Genesis 30:25-43
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.
With friends like these, you don’t need enemies. Laban is being blessed by Jacob and wants to make sure that is does not end. However, Jacob wants to leave and to start building his own wealth in order to provide for his family. This provides the context for a ‘trick-off’ as they both sought to profit from the others. Laban removes all the speckled goats from his flock and Jacob starts to manipulate their breeding patterns to make the speckled kids stronger and healthier than the others. The whole story shows the distrust and disunity within their family. There was no generosity, humility or true warmth.
When it comes to relationships, what you reap is what you sow. The environments that you create will affect how you are treated in return. Laban and Jacob were both shrewd and crafty men, who were willing to deceive others to get an advantage. This then became the way that they were also treated. The way that you treated others cuts both ways. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that Jesus commands us to love our neighbours. We can choose what we sow into the world around us.
A lot of us would read this story and find their behaviour very strange. However, every family has its own faults and unhealthy patterns. We just become blind to them. We stop seeing that passive aggressive tone. We grow comfortable around gossip. We normalise selfishness. We justify treating a particular person harshly. Or we just don’t know what to do about it. I wonder whether the best way to rebel against a culture (in your family, work or anywhere), is to subvert it with love. To retrain the culture, not by attacking it or responding to trickery with trickery. But to counter-attack every hurt with generosity, kindness and sacrifice. After all, the moral of the story is that the only way to change a goat’s colours is to give them something better to look at. ;)
