Genesis 30:39 - Forerunner Commentary

Genesis 30:39

37 Now ^aJacob took for himself rods of green poplar and of the almond and chestnut trees, peeled white strips in them, and exposed the white which was in the rods.

38 And the rods which he had peeled, he set before the flocks in the gutters, in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink, so that they should conceive when they came to drink.

39 So the flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks brought forth streaked, speckled, and spotted.

40 Then Jacob separated the lambs, and made the flocks face toward the streaked and all the brown in the flock of Laban; but he put his own flocks by themselves and did not put them with Laban’s flock.

41 And it came to pass, whenever the stronger livestock conceived, that Jacob placed the rods before the eyes of the livestock in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods.

42 But when the flocks were feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s.

Commentaries:

No entry exists in Forerunner Commentary for Genesis 30:39.

Genesis 30:37-43

In addition to the speckled sheep and goats there was the matter of the partially peeled branches.

When Jacob took partially peeled, stripped, and spotted branches and placed them in the watering troughs so that they would be in front of flocks when they came to drink, did he believe that merely seeing the striped and spotted branches would cause the animals to give birth to spotted offspring? No, he did not. God commanded him [Genesis 31:9-12] to set up a striped branches, which he did, not as a physical means to the end of producing striped or spotted offspring, but rather as a symbol of Jacob’s faith and obedience.

Remember in a parallel situation God later caused Moses to set up a bronze snake in the wilderness when the people had been bitten by serpents. The people were not healed by the snake, they were healed by God through faith expressed in their obedience in looking to the snake. They were not looking to the snake for any power or healing, rather it was a symbol of what God was going to do.

In a parallel, but not identical way, Jacob’s trust in God would have been similarly rewarded. In the next chapter, Jacob speaks of having had a dream about streaked, speckled, and spotted cattle in which God spoke to him. It may be that God told him what to do on that occasion.

Excerpted from Created to Do God's Will and Work

Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Genesis 30:39:

Genesis 31:8-13

<< Genesis 30:38

Genesis 30:40 >>

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