Genesis 30:25-43: Jacob Grows Rich
Genesis 30:25-43: Jacob Grows Rich
Bible Essentials: Set 3, Lesson 22
Opening
Individuals: Take time to think back about your past week. Where have you seen God work in your life or answer prayer? Write down any prayer requests you have.
Group: Open the study by sharing life updates, reviewing highs and lows of your past week, or sharing prayer requests and praises.
Icebreaker: Have you ever manipulated a situation to make sure you had success and others didn’t? If so, describe the situation.
All: Begin the study with a word of prayer, asking God to open your heart for today’s study. You can also pray for any prayer requests now, or save that for the end.
Study
Read today’s passage: Genesis 30:25-43.
25 After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me on my way so 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 favor 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-colored 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-colored, 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-colored 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-colored 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 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.
What is the context for this passage?
At the start of this story, Jacob had worked for Laban a minimum of 14 years, maybe more. He had worked 7 years and got tricked into marrying Leah, then he worked another 7 years for Rachel. We don’t really know if he worked additional time after that without any wages. While Jacob was working for Laban, Jacob and his wives had at least 12 children (11 boys and 1 girl). Finally, once Rachel had a son, Jacob started to think about accumulating wealth for himself and his family.
Read the passage again.
Explore a different version if you have one available. If you are online, here is Genesis 30 in NIV through Bible Gateway. You can change the version by using the dropdown menu at the top right of the page.
Try to summarize the passage in your own words.
Answer these three questions about the passage:
1. What does the passage say about God?
God blessed Laban because of Jacob. When God gave his original promise to Abraham, he promised blessing. That blessing was passed on to Isaac and then to Jacob. Laban came to understand that the reason that his flocks and his household had been blessed was because of Jacob.
God gave Jacob wisdom in genetics and animal husbandry. Although genetics wasn’t a known science at this point in history, God gave Jacob wisdom to know how to breed the flocks so that they would have speckled or spotted young. Using the branches in the watering troughs may have given the sheep and goats extra nutrition to become stronger or may have helped in the breeding process in some way. You can find a good article explaining this here . Although this seems like a strange tactic, God uses it to help Jacob build his flock quickly.
2. What does the passage say about people?
People have a connection to home. Once Jacob accumulated wives and children and had paid off his debt to Laban for his wives, he decided he wanted to go back home. That homeland would have had great significance for Jacob because that was the land God had promised to give them as a nation.
People want what is best for them and their family. In this story, Jacob wants what is best for his family. He thinks it is best for them to leave Laban and go back to their homeland. But that conflicts with what is best for Laban’s family. Laban knew that he had been blessed through Jacob, and if Jacob left, he may have feared that blessing would be gone. He also didn’t want to lose his daughters and grandchildren. Laban and Jacob worked out a solution that was mutually beneficial. Laban got Jacob to stay, while Jacob found a way to build wealth for his family.
Employers pay wages to their employees. Jacob had been working for Laban for many years, and for at least 14 years, his wages were his two wives. Now that he has paid that price, Laban and Jacob need to work out another deal for wages. Interestingly, Jacob doesn’t want cash. He goes after Laban’s flocks instead.
People manipulate situations to get what they want. When Laban and Jacob worked out their deal for wages, Laban thought he may have gotten the better end of the deal, as the spotted and speckled sheep were more rare. But with Jacob’s breeding process, he manipulated the breeding to ensure that he got the stronger, better animals. In this way, Jacob became very wealthy.
3. What does the passage say about God’s plan?
God’s plan was to make Jacob prosper and become wealthy. All throughout the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God promised blessing. That promise comes to fruition here as Jacob builds for himself large flocks. Whether it was through his breeding practices or simply due to God’s blessing (or both), Jacob becomes very wealthy.
How does the passage fit into the overarching story of the Bible?
Sometimes it’s easier to understand a passage if you have a little outside knowledge from other passages in the Bible. This section will help provide that outside perspective.
Time after time, we are reminded that God keeps his promises, even when people are imperfect. Abraham and Sarah made mistakes, and yet God still kept his promise and used them to bring about the first step in God’s plan to bring Jesus into the world. Isaac and Rebekah made mistakes, and God still kept his promise and used them in the second step of his plan. And in this passage, Jacob uses some manipulation to build wealth for himself, but God still kept his promise and used Jacob to start building a nation.
Throughout the Bible, we see that God uses imperfect people. He used Moses, even though Moses murdered someone. He used Rahab, even though she was a prostitute. He used David, even though he slept with another man’s wife and then had him killed. It’s a comfort to know that despite all our messes, despite all our imperfections, God can still use us to work out his plan.
Discussion
Individual: Answer the following questions thoughtfully for yourself.
Group: Pose these questions for discussion.
All: If you are willing to share, I’d love to hear your thoughts to these questions. Feel free to use the comment section to start a discussion about this passage.
What else strikes you about this passage?
How does the passage affect how you view God? How you view yourself?
How does this passage affect how you will live your life?
Additional Study
For additional study related to this topic, read Genesis 31:1-21.
Premium Resources
For Bible Essential studies, you can use my thoughts as your devotional, or you can download and use the journaling sheet to work through the passage on your own. If desired, you can then compare your thoughts to mine. Journal sheets can be downloaded and used now or later. They can be printed and filled in by hand or saved and filled out electronically. Journal sheets are available for individual or group use.
If you plan to lead a group study, a PowerPoint presentation is also available.
You can access these resources by clicking here: Genesis 30 Resources
Or you can download the journal sheets here*:
*Substack doesn’t support PowerPoint file downloads yet, so if you want to access the PowerPoint file for group study, you will need to download it from the resource page linked above.