A Growing Family and Contested Prosperity

“Or else I die” is literally “and if not, dead am I”. Genesis will give Rachel what she asks for twice over, and the second son costs her life: she dies giving birth to Benjamin on the road to Ephrath (35:16–19).

“Am I in God’s stead?” is the very question Rachel’s son Joseph puts to his brothers after Jacob’s death, “am I in the place of God?” (50:19). From Jacob it is an angry refusal; from Joseph it will be a refusal to take revenge.

“That I may also have children by her” is literally “that I too may be built up from her”, ibbaneh, the verb Sarah used when she gave Hagar to Abram (16:2). Hebrew hears ben, son, in banah, build. Bearing “upon my knees” is a gesture of adoption, repeated when Joseph’s great-grandchildren are “brought up upon Joseph’s knees” (50:23).

Bilhah is given “to wife”, ishah, but in 35:22 she is called Jacob’s concubine, pilegesh. The status of a maid-wife sat between the two, and Genesis uses both words of her.

Bilhah’s first son is the ancestor of the tribe that produced Samson, whose father Manoah was “of the family of the Danites” (Judges 13:2). The birth is recorded as briefly as a register entry, with nothing of Bilhah’s own.

Dan comes from din, to judge or vindicate: God has taken up her case. Jacob plays on the same word in 49:16, “Dan shall judge his people.” The tribe’s city in the far north gave Israel its phrase for the whole land, “from Dan even to Beersheba”.

Naphtali’s territory became Galilee. Barak came from Kedesh-naphtali (Judges 4:6), and Isaiah 9:1 names “the land of Naphtali” among the places that walked in darkness and saw a great light.

“Great wrestlings” is naftulei elohim, “wrestlings of God”, which may mean mighty wrestlings or wrestlings over God’s favour. “Prevailed” is yakhol, the word the man at Peniel uses to Jacob in 32:28: “hast prevailed.” Rachel prevails over her sister before Jacob prevails with God.

Leah already has four sons when she gives Zilpah to Jacob, so this is not childlessness but the contest. “Left bearing” uses the same phrase as 29:35. Rachel’s method is copied within a single verse.

Zilpah’s first son is Gad, a tribe that with Reuben later asks to settle east of the Jordan because both had “a very great multitude of cattle” (Numbers 32:1). The Hebrew calls the birth plainly “to Jacob”, and Leah’s name is attached to the maid.

The written Hebrew reads bagad, “in good fortune”, and the reading tradition splits it, ba gad, “fortune has come”. Gad means luck, and Isaiah 65:11 condemns those who set a table for Gad, the god of fortune. The King James “troop” follows another sense of the word, used in 49:19.

Asher is the tribe of Anna the prophetess, “of the tribe of Aser”, who spoke of the child Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:36). Zilpah bears her second son in words matching Bilhah’s in verse 7: the two maids are recorded in parallel.

Asher means happy, and “Happy am I” is be-oshri; the same root opens Psalm 1, “Blessed is the man”. “Call me blessed” is ishsheruni, the verb of Proverbs 31:28, where the children of the capable wife “arise up, and call her blessed”.

Wheat harvest falls in May and June, when the mandrake’s yellow fruit ripens. Dudaim, mandrakes, sounds like dodim, love, and the plant was prized as a love charm; Song of Solomon 7:13 says “the mandrakes give a smell”. Reuben is only a boy, perhaps four or five.

This is the only recorded exchange between the two sisters until they answer Jacob together in 31:14. Rachel’s reply shows who ordered Jacob’s nights: “he shall lie with thee to night”, as though his nights were hers to grant.

“Surely I have hired thee” doubles the verb, sakhor sekhartikha, from sakhar, hire or wages, the word of Jacob’s bargains with Laban. Jacob says nothing through the whole mandrake episode. He comes in from the field and finds himself already paid for.

Rachel, who got the mandrakes, stays barren for years more. Leah, who gave them up, conceives. The verse credits the conception to God hearkening, which implies that Leah had prayed, though her prayer is not recorded.

Issachar is heard as yesh sakhar, “there is hire”. Leah attaches the reward to giving her maid rather than to the mandrake bargain, reinterpreting the word she just used of Jacob. Jacob’s blessing makes Issachar a strong ass that “became a servant unto tribute” (49:14–15).

The sixth son makes Leah the mother of half of Jacob’s twelve sons. From her come both Levi, the priestly tribe, and Judah, the royal one: the unloved wife is the mother of the priesthood and the kingship.

Zebulun carries two puns. Zeved is a gift, “a good dowry”, and zabal means to honour or dwell, the root of zevul, the “house to dwell in” of 1 Kings 8:13. Leah hopes that six sons will at last make Jacob dwell with her. It is her last recorded hope of it.

Dinah is named without any explanation, the only child in the list whose name is not given a meaning. It comes from din, judgment, the root of Dan’s name. She is the only daughter Genesis names, though 37:35 speaks of Jacob’s “daughters”.

“God remembered” is said of Noah in the ark (8:1) and of Abraham when Lot was brought out of Sodom (19:29), and it will be said of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:19. Three verbs in a row, remembered, hearkened, opened: Rachel’s long barrenness ends in a single sentence.

“Reproach” is cherpah, the shame of childlessness. Elisabeth uses the same thought in Luke 1:25, “to take away my reproach among men.” “Taken away” is asaf, which sounds like Joseph’s name, so the name is explained once here by removal.

The name is explained a second time, by yasaf, to add: “Joseph” means may he add. It is a prayer in the form of a name. Rachel changes from “God” in verse 23 to “the LORD” here, turning thanks for the past into a request to the covenant God for the future.

Joseph’s birth seems to fall at the end of the fourteen years of service for the wives (31:41), when Jacob was free to leave. “Mine own place” uses maqom, the word of Bethel. “Send me away” is what the servant asked of this same family in 24:54.

“Give me my wives and my children” sounds as if they were Laban’s to give, and Laban will claim exactly that in 31:43: “These daughters are my daughters, and these children are my children.” Some scholars compare ancient contracts in which a man who married by service could not take his family without leave.

“I have learned by experience” is nichashti, I have divined, from nachash, the reading of omens that Deuteronomy 18:10 forbids. The same word is used of Joseph’s silver cup, “whereby indeed he divineth” (44:5). Laban has discovered by divination what Jacob could have told him.

“Appoint me thy wages” is the second time Laban has asked Jacob to name his price; in 29:15 the answer was Rachel. The verb naqav means to specify, to pin down, and Laban will change whatever is pinned down ten times (31:7).

Jacob answers the offer with his record: “thou knowest how I have served thee.” He will list the same service in fuller and angrier detail in 31:38–40, the heat by day and the frost by night.

“Since my coming” is literally “at my foot”, leragli, wherever I set foot. It is a rare idiom for blessing following a person. The last question, “when shall I provide for mine own house also?”, is fourteen years overdue.

“Thou shalt not give me any thing” keeps Laban from later claiming to have made Jacob rich, as Abram refused the king of Sodom’s goods “lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich” (14:23). The parallel is an inference; the refusal is plain.

Sheep in the region were usually white and goats usually black or dark brown, so the marked animals were the minority. “Brown” is chum, dark or black, unusual in a sheep. Jacob asks for the odd ones out, a wage that looks small.

“In time to come” is literally “tomorrow”, be-yom machar. “Stolen”, ganuv, is a word the next chapter keeps using: Jacob “stole away” from Laban and Rachel stole his gods (31:19–20). The accounting is meant to prevent theft; the family will leave in a cloud of it.

Laban’s answer is two particles, hen lu, “behold, if only”, a wish more than a commitment. He agrees to Jacob’s words and acts against their spirit the same day.

“Ringstraked” is 1611 English for ring-streaked, marked in bands of colour. Laban does the sorting himself, “that day”, before Jacob can, and hands the marked animals to his sons. They appear here for the first time; in 31:1 they will be the ones complaining that Jacob has taken their father’s wealth.

Three days’ journey puts the marked stock well out of reach. The distance comes back in 31:22, when Laban hears “on the third day” that Jacob has fled: the gap Laban created becomes Jacob’s head start.

Laban means white, and every detail here plays on it. The poplar is livneh, from the same root; Jacob peels the rods to make “the white”, lavan, appear. Hazel is luz, the old name of Bethel (28:19). Jacob beats Laban at his own name.

“Gutters” are the channels leading to the troughs. “Conceive” is yacham, to be in heat, from a root meaning warmth. Many ancient writers believed that what a mother saw at conception marked her young; Jacob acts on that belief, and 31:10–12 will put the result down to God.

Ringstraked, speckled and spotted are aqudim, nequddim and teluim. Aqudim comes from aqad, to bind, the verb used when Abraham bound Isaac in 22:9: animals marked with bands, as if tied round with a cord.

Jacob now does without the rods and uses the animals themselves, turning Laban’s flock to face the banded and dark ones he owns. “His own flocks by themselves” is the first time in twenty years that Jacob has anything that is only his.

“The stronger” is mequssharot, literally knit together, firmly built, sturdy. Jacob breeds selectively from the best animals, and that part of his method at least would work in any age.

“Feeble” is atufim, faint or weak, from a verb Jonah uses of his soul fainting within him (Jonah 2:7). The division of the flock ends in a single balanced line: the feeble to Laban, the strong to Jacob.

“The man increased exceedingly” echoes what was said of Isaac in 26:13, “the man waxed great”. Camels appear in Jacob’s possession for the first time, and he will need them: in 31:17 he sets his sons and wives upon camels to leave.