Spots and Speckles - Genesis 30:22-36

30:22-24 - There are just so many kids running around at this point, and I’m not exactly sure who is raising which ones and even all those that aren’t mentioned, specifically the girls. And it’s difficult for me to understand just how much time has passed because it’s just a few verses but so much has happened. After all these years, just like for the other matriarchs, Sarah and Rebekah, “God remembered Rachel… and opened her womb. And she conceived, and bare a son.” Of course God had not “forgotten” Rachel because God is all knowing, but it’s put like that probably because that’s how people spoke back then, I guess it would be kind of awkward to say, “and then God’s will appointed that it was now time for Rachel to have a son,” because it begs the question, “why”? Rachel’s son is born and she names him Joseph, because “The Lord shall add to me another son.” I was/am confused about what this means, is she saying that Joseph was another son because she was raising Bilhah’s boys as her own? Or is she saying that she anticipates having another son after Joseph, which would be presumptuous. Overall, one thing that I noticed is that this name doesn’t signify anything about Joseph’s birth specifically, but more like just one in a number of many others.

30:25-36 - It’s been about 14 years since Jacob started working for Laban and about 7 years into Jacob’s marriage to all these women, which if you think about it, means Leah had a ton of babies in a very short period of time. This time is specifically set out because Rachel had already given birth to Joseph when Jacob goes to Laban and says, “Send me away, that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country. Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served thee, and let me go.” He’s saying that he already served Laban the seven years for Rachel and the additional seven years because of Leah, and he’s done with Laban taking advantage of him. It’s not just that Laban tricked Jacob into marrying Leah, but he’s been actively screwing Jacob this whole time, as we will see later.

I don’t know how surprised Laban is that Jacob wants to leave and go home, and any reservation Laban has about letting Jacob just walk away is all about business and has nothing to do with the daughters and grandkids that would be leaving as well. Laban answers, “tarry: for I have learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake.” There’s no “don’t take away my beloved daughters and grandchildren, I would be miserable if they left,” instead it’s “I do really well in business when you are around so stick with me.” Laban sucks.

Jacob had been working for the last 14 years without pay, I think, as per the agreement to marry Rachel and Leah had been worked out with Laban. Interestingly, in the next chapter we’ll see that the seven years of labor for each wife was supposed to be the women’s dowry. Meaning that whatever Laban would have paid Jacob for his labors was supposed to have been put aside and given to Rachel and Leah on their wedding days as kind of an insurance policy against death or divorce. Instead of giving that money to his daughters to protect them, as was the custom and perhaps even legally, Laban kept all that money for Jacob’s labors for himself. In fact, we’ll see that the custom was that the groom or the groom’s father paid or worked to earn about 3 years worth of wages to give to the bride when they got married, so Jacob more than doubled that. By that account, both Rachel and Leah should have had a lot of money given to them by Laban that Jacob had earned to secure their futures, but he didn’t.

Laban doesn’t want Jacob to leave because he is prospered abundantly with him being in his household, so Laban says “appoint me thy wages, and I will give it.” Laban basically says, “fine, name your price.” Jacob’s like “look, you didn’t have hardly anything when I got here and now you are incredibly prosperous. I’ve spent all this time building up your household wealth, when am I going to start building my own?” Because Laban’s holdings had increased so much since Jacob got there, they agreed on the terms that Jacob would take all the “speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats.” This was actually a very smart solution because which ones are Jacob’s and which ones are Laban’s would have been very obvious. Additionally, according to the lecturer from the Torah Class, the majority of sheep were white anciently, as well as the majority of cattle and goats being monochromatic, so those animals that were spotted or speckled would have been a smaller number than the regularly colored ones, meaning that Jacob would have taken a significantly smaller portion of animals and left Laban with the vast majority so there could be no disputing fairness among the division.

Jacob spend the rest of the day taking his new animals, and then apparently Laban picked up his household and moved three days journey away from Jacob and his household, or maybe it was Jacob who moved away, I’m not exactly sure because there is some mention of Laban’s sons in there and who knows what ended up happening with all those players trying to get their own piece of the pie.