Sticks - Genesis 30:37-43

30:37-43 – I’m not exactly sure how the arrangement between Jacob and Laban was made, I know that all the white sheep and black goats belonged to Laban and Jacob took ownership of all the spotted and speckled goats and sheep. What I don’t understand is that if new animals were born, did they split up the animal again giving each all white sheep and all black goat to Laban and Jacob kept the rest? We see that in the rest of chapter 30 there is an elaborate ritual spelled out that Jacob did while breeding the animals so that the animals would look at spotted sticks and give birth to spotted animals. There are several things that we can infer from the inclusion of these events in the narrative.

First, we can infer that indeed, every generation of animal births were redistributed between Jacob and Laban. Say there originally was 100 animals and Laban kept 70 and Jacob kept 30, then Jacob or Laban could relocate and just keep the animals that they have and breed them however they want and build their fortune from there. The fact that Jacob was still trying to have as many spotted and speckled baby animals as possible meant that they were still splitting up the animals amongst themselves every birthing season. This actually makes Jacob’s prosperity even more miraculous because if Jacob had just taken his share of the animals and left, then any increase he had could have been attributed to better food, water, shelter for the animals, it could be luck of the draw, or the age of the animals in giving birth. But because both Jacob and Laban’s flocks were divided each time new babies were born, God’s majesty and favor for Jacob could have been plainly displayed for all to see. Both flocks would have been subject to the same environmental conditions, the same food, water, and shelter, the only difference would have been their coloring, which couldn’t be attributed to any factor except pure chance, meaning the hand of God.

Secondly, we can see that Jacob still held superstitions that weren’t rooted in gospel truth. I think it’s hard for us to look back at the patriarchs from 4,000 years ago and not hold them to the same standard that we have. Abraham was chosen by God as the founding father of Israel, not because he was perfect, but because he was one of the most righteous at the time, and because, as Abraham himself tells us in the Pearl of Great Price, he desired to know the truth about God and actively searched for it. When we look at Ishmael and Esau and think, “well they rejected the gospel,” we have to stop and ask ourselves just how much of the gospel they actually knew at the time. How accountable were they for marrying outside of the covenant, if there was no covenant at the time for them to abide in. We see Jacob being sent off to find a wife amongst Rebekah’s family because she couldn’t stomach the thought of one of the local tribes being brought into her family through Jacob like Esau did, but we have to ask ourselves, did Esau know that there was a strict command to marry only amongst those who shared the beliefs of the one true God? Did anyone actually have knowledge of the belief in the one true God? We’ll see later that even Laban and his family members such as Rachel still practiced idolatry, so how much did they really know and how much did they really reject at the time?