Jacob Peels Branches to Win Laban's Flocks (Genesis 30:25–43)

Send me on my way

Jacob wanted to leave because his fourteen years of work for Rachel and Leah were done, and God had promised at Bethel to bring him home. Right after Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, "Send me on my way so I can return to my homeland" (Genesis 30:25).

At Bethel God had told him, "I will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you" (Genesis 28:15). Jacob had carried that sentence through fourteen years of another man's sheep.

The LORD has blessed me

Laban meant that he had read omens to find out why his flocks kept growing, and the omens told him the LORD was blessing him because of Jacob. "If I have found favor in your eyes, please stay. I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you" (Genesis 30:27).

Laban knew the LORD's name and could count the LORD's blessing in his own sheepfolds. He went to omens to explain it, and he went no further. He wanted to keep the shepherd who made him rich.

So Jacob stayed and asked for every speckled or spotted goat and every dark-colored lamb as his wages (Genesis 30:32). That same day Laban took every animal of those colors away to his sons (Genesis 30:35).

Peeled branches at the troughs

Jacob put peeled branches in the troughs because he believed that what the animals saw while they mated would mark their young. He took fresh branches of poplar, almond and plane trees, "and peeled the bark, exposing the white inner wood of the branches" (Genesis 30:37), and set them where the strong animals came to drink. The flocks bore streaked and speckled young, and "Jacob became exceedingly prosperous" (Genesis 30:43).

Years later Jacob told Rachel and Leah where the flocks had come from: "Thus God has taken away your father's livestock and given them to me" (Genesis 31:9). In a dream the angel of God had shown him the speckled males and said, "for I have seen all that Laban has done to you" (Genesis 31:12). Jacob had trusted his branches, and God had been watching every one of Laban's tricks the whole time.

Blessed because of you

Laban's growing flocks were a small piece of God's promise to bless the nations through Abraham's family, and God kept that promise in full in Jesus. God told Abram, "all the families of the earth will be blessed through you" (Genesis 12:3). A man who read omens grew rich because Abraham's grandson kept his sheep.

Paul wrote that Christ "redeemed us in order that the blessing promised to Abraham would come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:14). Laban got sheep from that blessing. In Jesus, God gives us Himself.

Hold it until He says go

Jacob asked to leave when Joseph was born, and God's word to go came six years later: "Go back to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you" (Genesis 31:3). In the dream He said, "I am the God of Bethel" (Genesis 31:13). He named the place and the pillar, and the command to go home was the Bethel promise coming due.

We are the people who remember what God has said. Write down the promise He has given you, with the date, in the Doxa app, and read it back through the waiting years. When He speaks again you will know Him, the God of Bethel, who keeps every word He has spoken.

What has God promised you that you are still holding while you wait for Him to say go?

Deeper study today in the Doxa Deeper Dive: the Hebrew word behind Laban's omens, and the almond wood that carried Bethel's old name. Read it here.