EXPOSITION. CH.APTER xxxr. certain that Jacob wns guilty of dishonesty V~r. 1.-And he-JRcob had now served in acting 11S he did) all that was our father's· twenty years with Laban, and must accord- -this we.s n manifest exaggeration ; sed ho~ ingly havo been in his ninety-seventh or morbo laborant sordidi et nimiwm tenaces, seventy-seventh year (vide eh. xxvii. 1)- ut Bibi ereptum esse putent quicq1,id 1w1i hee.rd the words of Le.ban's sons,-who wore ingurr,itant (Calvin)-snd of that which not ot this time only small youths about WIIS our father's hath he gotten (literally, fourteen years of ~ (Delitzsch), since they made, in the sense of 11<-'quiring, as in eh. were cave.ble of bemg entrusted with their xii. 6; l Sam. xiv. 48) e.11 this glory. ii:i? father's flocks (eh. x.uc. 36)-ee.ying (pro-I (from 1~?, to be heavy, hence to be grent in. bably in 11 conversation which had been over- f the sense of honoured, and also to bo abund- heru:d by Jacob), le.ooh he.th to.ken away (by· ant) signifies either glory, splendour, re- fraud is what they mennt, an opinion in nown, ool;a (LXX.), as in Job xiv. 21; or, which Kalisch agrees; but it is not quite what seems the preforablo meaning hero, 374 TI-iE BOOK OF GENESIS. [err. XXXI. 1-21.
,,ealth, riches, fa;;ultates (Vulgate), as in unused onomatopoeticroot, signifying to pa.nt, r~. xlix. 13; Nahum ii. 10. Tho two ideas and hence to exert one's strength, If, thel'!l• appear to be combined in 2 Cor. iv. 17; {3apo, fore, the assertion now made. to his wives oal;.,, (ef. Wordsworth, in loco). was not :m unblushing falsehood, Jacob could Ver. 2.-And J"acob beheld the counten- not have been tho monster of craft and de- ance of Le.ban, e.nd, behold, it (i. e. either ception depicted by some (Kalisch); wlille, if Laban or his countenance) was not toward him it was, it must hnve re9.uired considerable (literally, 1oith hirn) as before-literally, ru eff'ron tcry to a:ppeal to hl.S wives' know ledge yesterday and the day befo,·e. The evident for .a confirmat1on of what they knew to be 11 ch1tngo in Laban's disposition, which had deliberate untruth. The hypothesis . that pren.ously been friendly, was obviously em- Jacob first acquired his great wealth by ployed by God to direct Jacob's mind to tho " consummato cunning," and then. piously propriety of returning to the land of his " abused the authority of God in covering or inheritance; and the inclination thus started justifying them" (Kalisch), presupposes on in his soul was further strengthened and the part of Jacob a degree of wickedness in- confirmed by a revelation which probably conceivable in ono who had enjoyed the sub- soon after, if not ihe night following, was lime theophany of Bethel sent for his direction. Ver. 7.-And your father hath deceived Ver. 3.-And the Lord~ehovah; since 1 the entire journey to Padan-aram had been me,- '1:;ltl, the hiph. of ';,?~, means to rob conducted un-ier his special care, vide eh. or plunder (F;irst), or to cause. to fall, as in xxviii. 15 (Hengstenberg), and not because the cognate languages, whence to deceive the first three verses of this chapter have (Gesenius)-and changed my wages ten been inserted or modified by the J ehovist tim.es ;-i. e. many times, as in Numb. xiv. (Tuch, Bleck, et alii)-said unto Jacob,- 22 ; Job xi.x. 3 (Rosenmiiller, Bush, Kalisch, probably in a dream (cf. vers. 5, 10, 11)- Lange); as often as possible, the number ten Return unto the land of thy fathers (i. e. expressing the idea of completeness (Keil, Canaan), and to thy kindred; and I will be Murphy)-but God(Elohim, Jacobpnrposing with thee. So Jehovah had promised at to say that he had been protected, not by Bethel twenty years before (eh. xxviii. 15). human stratagem, but by Divine interposi- Ver. 4.-And Jacob sent-being unwilling tion) snffered him not to hurt me-literally, to approach the house lest Laban should dis- to do evil to me. The verb hero construed cover his design (Rosenmiiller)-and called with i~)! = Cll,I is sometimes followed by ~ll Rachel and Leah-Rachel may be placed (1 Kings xvii. 20), and sometimes by .;I (1 first as the beloved wife of Jacob (Words- worth, Lange), scarcely as the principal wife Chron. xvi 22). • in comparison with Leah, who was adventitia Ver. 8.-If he (i. e. Laban) said thus, The (Rosenmiiller; cf. ver. 14)-to the field unto speckled shall be thy wages ;-by the original his flock. The expression " his flock " indi- contract Jacob had been promised all the cates that Jacob had abandoned Le.ban's parti-colonred animals (eh. :xxx. 32) ; here sheep and taken possession of those which it seems as if Laban, struck with the re- belonged to himself-probably in preparation markable increase of these, took the earliest for his departure. opportunity of so modifying the original Ver. 5.-A.nd said unto them, I see your stipulation as to limit J acob's portion to one father's countenance, that it is not toward sort only, viz. the speckled. Yet this dis- me as before (vide supra); but the God of honourable breach of faith on the part of my father-literally, and the Eloh,i,m of my Laban was of no avail; for, when the next father, the term Elohim employed by Jacob lambing season came-then (it wos discovered not Leing due to "the vagueness of the re- that) all the cattle bare speckled: and if he ligious knowledge" possessed by his wives said thus ( changing the sort of animals (Hengsten berg), but to a desire on his own assigned to his son-in-law), The ringstraked part either to distinguish the God of his shall be thy hire (the mrult was as before); fatl1er from the gods of the nations, or the then bare all the cattle ringstraked. idols which Laban worshipped (' f.peaker'a · Ver. 9.-Thns-literally, and (as the result Commentary'), or perhaps, while using ali of 1.his)-God hath taken away the cattle of expression exactly equivalent to Jehovah, to your father, and given them to me. In bring out a contrast between the Divine ascribing to God what he had himself elfecte<i favour and that of Laban (Quarry)-hath by (so-called) fraud, this language of Jacob been with me-literally, was with me; not appears to some inexcusable (Kalisch); in the night before simply, but during the past passing over his own stratagem in silence ei.x ye11rs, as he explains in ver. 7. Jacob has been charged with not telling the Ver. 6.-A.nd ye know that with all my whole truth to his wives (Keil). A moro ~ower I have eerved your father. The term charitable consideration of Jacob's statement, J e.coL hc1-c uses for power is derived from an however, discerns in it an evidence of lti& Ort, XXXI. 1-21.] THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 375