Genesis 30:37-39

[FrankLJ]

I am trying to understand how to interpet the Old Testament.

How is the above to be understood, saying that goats and sheep that breed in front of stripy sticks will have striped and spotted offspring?

 

[dmar198]

I am trying to understand how to interpet the Old Testament.

How is the above to be understood, saying that goats and sheep that breed in front of stripy sticks will have striped and spotted offspring?

Jacob thought he could make the animals breed in striped colors by this method, but the Bible doesn’t say he was correct. In fact, if you read on into verse 40, it says some of the sheep still had lambs that weren’t striped, so he still had to separate them. Thus, his colored bark trick didn’t work, and it only shows that he didn’t understand biology very well.

 

[FrankLJ]

As the story goes in this part of Genesis 30:

Jacob asks for all the black sheep and striped and spotted goats as payment for services rendered -32. This makes it easy to tell who owns what -33.

Laban removes all such before the division and sends them away-35. Sharp practice.

But Jacob had the flock mate in front of striped branches, producing offspring that were ‘streaked speckled and spotted’ -37-39. I will say ‘marked’ from now on.

He gets the same results by having his flock produced by these methods facing those of Labans flock which were streaked or black. This produces more of the same, which Jacob claims - 40 I thought all those of Laban’s had been sent away in 35, but that’s another question.

It looks very much as if this is meant to produce more of what is wanted. But we know that doesn’t happen that way in real life. Note this is all given as a purely natural description, no suggestion that God is taking an interest.

Are you saying that no more marked goats or black sheep were produced than would normally occur? That would make sense, certainly, but this story seems to say the look-at-the-stripes trick does work. Jacob refines the trick in 41-42 by only working it with strong animals, so the marked goats and black sheep produced are all of good stock.

The heart of the whole thing seems to be 39. Does it mean all the goats were marked when born, and so Jacob’s trick worked? The separation you mention in 40 just looks like Jacob claiming the result, rather than an evidence his trick did not work.

I find this all hard to believe. What am I missing?

 

[dmar198]

As the story goes in this part of Genesis 30:

Jacob asks for all the black sheep and striped and spotted goats as payment for services rendered -32. This makes it easy to tell who owns what -33.

Laban removes all such before the division and sends them away-35. Sharp practice.

But Jacob had the flock mate in front of striped branches, producing offspring that were ‘streaked speckled and spotted’ -37-39. I will say ‘marked’ from now on.

He gets the same results by having his flock produced by these methods facing those of Labans flock which were streaked or black. This produces more of the same, which Jacob claims - 40 I thought all those of Laban’s had been sent away in 35, but that’s another question.

It looks very much as if this is meant to produce more of what is wanted. But we know that doesn’t happen that way in real life. Note this is all given as a purely natural description, no suggestion that God is taking an interest.

Are you saying that no more marked goats or black sheep were produced than would normally occur? That would make sense, certainly, but this story seems to say the look-at-the-stripes trick does work. Jacob refines the trick in 41-42 by only working it with strong animals, so the marked goats and black sheep produced are all of good stock.

The heart of the whole thing seems to be 39. Does it mean all the goats were marked when born, and so Jacob’s trick worked? The separation you mention in 40 just looks like Jacob claiming the result, rather than an evidence his trick did not work.

I find this all hard to believe. What am I missing?

The reason verse 40 shows that his trick did not work is precisely because verse 35 says that all Laban’s solid-color animals had been removed prior to Jacob using his white-bark trick. Then in verse 40 it says: “And Jacob separated the flock, and put the rods in the troughs before the eyes of the rams; and all the white and the black were Laban’s: and the rest were Jacob’s, when the flocks were separated one from the other.” Laban’s original flock had already been separated in verse 35; the white and the black in verse 40 therefore are newborn; the solid-colored newborns go to Laban, the striped or speckled newborns go to Jacob. But if his trick had worked the way he thought it should, there wouldn’t be any solid-colored newborns, because all of the parents had mated while seeing the bark.

In verse 42, the trick does work, but St. John Chrysostom and most of the Greek fathers interpreted this as a miracle, since it hadn’t worked by nature in verse 40.

 

[FrankLJ]

I think I see - there is some support for that in the next chapter, 31, where Jacob flees from Laban. We get the further information in 31: 6-9 that Laban kept changing the deal to ‘all stripes, only’ or ‘all spotted, only’ or whatnot, but every time the herd produced the goats required in the new deal. Even if Jacobs trick had worked, it would not have allowed him to fine-tune the breed like that. Also, there is Jacobs dream in 31: 10-14 suggesting divine intervention in this. We have seen earlier Jacob’s dreams count for something, and are not just the result of eating too much halouma cheese before bedtime.

The wording is a little confusing, though. Where can I find St John Chrysostom’ s discussion of this?