Matthew Poole and continuators on Genesis 30

1 AND when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envyed her sister, and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die ▪

A speech full of impatience and bordering upon blasphemy, and striking at God himself through Iacobs sides. For which therefore she afterwards smarted, dying by that very means whereby she hoped to prevent her death and prolong her life, Gen. 35. 18.

2 And Jacobs anger was kindled against Rachel , and he said, am I in Gods stead , who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?

For the injury done to himself and especially for the sin against God, in which case anger is not onely lawfull but necessary.

It is Gods prerogative to give Children. See Gen. 16. 2. 1 Sam. 2. 5, 6. Psal. 113. 9. and 127. 3.

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

An Ellipsis or short speech, she shall bear a child which may be laid upon my knees or in my lap, which I may adopt and bring up as if it were my own. See Gen. 50. 23. Is[illegible: 1+ letters]. 66. 12.

For as servants, so their work and fruit, were not their own, but their masters.

Marginal references: Heb. be built by her.

6 And Rachel said, God hath judged me , and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son; therefore called she his name Dan.

Pleaded my cause or given sentence for me, as this phrase is oft taken.

Marginal references: That is, judging.

8 And Rachel said, with great wrastlings , have I wrastled with my sister, and I have prevailed ; and she called his name Naphtali.

Heb. With wrastlings of God, either with great and hard wrastlings or strivings; or by wrastling with God in fervent prayer, and by Gods grace and strength.

Which was not true; for her sister exceeded her both in the number of her Children, and in her propriety in them, being the fruit of her own womb, not of her handmaids, as Rachels were. Here is an instance how partial Judges most persons are in their own causes and concernments.

Marginal references: Heb. wrastlings of God.; That is, my wrastling.; Called Matt. 4. 13. Nephthalian.

11 And Leah said, A troop cometh : And she called his name Gad.

Or, Good luck cometh, my design hath well succeeded: an happy star hath shone upon me; and such a star in the opinion of Astrologers is that of Iupiter, which by the Arabians is called Gad. This may well agree to Leah and her heathenish Education, and the manners of the Chaldaeans who were much given to the study of the stars.

Marginal references: That is, a troop or company.

13 And Leah said, Happy am I, for the daughters , will call me blessed: and she called his name Asher.

Of Men, i. e. Women, as Prov. 31. 29. Cant. 6. 9.

Marginal references: Heb. in my happiness.; That is, happy.

14 And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found Mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me I pray thee of thy sons Mandrakes ▪

The word is onely found here and Cant. 7. 13. whence it appears that it is a Plant or Fruit of pleasant smell, such as the Mandrake is said to be by Dioscorides and Levinus Lemnius, and by St. Austin upon his own experience. If it be said, this was too early for Mandrakes to be ripe, it being now but wheat harvest, it may be replyed, that fruits ripen much sooner in those hot Countries, than elsewhere, and that they are not here said to be ripe, but onely to be gathered.

Which she might desire either because they were pleasant to the eye or tast, or because they were thought helpful to conception.

15 And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldst thou take away my sons Mandrakes also? and Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to night , for thy sons Mandrakes.

Iacob either did equally divide the times between his two Wives; or rather had more estranged himself from Leah, and cohabited principally with Rachel; which occasioned the foregoing expostulation.

16 And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me: for surely I have hired thee with my sons Mandrakes. And he lay with her that night .

He ratified their agreement that he might preserve peace and love amongst them.

17 And God hearkned unto Leah , and she conceived, and bare Jacob the fifth son.

Notwithstanding her many infirmities. Hence it appears, that she was moved herein not by any inordinate lust but by a desire of Children.

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

Thus she mistakes the answer of her prayers for a recompence of her errour.

Marginal references: That is, an hire.

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

Barrenness was then accounted a great reproach, especially in that race, because it was a kind of curse, whereby such persons were excluded both from the first and general blessing of fructification given to all mankind, Gen. 1. 28. and from the special blessing given to Abraham for the multiplication of his feed; and from all hopes of being the progenitors of the blessed Messias.

25 And it came to pass, when Rachel had born Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, send me away, that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country .

Canaan, which he calleth his Country in regard both of his former and long habitation in it, and of the right which he had to it by Gods promise. See Gen. 28. 13.

29 And he said unto him, Thou knowest how I have served thee, and how thy cattle was with me .

How carefully it was managed, and how greatly improved by my care and industry.

30 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 I provide for mine own house also ?

Comparatively to what now it is.

Heb. at my foot, i. e. upon my coming, since my feet entred into thy house, Or, by my foot, i. e. by my ministery and labour, as this phrase is used, Deut. 11. 10.

According to my duty, which also is thy interest.

Marginal references: Heb. broken forth.; Heb. at my foot.

32 I will pass thorow 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; and of such shall be my hire .

Which may seem to be thus distinguished speckled with little spots, and spotted with greater spots or stains, both of divers colours from the rest of the body. Or, the speckled may be the same with the ring-streaked, by comparing this with ver. 35.

Or black, or dark-coloured, for the Hebrew word signifies also great heat which produceth such a colour.

Or, then shall be my hire; and for then, as is frequent in Scripture. The sense is, Then, when the speckled and spotted and brown are separated, and none but white remaining, my hire shall be out of those white ones, and that in such manner as is expressed in the following verse, all the white young ones shall be thine, and the speckled and spotted and brown which shall be brought forth by those white ones shall be mine.

33 So shall my 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 amongst the goats, and brown amongst the sheep, that shall be counted stollen with me.

When the cattle shall contrary to their natural and usual course bring forth young ones of a contrary colour to their own, it will hereby be evident that this is the work of God, who hereby pleads my righteous cause against a cruel and unjust master. Or thus, when thou shalt accuse me of doing thee injury, I shall have this manifest and undeniable evidence of my Righteousness or Innocency, that I have no Cattle but of that colour which is by agreement appropriated to me.

When it, i. e. my righteousness, shall come to or upon my reward, i. e. when my righteousness shall appear in the very colour of that Cattle which is allotted to me for my reward or hire, before thy face, i. e. thou being present and diligently observing whether I have any Cattle of another colour. But the Hebrew word Tabo is also of the second person, and so the sense seems to be this, When thou shalt come upon my hire or reward, to wit, to observe and see whether I have any other cattel, than what belongs to me. And so these words come in by way of parenthesis, and the following words, before my face, are to be joyned to the former words, thus, so shall my Righteousness answer for me in time to come (when thou shalt come upon my hire) before thy face. This I prefer before the other, because the phrase of coming upon his hire seems more properly to agree to a person, than to his Righteousness.

Marginal references: Heb. to morrow.

34 And Laban said, Behold, I would it might be according to thy word .

Laban trusted to the course of nature, whereby cattle usually bring forth their young of their own colour; and Iacob re [illegible: 1+ letters]ied upon the providence of an Almighty God and his gratious father.

35 And he removed that day the he-goats that were ring-straked and spotted, and all the shegoats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had some white in it, and all the brown amongst the Sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons.

Which had lines or strakes like bands about them of divers colours from the rest of their body.

This word is oft understood in other texts of Scripture, and here it is so necessarily; as appears both from the thing it self, as it is related, and from the phrase; for he saith not that was white, but that [illegible: 1+ letters]ad white in it, to wit, mixed with other colours.

36 And he set three days journey betwixt himself and Jacob : and Jacob fed the rest of Labans flocks.

Understand it of the journeying or travelling of sheep, not of men.

Le[illegible: 1+ letters]t either Iacob should mingle and exchange the sheep, or the sheep by the contemplation of the diverse coloured ones should bring forth others like to them.

37 And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hasel, and chesnut-tree , and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.

By divine appointment, as will appear in the sequel, which is sufficient for Iacobs justification.

Either because these trees were next at hand; or because he saw these in the divine vision afterwards mentioned, and would exactly follow his pattern.

By pilling off the rind which covered it.

38 And he set the rods which he had pilled, before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink ▪

When by their refreshment and meeting together they were most likely to generate and conceive.

39 And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ring-straked, speckled, and spotted .

Heb. were heated, i. e, inflamed or excited and disposed to conceive, and this in a more than ordinary manner by the divine disposal.

This hath some foundation in nature because of the great power of imagination; and there are divers instances in many authors both of Women and of Beasts who either by the strong fancying, or by the actual and frequent contemplation of some certain objects have brought forth young ones exactly [illegible: 1+ letters]f the same colour and complexion, as one did an Ethiopian, &c. But the Providence of God was the principal cause of this effect, without which the productions of that kind would neither have been so many, nor so certain. This policy of Iacobs could scarcely be excused from deceit and injustice, if it were not manifest that it was done by the direction and authority of the sovereign Lord of all estates, Gen. 31. 9, 11, &c. who may take them from one and give them to another, as it pleaseth him, who also observed Labans injustice, and gave to Iacob no more than he abundantly deserved from Laban.

40 And Jacob did separate the lambs , and set the faces of the flocks toward the ring-straked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban: and he put his own flock by themselves; and put them not unto Labans cattle .

Such as were ring-straked and brown, from the white, as it here follows.

He caused them to go foremost, and the white to follow them, that by the continued beholding of them in the time of their conjunction they might have their colour more imprinted upon their fancies and thereby convey it to their young ones.

Which he did upon the same reason, lest the constant beholding of them should make them bring forth the like, i. e. single coloured ones.

41 And it came to pass, whensoever the 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.

It is known that the cattle in those parts did conceive and bring forth twice in a year, at spring and in Autumn; and it is supposed that the stronger here mentioned are such as joyned in the spring, and the feeble they that joyned in Autumn.