leah answered him, “Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father’s house? 15Aren’t we considered as foreigners by him? For he has sold us, and has also used up our money. 16For all the riches which God has taken away from our father are ours and our children’s. Now then, whatever God has said to you, do.”
17Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives on the camels, 18and he took away all his livestock, and all his possessions which he had gathered, including the livestock which he had gained in Paddan Aram, to go to Isaac his father, to the land of Canaan. 19Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep; and Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father’s.
20Jacob deceived Laban the Syrian, in that he didn’t tell him that he was running away. 21So he fled with all that he had. He rose up, passed over the River, and set his face toward the mountain of Gilead.
22Laban was told on the third day that Jacob had fled. 23He took his relatives with him, and pursued him seven days’ journey. He overtook him in the mountain of Gilead. 24God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream of the night, and said to him, “Be careful that you don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.”
25Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountain, and Laban with his relatives encamped in the mountain of Gilead. 26Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done, that you have deceived me, and carried away my daughters like captives of the sword? 27Why did you flee secretly, and deceive me, and didn’t tell me, that I might have sent you away with mirth and with songs, with tambourine and with harp; 28and didn’t allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters? Now have you done foolishly. 29It is in the power of my hand to hurt you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful that you don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.’ 30Now, you want to be gone, because you greatly longed for your father’s house, but why have you stolen my gods?”
31Jacob answered Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I said, ‘Lest you should take your daughters from me by force.’ 32Anyone you find your gods with shall not live. Before our relatives, discern what is yours with me, and take it.” For Jacob didn’t know that Rachel had stolen them.
33Laban went into Jacob’s tent, into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of the two female servants; but he didn’t find them. He went out of Leah’s tent, and entered into Rachel’s tent. 34Now Rachel had taken the teraphim, put them in the camel’s saddle, and sat on them. Laban felt around all the tent, but didn’t find them. 35She said to her father, “Don’t let my lord be angry that I can’t rise up before you; for I’m having my period.” He searched, but didn’t find the teraphim.
36Jacob was angry, and argued with Laban. Jacob answered Laban, “What is my trespass? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me? 37Now that you have felt around in all my stuff, what have you found of all your household stuff? Set it here before my relatives and your relatives, that they may judge between us two.
38“These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not cast their young, and I haven’t eaten the rams of your flocks. 39That which was torn of animals, I didn’t bring to you. I bore its loss. Of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. 40This was my situation: in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from my eyes. 41These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. 42Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.”
43Laban answered Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine! What can I do today to these my daughters, or to their children whom they have borne? 44Now come, let’s make a covenant, you and I. Let it be for a witness between me and you.”
45Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar. 46Jacob said to his relatives, “Gather stones.” They took stones, and made a heap. They ate there by the heap. 47Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed. 48Laban said, “This heap is witness between me and you today.” Therefore it was named Galeed 49and Mizpah, for he said, “Yahweh watch between me and you, when we are absent one from another. 50If you afflict my daughters, or if you take wives in addition to my daughters, no man is with us; behold, God is witness between me and you.” 51Laban said to Jacob, “See this heap, and see the pillar, which I have set between me and you. 52May this heap be a witness, and the pillar be a witness, that I will not pass over this heap to you, and that you will not pass over this heap and this pillar to me, for harm. 53The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.” Then Jacob swore by the fear of his father, Isaac. 54Jacob offered a sacrifice in the mountain, and called his relatives to eat bread. They ate bread, and stayed all night in the mountain. 55Early in the morning, Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them. Laban departed and returned to his place.
Commentary
No commentary on this chapter yet.
What others are saying
5 commentators · 121 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry5
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
Jacob is here taking up a resolution immediately to quit his uncle's service, to take what he had and go back to Canaan. This resolution he took up upon a just provocation, by divine direction, and with the advice and consent of his wives. I. Upon a just…
Here is, I. Jacob's flight from Laban. We may suppose he had been long considering of it, and casting about in his mind respecting it; but when now, at last, God had given him positive orders to go, he made no delay, nor was he disobedient to the heavenly…
We have here the reasoning, not to say the rallying, that took place between Laban and Jacob at their meeting, in that mountain which was afterwards called Gilead, Gen 31:25. Here is, I. The high charge which Laban exhibited against him. He accuses him, 1. As…
John Gill55
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
And he heard the words of Laban's sons,.... That is, Jacob, as is expressed in the Septuagint and Syriac versions, either with his own ears, overhearing their discourse in their tents, or in the field, or from the report of others, his wives or some of his…
And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban,.... Upon this he observed Laban's looks, that he might gather from thence how he took his prosperity; what were his thoughts about it, and what he might expect from him on that account: and, behold, it was not…
And the Lord said unto Jacob,.... In answer to a prayer of his; or seeing what difficulties and discouragements Jacob laboured under, he appeared unto him for his encouragement and instruction how to proceed: return unto the land of thy fathers; the land of…
Adam Clarke27
The linguist of this set. Expect Hebrew and Greek word study, oriental custom, and geography — and an Arminian reading of grace and free will where Gill or Henry would read election. Note one real divergence: Clarke denied the eternal sonship of Christ, a position most of the tradition rejects, so read him closely on the person of Christ.
Why this voice is here: Where you want to know what a word actually says, Clarke is the one who will tell you — with the caveat above on Christ’s sonship.
And he heard the words of Laban's sons - The multiplication of Jacob's cattle, and the decrease and degeneracy of those of Laban, were sufficient to arouse the jealousy of Laban's sons. This, with Laban's unfair treatment, and the direction he received from…
And the Lord said unto Jacob, Return - and I will be with thee - I will take the same care of thee in thy return, as I took of thee on thy way to this place. The Targum reads, My Word shall be for thy help, see Gen 15:1. A promise of this kind was essentially…
Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah - He had probably been at some considerable distance with the flocks; and for the greater secrecy, he rather sends for them to the field, to consult them on this most momentous affair, than visit them in their tents…
Keil & Delitzsch16
The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.
Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.
אתּנה: the original form of the abbreviated אתּן, which is merely copied from the Pentateuch in Exo 13:11, Exo 13:20; Exo 34:17.
אביכם: for אביכן as in Gen 32:16, etc. - "Ten times:" i.e., as often as possible, the ten as a round number expressing the idea of completeness. From the statement that Laban had changed his wages ten times, it is evident that when Laban observed, that among…
The two wives naturally agreed with their husband, and declared that they had no longer any part or inheritance in their father's house. For he had not treated them as daughters, but sold them like strangers, i.e., servants. "And he has even constantly eaten…
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown18
The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.
Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.
And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban--literally, "was not the same as yesterday, and the day before," a common Oriental form of speech. The insinuations against Jacob's fidelity by Laban's sons, and the sullen reserve, the churlish conduct, of Laban…
the Lord said . . . Return unto the land of thy fathers--Notwithstanding the ill usage he had received, Jacob might not have deemed himself at liberty to quit his present sphere, under the impulse of passionate fretfulness and discontent. Having been…
Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah--His wives and family were in their usual residence. Whether he wished them to be present at the festivities of sheep shearing, as some think; or, because he could not leave his flock, he called them both to come to him…
World English Bible — Public domain