Jacob Gets Laban's Goat(s)

Jacob had been in Haran far too long and he was eager to go home, so after his son Joseph was born he went to his uncle Laban and said to him, "It's time for me to leave here and go back to my own country.  I've earned the right.  I served you for many years. Let me take my wives and my children and let me leave here peacefully, for you know how well and hard I have worked for you these many years."

Laban said to him, "I mean no offense but I have learned from my gods that your god, the Lord Yahweh, has been good to me because of you.  I want you to stay here with me—so name your price and I will give you whatever you ask, just as long as you remain here.” 

Jacob said to him, "Laban, you know I have served you well and you can see how well your flocks and herds have multiplied under my care.  You know that you had few cattle and little wealth before I came and you can see how your flocks and herds have increased under my care.  Yes, Laban, the Lord Yahweh has been good to you.  Now I have to take care of my family and provide for them.”

Laban said reluctantly, "What shall I give you when you leave?"

Jacob said, "You don't have to give me anything—except for this one thing.  I will take care of your flock again for a little while longer. I want to go home with a flock of my own, so let me go through your flocks of sheep and goats and separate out every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats—these unwanted sheep and  goats shall be my wages.  Before I leave here my honesty and integrity will speak for me when you come to inspect the sheep and goats that I am taking with me.  I will take just the ones you agreed shall be my wages.  See for yourself that I do not take anything that does not belong to me. Every animal that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen."

Laban said, "Good! It's settled, that's the way it will be."

Later that day while Jacob was taking some of Laban's sheep and goats to a nearby pasture Laban went through the rest of his herd of goats and sheep and removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, and every lamb that was black.  He told his sons to take these sheep and goats that he had removed from his flock to fields far away where Jacob could not find them, a distance of about three days journey, so when Jacob went through the herd later he would not find any animals that he could take for his own flock. 

Jacob soon discovered what his father in law Laban had done, so to get back at him he cut sapling trees and peeled strips of bark from them, exposing the white of the wood beneath the bark.  He set the saplings in front of Laban's sheep and goats as they drank from the troughs where the flocks came to drink.  Since they often mated when they came to drink, the sheep and goats that were bred in front of the saplings produced young sheep and goats that were striped, speckled, and spotted.  Jacob separated the lambs that were striped, speckled and spotted, or were completely black, from the flock of Laban and kept them separate. 

Whenever the strongest and healthiest of the flock were breeding, Jacob put the saplings where the sheep and goats could see them, but when the weaker ones in the flock were drinking at the trough Jacob did not put out the rods.  When the sheep and goats had offspring, the stronger ones, that were now striped, or speckled, or spotted, or black, belonged to Jacob, and the weaker ones, that were all white, belonged to Laban.  So Jacob got very rich, and had large flocks, and many male and female slaves, and many camels and donkeys.

Jacob heard a rumor that Laban's sons were complaining that Jacob had taken their father's wealth and his flocks (although they did not know how he had done it) and Jacob began to sense trouble coming.  Jacob noticed that Laban was not as friendly as he had been previously.  In fact he was getting hostile and Jacob began to fear for his safety. So Lord Yahweh said to Jacob, "You have to get out of here—quickly. It's time to go.  Return home.  I will go with you and protect you."

Jacob sent word to Rachel and Leah to meet him in the pasture where his flock was, and when his daughters arrived he said them, "I have noticed that your father does not regard me as favorably as he once did. But Lord Yahweh, the god of my father, has been with me. You know I served your father Laban as well as I could, yet your father cheated me and changed my wages ten times, but Yahweh would not permit him to harm me.  If Laban said, 'The speckled sheep shall be your wages,' then all the flock was speckled; and if he said, 'The striped sheep shall be your wages,' then all the flock was striped.  So Yahweh has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me.”

Jacob continued, “During the mating of the flock I dreamed that the male goats that mated with the female goats were striped, speckled, and mottled. Yahweh's messenger said to me in the dream, 'Jacob,' and I said, 'Here I am!'  And he said, 'Notice that all the goats that are mating with the flock are striped, speckled, and mottled.  I have seen what Laban has been doing to you and I am paying him back for cheating you.  I am Yahweh, the God of Bethel, where you once set up a pillar and made a promise to me.  You must leave this land immediately and return to the land of your birth.' "

Rachel and Leah said to Jacob, "Is there anything left of our father's possessions for us to inherit? Doesn't he treat us as foreigners?  He sold us out, and he has been using up the money that should be our inheritance.  All the property that Yahweh has taken away from our father belongs to us and to our children.  So do what you must do.  Obey Lord Yahweh.”

Jacob prepared to leave immediately.  He set his children and his wives on camels, he packed up everything that he had acquired in Haran, and he drove his flocks and livestock in front of him, and headed toward the home of his father Isaac in the land of Canaan.

Laban had gone to another field to shear his sheep, and while he was out of the house Rachel stole her father's household gods.  Jacob did not tell Laban he was leaving but fled quickly with everything he had, crossed the Euphrates River, and headed toward the hill country of Gilead.  Three days later Laban found out that Jacob had fled so he took his tribesmen with him and pursued Jacob for seven days until he caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead.  Yahweh warned Laban in a dream that night to, "Be careful that you say nothing to Jacob, either good or bad."

Jacob was camping in the hill country and Laban and his tribesmen were camped nearby.  In the morning Laban walked over to Jacob's camp and said to Jacob, "What have you done? You have deceived me, and carried away my daughters like captives won in battle.  Why did you flee secretly without telling me? I would have sent you away with a feast in friendship and with singing, with the music of the tambourine and lyre. Why did you not give me a chance to kiss my sons and my daughters farewell?  What you have done is foolish.  I have enough armed men with me to do you harm; but Yahweh, the God of your father, spoke to me last night, saying, 'Be careful that you say nothing to Jacob, either good nor bad.'  I realize you had to go because you longed greatly for your father's house, but why did you steal my household gods?"

Jacob answered Laban, "I left quickly because I was afraid of you, because I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force, but I did not take your gods and if you find your gods with any one of us that person shall not live.  In the presence of our kinsfolk as witnesses, point out what I have that is yours, and take it."

Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the gods.  So Laban went first into Jacob's tent, then into Leah's tent, and then into the tent of the two maids, but he did not find them.  He left Leah's tent and entered Rachel's. Rachel had left her tent and had taken the household gods and put them in the camel's saddle and sat on them.  Laban felt all about in the tent, but did not find them. 

Rachel said to her father, "Don't be angry with me that I cannot rise before you, but I am having my period."  So Laban searched, but did not find the household gods.

Then Jacob became angry and scolded Laban.  He said to Laban, "What have I done wrong? Why did you hotly pursued me like a criminal?  I let you search through all my goods and you have found nothing that belongs to you!  If you have a complaint against me make it here before my kinsfolk and your kinsfolk, so that they may decide which of us is right.”

'For twenty years I worked with you.  I was a good manager of your herds.  Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried while I was in charge of them. I did not even take animals from your flock to eat. Any of your animals that were in my charge that were killed by wild beasts I made up to you from my own flock and I bore the loss myself.   If an animal was stolen, whether in the day or in the night, I made it up to you. I cared for your flocks when the heat consumed me, and when I was cold at night, and when I was unable to sleep.  Twenty years I have been in your household, working faithfully for you.  I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for my flock, and you have reduced my wages ten times.  If the gods of my ancestors, the god of my father, the Shield of Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away with nothing. Lord Yahweh saw my troubles and how hard I had worked, and rebuked you last night."

Laban answered Jacob, "The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do today about these daughters of mine, or about their children whom they have borne?  Let us make a covenant of peace between you and me, and let there be a witness here between us." 

So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar, and he said to his tribesmen, "Gather stones," and they took stones, and made a pile of stones and then they ate together there by the pile.

Laban said, "This pile of stones is a witness of the agreement we just made. May your god the Lord Yahweh keep his eye on us when we are out of each other's sight.  If you mistreat my daughters, or if you take other wives in addition to my daughters, even though no one else knows it,  remember that Yahweh is witness to whatever goes on that affects this agreement between us."

Then Laban said to Jacob, "You see this pile of stones, and you see the pillar which we have set up as a witness to our agreement.  This is a boundary line between us.  I will not pass beyond this heap of stones to do you harm, and you will not pass beyond this pile of stones to do me harm.   May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor be the guarantors of our promise.”

So Jacob swore an oath by the Fear of his father Isaac, and offered a sacrifice on nearby high ground and gathered his tribesmen together to eat bread with Laban's tribesmen, and they partied together all night on the hillside. Early the next morning Laban kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them.  Then he departed and returned home.

 

Abraham, Lot, Isaac, and Jacob are patronyms, that is, they are the presumptive ancestors that gave their names to tribes, each of whom played a part in the folk memory of the later combination of tribes that became Israel.  Each had a tribal god (such as the Shield of Abraham, the Fear of Isaac) as protector.  Just as the tribes merged to form the Hebrew people, so their tribal gods were merged into the powerful national god Lord Yahweh.  Household gods were an important symbol to these nomadic tribal peoples not only because they were symbolic of the protector god of the tribe, but because possession of these household gods represented tribal leadership and the right of inheritance.  Whoever possessed them was heir to possessions and power. A covenant is a contract or agreement and could be between gods and people, or among tribes, and it was common to memorialize agreements with an upright pillar, or with a pile of stones, or both, as in this story.