29:25 In the morning Jacob discovered it was Leah! 6 So Jacob 7 said to Laban, “What in the world have you done to me! 8 Didn’t I work for you in exchange for Rachel? Why have you tricked 9 me?”
30:27 But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your sight, please stay here, 10 for I have learned by divination 11 that the Lord has blessed me on account of you.”
30:31 So Laban asked, 12 “What should I give you?” “You don’t need to give me a thing,” 13 Jacob replied, 14 “but if you agree to this one condition, 15 I will continue to care for 16 your flocks and protect them:
31:33 So Laban entered Jacob’s tent, and Leah’s tent, and the tent of the two female servants, but he did not find the idols. 19 Then he left Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s. 20 31:34 (Now Rachel had taken the idols and put them inside her camel’s saddle 21 and sat on them.) 22 Laban searched the whole tent, but did not find them. 23
30:35 So that day Laban 24 removed the male goats that were streaked or spotted, all the female goats that were speckled or spotted (all that had any white on them), and all the dark-colored lambs, and put them in the care 25 of his sons.
31:43 Laban replied 26 to Jacob, “These women 27 are my daughters, these children are my grandchildren, 28 and these flocks are my flocks. All that you see belongs to me. But how can I harm these daughters of mine today 29 or the children to whom they have given birth?
1 tn Heb “and he set the faces of.”
2 tn Heb “and he said.” The referent (Laban) has been specified and the words “to him” supplied in the translation for clarity.
3 sn Laban’s obsession with wealth is apparent; to him it represents how one is blessed by the
4 tn The disjunctive clause is circumstantial.
5 tn Heb “Arise! Go!” The first of the two imperatives is adverbial and stresses the immediacy of the departure.
6 tn Heb “and it happened in the morning that look, it was Leah.” By the use of the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”), the narrator invites the reader to view the scene through Jacob’s eyes.
7 tn Heb “and he said”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
8 tn Heb What is this you have done to me?” The use of the pronoun “this” is enclitic, adding emphasis to the question: “What in the world have you done to me?”
9 sn The Hebrew verb translated tricked here (רָמָה, ramah) is cognate to the noun used in Gen 27:35 to describe Jacob’s deception of Esau. Jacob is discovering that what goes around, comes around. See J. A. Diamond, “The Deception of Jacob: A New Perspective on an Ancient Solution to the Problem,” VT 34 (1984): 211-13.
10 tn The words “please stay here” have been supplied in the translation for clarification and for stylistic reasons.
11 tn Or perhaps “I have grown rich and the
12 tn Heb “and he said.” The referent (Laban) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
13 tn The negated imperfect verbal form has an obligatory nuance.
14 tn The order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.
15 tn Heb “If you do for me this thing.”
16 tn Heb “I will return, I will tend,” an idiom meaning “I will continue tending.”
17 tn Heb “lift up (now) your eyes and see.”
18 tn Heb “going up on,” that is, mounting for intercourse.
19 tn No direct object is specified for the verb “find” in the Hebrew text. The words “the idols” have been supplied in the translation for clarification.
20 tn Heb “and he went out from the tent of Leah and went into the tent of Rachel.”
21 tn The “camel’s saddle” was probably some sort of basket-saddle, a cushioned saddle with a basket bound on. Cf. NAB “inside a camel cushion.”
22 tn The disjunctive clause (introduced by a vav [ו] conjunction) provides another parenthetical statement necessary to the storyline.
23 tn The word “them” has been supplied in the translation for clarification.
24 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Laban) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
25 tn Heb “and he gave [them] into the hand.”
26 tn Heb “answered and said.”
27 tn Heb “daughters.”
28 tn Heb “children.”
29 tn Heb “but to my daughters what can I do to these today?”