Genesis 30:25 – 31:13

After Leah gave birth Jacob asked Laban to let him go home. It had been many years since Jacob had been home, and he was ready to go.

Laban asked him to stay and pointed out that he had been successful on account of Jacob. He asked Jacob to name his price and Laban would pay it.

Laban had already tricked Jacob in regard to wages when he gave Jacob Leah rather than Rachel for a wife. Now Jacob would be the deceptive one.

Jacob asked Laban to give him the spotted and speckled sheep from the flock. Laban agreed.

After they had separated by a three-day journey Jacob took fresh branches and cut them so the inner bark appeared. He put them in near the watering holes. Whenever the animals mated in front of these branches, speckled or spotted offspring would result.

Jacob followed this procedure only when the animals were strong. If they were weak, he did not set the branches in front of them. After following this practice, Jacob’s flock grew very large.

Did Jacob’s use of these sticks bring about the increase in the flocks? What is the basis of his action? The text does not tell us what led Jacob to follow this strange practice. It may have been something he concocted or may have been a superstition of that time. However, it did not give him the abundance he achieved.

God was the One who blessed him. Jacob himself recognizes this truth in a conversation to Rachel, “Thus God has taken away your father’s livestock and given them to me” (Gen 31:9).

Jacob tells her that God spoke to him in a dream saying, “I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you. I am the God of Bethel where you anointed a pillar, where you made a vow to Me; now arise; leave this land and return to the land of your birth” (31:12-13).

All of his deceit and trickery did not prosper Jacob. God chose to bless him even though Jacob used his cunning to try to manipulate the situation. God was being faithful to fulfill the earlier promises He had made to Abraham that had been reiterated to Isaac and Jacob.

It is no different for you and me today. God wants to bless us and does not need our trickery and human cunning. We should reject those behaviors and rest totally on Him. In fact, He may bless us even though we are unfaithful. Of course, that is no reason for us to continue to be unfaithful. Rather, it is a reason for us to love, praise and obey the Lord.

He has given us His precious and magnificent promises, and He will fulfill each one.

“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” - Romans 8:32