Jacob's Prosperity

Story: Jacob’s Prosperity

Passage: Genesis 30:25-43

Characters: Jacob, Laban

Summary: Once Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob asked to leave Laban. Laban had learned through divination that his wealth had come because of Jacob. Laban was trying to convince Jacob to stay by offering him wages. Jacob asked for the speckled and the striped livestock in his flocks. Laban agreed and then removed all of the striped and speckled animals. Jacob set striped sticks in front of the animals and they bred and gave birth to striped and spotted young. Jacob would put the sticks in front of the strong flocks but not the weak ones, so his share of livestock was stronger and healthier than Laban’s. Thus Jacob’s wealth increased.

Notes: This is one of the most confusing passages in Genesis for me. I have no idea what Jacob was doing with the sticks and things. But here are my thoughts on the passage in general. First of all, Jacob wanted to leave as soon as Joseph was born. Basically, as soon as the wife he loved gave birth, he was ready to go home. Laban had consulted pagan gods and discovered that Jacob was why Laban was wealthy. Really, he could have figured that out on his own. A hard working motivated man started working for him, he got rich, end of story. But however he discovered this, he didn’t want Jacob to leave. He had found a good worker in Jacob and was trying to set wages for him. Wages involves work. Laban didn’t want to lose Jacob as a worker. Jacob wanted to provide for his family. Laban’s wages probably didn’t support a family of eleven very well! Jacob asked for flocks, but only the ones who were striped or spotted. This way, Laban would know Jacob was not stealing the animals. But Laban removed all the marked flocks three days journey away. Jacob was not deterred though. He carved stripes into sticks and put them in front of the animals as they were breeding. This apparently caused them to breed striped and spotted young. Jacob might have known some tricks about animal breeding which we don’t. He was around animals a lot. Maybe this was a legitimate technique; maybe God just blessed his efforts. Maybe Jacob’s technique was in obedience to God. I don’t know, all I know is it worked! Jacob then employed natural selection and only used the sticks with the strong animals. So he ended up with the strongest flocks. God blessed his efforts and Jacob became wealthy over this period of time.

Questions: What was going on with the sticks? What did Jacob think of Laban at this point? Why did Jacob want to leave as soon as Joseph was born?

Lessons: We can learn quite a bit from Jacob’s hard working attitude. It is obvious that he was not with Laban to work. His first seven years of work was done to marry his wife. The second was to marry Rachel. This period was done to obtain flocks to take home. Laban was obviously not a very kind person. He was using Jacob for his own personal gain. Jacob still worked hard and focused on the long term reward. We can learn from this as we are to do everything as if for the Lord and not men. If we work to please imperfect selfish men, we will not be satisfied. If we focus on Christ and our eternal reward though, work can be pleasant, fun, and fulfilling.