And it came to pass whensoever the strong cattle were ardent, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the flock in the gutters, that they might become ardent among the rods;
Jacob's years with Laban end with a breeding trick: he set peeled rods before the flock when the strong animals were mating, and kept them back from the weak. Was this faith, cunning, or God at work through a man who had not yet learned to wait?
A reference work gives the word behind "troughs":
rahat, water-trough for cattle. Genesis 30:38, 41.
The timing of the rods is the whole point. Jacob used them on one kind of animal and not the other:
Jacob separated the lambs he could claim as his own and kept them apart from Laban's flock (v. 40). Then, when Laban's stronger sheep were mating, he would use his peeled rods in the watering troughs. He would not do this with the weaker sheep. So he secured the stronger sheep, and the weaker ones went to Laban (vv. 41-42).
Jacob's cleverness sits beside a real sense that God was with him:
True, God was with Jacob — for nothing can stop divine grace from shining out. Jacob also owns God's presence and faithfulness in some measure. Still, he can do nothing without a scheme and a plan. Jacob cannot let God settle the question of his wives and his wages. He tries to settle it all by his own cunning and management. In short, he is "the supplanter" all through. Turn to Genesis 30:37-42, and say where you can find a more skilful piece of cunning. It is truly a perfect picture of Jacob.
Commentators differ on how much the rods achieved. The lesson stands either way:
Some question whether Jacob's trickery in verses 37-39 made any real difference. But whether it did or not, there is a spiritual lesson here that should have spoken to Jacob himself. Whatever we allow to occupy our attention most will affect us and everything that comes from us. Jacob was letting his desire for gain take first place in his thoughts. This was bad for him spiritually, and made him selfish and underhand in his actions. But we can usually recognize such principles in natural things, while not seeing what they mean in our spiritual lives.
From the outside, the arrangement looked like trust:
No doubt Laban did not know what Jacob was doing. And Jacob wanted him to think that he was only depending on God to decide how many sheep he should have. How often it is true with us too, that we persuade ourselves we are walking by faith in God while using our own wits to help God out in supplying our needs!
Looking back, the increase traces to God and not to the rods:
We are now allowed to see how God had stepped in and made the agreement about the spotted and speckled cattle work in Jacob's favour. In the light of this, our thought would be this. If he had rested with confidence in God, and had not used the tricks described in the last chapter, God would still have reached the end He purposed. And Jacob's "righteousness" would have spoken for him far more convincingly.
The repayment, when it came, was swift:
Divine providence paid Jacob in about five or six years the wages that Laban had cheated him out of for twenty years.
The tragedy is not that Jacob failed to prosper. It is that he walked away thinking the prosperity was his own achievement:
At last Jacob has reached the furthest limit of his desire, by deceit, trickery, and fraud. Through it all, and despite it all, the unseen God has heard the desire of Jacob's heart and granted it in full. Yet in his own mind he has done it all himself — God is hardly known or acknowledged. Jacob's hand, his thinking, and his fraud have gained it all; it is all his.
Yet this is where grace shows itself:
No one but God could have put up with such a man, and no one but God would have taken up such a man. Grace begins at the very lowest point. It takes up man as he is, and deals with him in the full intelligence of what he is.
- The trough. Jacob put his peeled rods in the water troughs only when the strong animals were mating. He kept them back from the weak. The best of the flock became his.
- The scheme. Jacob owned God's presence in some measure. Yet he could not let God settle his wages; he had to have a plan of his own.
- The disguise. He arranged things so Laban would think he was leaving it all to God. We do the same when we call our own wits "walking by faith."
- The real hand. God was the one who made the flocks increase. He repaid in five or six years what Laban had cheated Jacob of over twenty.
- The grace. Jacob thought he had gained it all himself. God took up such a man anyway, and bore with him. Grace begins at the very lowest point.
but when the sheep were feeble, he put [them] not in; so the feeble were Laban's, and the strong Jacob's.
Genesis 30 ends with Jacob's flocks growing fast, and verse 42 gives the fine print of his method: he used the peeled rods for the strong animals only. So the chapter leaves one question open — did his wealth come from his own cleverness, or from God?
The verse describes a filter, not just a trick. Jacob timed his device so that the vigorous animals bred under it and the feeble ones did not, and he drew a lesson for himself in the process:
Jacob separated the lambs that he could claim as his own and kept them apart from Laban's flock. Then, when Laban's stronger sheep were mating, he would use his peeled rods in the watering troughs. He would not do this with the weaker sheep. So he secured the stronger sheep, and Laban kept the weaker ones. No doubt Laban did not know what Jacob was doing. Jacob wanted Laban to think he was only depending on God to decide how many sheep he should have. How often the same thing is true of us! We persuade ourselves that we are walking by faith in God, while we use our own wits to help God out in supplying our needs.
One writer finds in these verses a portrait of Jacob the supplanter — the man who gets ahead by pushing others aside:
True, God was with Jacob — for nothing can hinder the outshining of divine grace. Jacob does, up to a point, acknowledge God's presence and faithfulness. Still nothing can be done without a scheme and a plan. Jacob cannot allow God to settle the question of his wives and his wages, but seeks to settle everything by his own cunning and management. In short, it is "the supplanter" throughout. Let the reader turn to Genesis 30:37-42 and say where he could find a more skilful piece of cunning.
Jacob had told Laban that his honesty would speak for him later. The irony is that the outcome he engineered was already on its way without him:
In the light of this our reflection would be that if he had rested with confidence in God, and not used the devices described in the last chapter, the end God purposed would have been reached, and his "righteousness" would have answered for him in a much more convincing way.
Later God gave Jacob the real explanation for his growing flocks, and it came in a dream:
Laban, according to Jacob's complaint, changed his wages ten times. Jacob got his own back by cunning tricks connected with the breeding of Laban's cattle. Laban's sons complained that he had "taken all that was our father's." So the contest went on until God stepped in again in a dream. He made known to Jacob that it was He, rather than Jacob's schemes, who caused the cattle to pass from Laban to him. And He called him out of the whole unpleasant business back to Canaan.
The transfer of the strong animals also settles an old account. Laban had defrauded Jacob for years, and his own greed became the instrument that drained him:
Laban's greedy desire to profit by Jacob's strange bargain made the self-absorbed master poor. It brought new and growing wealth to the servant he had cheated for so long. It was a righteous thing, as far as it could go, to repay the wrongdoer and make up to the man who suffered. And one cannot fail to notice how fitting such a dealing from God was toward the one of Israel's fathers who, more than any other, pictures the chosen people. Israel took its name from him. Their ups and downs were like his own endless changes, failures and humiliations. At the end, divine mercy would turn all of it into everlasting blessing at the feet of their long rejected Messiah.
One writer draws a lesson for Jacob, and for us, from the sheep in front of the rods:
The sheep in front of the rods seem to show how "the eye affects the heart." Whatever object we keep before us shapes us, and shapes everything that comes from us. So the Lord connects the "eye" and the "master" (Matthew 6:19-25). Our object is what controls us, and in a world like this, how many objects compete to take hold of us! So if our mind is set on things above, the marks of a "life hidden with Christ in God" take shape in us (Colossians 3:1-3).
The story does not leave us admiring Jacob. It shows what God was toward a man like him:
This is a true picture, so far as Jacob was concerned. But it only gives us one side, and that the gloomy side. Blessed be God, there is a bright side too, for God had to do with Jacob. In every scene of his life, when Jacob was called to reap the fruits of his own plotting and crookedness, the God of Jacob brought good out of evil. He caused His grace to abound over all the sin and folly of His poor servant.
- Craft. Jacob used the rods only when the strong animals bred, so the vigorous stock went to him and the feeble to Laban.
- Cover. He looked like a man leaving the outcome to God, while his own wits were steering it.
- Cause. God later told him in a dream that the flocks moved from Laban to him by His hand, not by his schemes.
- Cost. Laban's greed drained him — a righteous repayment for the wrongdoer and relief for the man he had cheated.
- Grace. He reaped the fruits of his own crookedness, and still God brought good out of evil in every scene of his life.