Genesis 30 – Study
For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.
Passage: Genesis 30:9-24
9 When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. 10 Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. 11 Then Leah said, ‘What good fortune!’ So she named him Gad. [Gad can mean good fortune or a troop.]
12 Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. 13 Then Leah said, ‘How happy I am! The women will call me happy.’ So she named him Asher. [Asher means happy]
14 During wheat harvest, Reuben went out into the fields and found some mandrake plants, which he brought to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, ‘Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.’
15 But she said to her, ‘Wasn’t it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son’s mandrakes too?’
‘Very well,’ Rachel said, ‘he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.’
16 So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. ‘You must sleep with me,’ she said. ‘I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.’ So he slept with her that night.
17 God listened to Leah, and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a fifth son. 18 Then Leah said, ‘God has rewarded me for giving my servant to my husband.’ So she named him Issachar. [Issachar sounds like the Hebrew for reward.]
19 Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. 20 Then Leah said, ‘God has presented me with a precious gift. This time my husband will treat me with honour, because I have borne him six sons.’ So she named him Zebulun. [Zebulun probably means honour]
21 Some time later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.
22 Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and enabled her to conceive. 23 She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, ‘God has taken away my disgrace.’ 24 She named him Joseph, [Joseph means may he add] and said, ‘May the Lord add to me another son.’
Jacob’s flocks increase
A. Find Out:
- How did Leah “keep up” with Rachel? v.9
- Write down the names of her servant’s sons and the reasons for which they were given. v.10-13
- How did Leah next come to be with Jacob? v.14-16
- Write down the names of Leah’s subsequent children & the reasons for which they were given. v.17-21
- What subsequently happened to Rachel? v.22-24
B. Think:
- How is the Lord seen to be working in this passage?
- How would you describe the motivation in these two sisters?
- How many sons have been born so far to Jacob?
C. Comment:
First, we have “If you can play this game, then so can I” from Leah as she seeks to keep ahead of Rachel and allows Jacob to have children via her maid as Rachel had done. The competition is on in earnest! In all of this Jacob doesn’t seem to take any lead in seeking to bring peace between his two wives! Jacob can hardly be called the “leader” of this new nation that God is forming!
Then we have the strange episode of the mandrakes or “love apples” as they were sometimes known because superstition thought they increased fertility. Obviously it is because of this that Rachel wants them to overcome her own infertility. Ironically it is Leah who benefits by giving them away and not Rachel. Leah has obviously been praying (v.17) and bears two further sons and then a daughter. Rachel also appears to have been praying (v.22) and eventually bears Joseph who gives her hope for further childbearing. Eleven sons have been born of Jacob so far, but in what an atmosphere!
D. Application?
- “Keeping up” with others or are we secure in who we are with God?
- Are we peacemakers or do we just let argument go on around us?
- Do we present all our problems to God in prayer and keep on praying until answers come?
Passage: Genesis 30:25-43
25 After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, ‘Send me on my way so that I can go back to my own homeland. 26 Give me my wives and children, for whom I have served you, and I will be on my way. You know how much work I’ve done for you.’
27 But Laban said to him, ‘If I have found favour in your eyes, please stay. I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you.’ 28 He added, ‘Name your wages, and I will pay them.’
29 Jacob said to him, ‘You know how I have worked for you and how your livestock has fared under my care. 30 The little you had before I came has increased greatly, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I have been. But now, when may I do something for my own household?’
31 ‘What shall I give you?’ he asked.
‘Don’t give me anything,’ Jacob replied. ‘But if you will do this one thing for me, I will go on tending your flocks and watching over them: 32 let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-coloured lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages. 33 And my honesty will testify for me in the future, whenever you check on the wages you have paid me. Any goat in my possession that is not speckled or spotted, or any lamb that is not dark-coloured, will be considered stolen.’
34 ‘Agreed,’ said Laban. ‘Let it be as you have said.’ 35 That same day he removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the speckled or spotted female goats (all that had white on them) and all the dark-coloured lambs, and he placed them in the care of his sons. 36 Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob continued to tend the rest of Laban’s flocks.
37 Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. 38 Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, 39 they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted. 40 Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves, but made the rest face the streaked and dark-coloured animals that belonged to Laban. Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban’s animals. 41 Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so that they would mate near the branches, 42 but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob. 43 In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and female and male servants, and camels and donkeys.
A. Find Out:
- What did Jacob now want to do? v.25
- Why did Laban not want this? v.27
- How did he propose to stop it happening? v.28
- What did Jacob propose in reply? v.32
- Although agreeing, what did Laban do? v.35,36
- What was the result of Jacob’s strategy? v.43
B. Think:
- What sort of man is Laban shown to be here?
- What sort of man is Jacob shown to be?
- What is the Lord revealed as doing?
C. Comment:
Jacob has the feeling it is time to return home, but Laban recognizes that Jacob is the cause of his being blessed. He finds this out by occult means which should not be copied. It indicates in him the absence of a relationship with the Lord. Jacob, however, is clearly seen as being blessed in his work by God.
Because of that they enter into an agreement whereby Jacob can actually get benefit from the work he does, as he looks after Laban’s flocks. It is then that the deviousness of the two men starts to show itself in real earnestness.
Laban immediately takes action to remove the possible source of Jacob getting rich, by removing the very sheep he says Jacob can use and keep. Jacob on the other side, puts all his efforts (which appear somewhat strange) into increasing his flocks with little concern for Laban’s flocks. The method he used was the belief that offspring would reflect what their parents saw at conception. Whatever we may think, it worked, probably more because of God’s blessing than because of his own cleverness, with the result that Jacob grew very rich.
D. Application?
- Check today to see if you have a competitive spirit (which is stressful!) that is frequently vying with others to do better than them.
- Declare your trust in the Lord alone for blessing on your work and seek to please HIM first & foremost and achieve what HE wants.