Bible Commentaries

And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, [Am] I in ^a God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?

(a) It is only God who makes one barren or fruitful, and therefore I am not at fault.

And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my ^b knees, that I may also have children by her.

(b) I will receive her children on my lap, as though they were my own.

And Rachel said, With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, ^c and I have prevailed: and she called his name Naphtali.

(c) The arrogancy of man's nature appears in that she condemns her sister, after she has received this benefit from God to bear children.

And Leah said, ^d A troop cometh: and she called his name Gad.

(d) That is, God increases me with a multitude of children for so Jacob explains this name Gad (Genesis 49:19).

And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found ^e mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes.

(e) Which is a kind of herb whose root has a likeness to the figure of a man.

And Leah said, God hath given me my hire, because I have given my ^f maiden to my husband: and she called his name Issachar.

(f) Instead of acknowledging her fault she boasts as if God had rewarded her for it.

And she conceived, and bare a son; and said, God hath taken away my ^g reproach:

(g) Because fruitfulness came as God's blessing, who said "Increase and multiply", barrenness was counted as a curse.

For [it was] little which thou hadst before I [came], and it is [now] increased unto a multitude; and the LORD hath blessed thee since my coming: and now when shall ^h I provide for mine own house also?

(h) The order of nature requires that every one provide for his own family.

I will pass through all thy flock to day, removing from thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: ⁱ and [of such] shall be my hire.

(i) That which is spotted, from now on.

So shall my ^k righteousness answer for me in time to come, when it shall come for my hire before thy face: every one that [is] not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the sheep, that shall be counted stolen with me.

(k) God shall attest to my righteous dealing by rewarding my labours.

And Jacob ^l took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which [was] in the rods.

(l) Jacob used no deceit in this for it was God's commandment as he declares in (Genesis 31:9) , (Genesis 31:11).

And it came to pass, whensoever the ^m stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods.

(m) As they which took the ram about September and brought forth about March: so the feebler in March and lamb in September.