UST GEN Chapter 31

Jacob and His Family Flee from Laban

31:1-21

31 Then one day Jacob heard that Laban’s sons were complaining and saying, “Jacob has taken for himself everything that our father owned. In fact, he has gotten all his riches by taking the animals that were our father’s!” 2 Jacob also noticed that Laban no longer acted friendly toward him the way he did in the past. 3 Then Yahweh told Jacob, “Return to your ancestors’ homeland, where your relatives live, and I will stay with you and help you.”

4 So Jacob sent a message to Rachel and Leah that they should meet him at the field where he was with his flocks of sheep and goats. 5 When they arrived, he said to them, “I have noticed that your father no longer acts friendly toward me the way he did in the past, but the God whom my father serves has stayed with me and has helped me. 6 You both know how I have worked for your father as hard as I could, 7 but he has cheated me by changing what he pays me ten times. However, God has not permitted him to hurt me. 8 For example, every time that he told me that the speckled animals would be my pay, all the female animals in the flocks gave birth to speckled young. But whenever he changed his mind and told me that the striped animals would be my pay, then they all gave birth to streaked young. 9 In that way, God has taken your father’s animals from him and has given them to me.

10 “One time during the season when the flocks of sheep and goats were mating, I had a dream. In the dream I looked around and was surprised to see that the only male goats and sheep that were mating with the female goats and sheep were striped, speckled, or blotched. 11 Then an angel from God called to me in the dream, ‘Jacob!’ and I answered, ‘Yes, Lord?’ 12 Then he said to me, ‘Look around and notice that all the male goats and sheep that are mating with the female goats and sheep are striped, speckled, or blotched. I have caused that to happen, because I have noticed all the wrong things that Laban has been doing to you. 13 I am the God who appeared to you at the town of Bethel, where you poured oil on top of a memorial stone to dedicate the place to me, and where you made an oath to me. So then, get ready and leave this land immediately, and go back to your home land.’ ”

14 Then Rachel and Leah responded to Jacob, “We will not inherit anything from our father when he dies! 15 It is obvious that he treats us like strangers and not family. For example, he sold us to you, and then he spent all the money that should have been ours. 16 In fact, all the wealth that God has taken from our father rightfully belongs to us and our children. So then, you should do everything that God has told you to do.”

17 So Jacob quickly got ready for the journey and helped his wives and his children get up onto some camels. 18 Then he started herding the camels and all his other animals toward the region of Canaan where his father Isaac lived. He took with him all his possessions that he had accumulated, including all the livestock that he had acquired while living in the region of Paddan Aram.

19 Now before that, Laban the Aramean had gone away for several days to shear his sheep. While her father was gone, Rachel entered his tent and stole his idols that he worshiped. 20 At the same time, Jacob also deceived Laban by fleeing secretly without telling him that he was leaving. 21 So in that way Jacob ran away with his family and took everything that they owned. They quickly crossed the Euphrates River and headed toward the hill country of Gilead.

Laban Chases After Jacob and His Family

31:22-42

22 Three days later someone informed Laban that Jacob had run away. 23 So Laban took some of his relatives with him and chased after Jacob and his family for seven days until they overtook him in the hill country of Gilead. 24 But that night God appeared to Laban in a dream and warned him, “Be sure that you do not threaten Jacob in any way.”

25 By the time that Laban caught up with Jacob, Jacob had already set up his tents in the hill country of Gilead, so Laban and his relatives also set up camp there at a place nearby. 26 Then the next day Laban met with Jacob and complained to him, “Look what you have done! You have deceived me and dragged away my daughters like prisoners of war! 27 You should not have deceived me and secretly run away! You should have told me you were leaving! If I had known, we could have held a feast and sung joyful songs and danced together, with tambourines and lyres playing, before sending you on your way. 28 You did not even let me kiss my daughters and my grandchildren before they left! What you have done is foolish! 29 I have the power to harm all of you, but last night in a dream the God whom your father serves warned me not to threaten you in any way. 30 Now then, I understand that you left because you were so homesick to return to your father’s family, but why did you steal my gods?”

31 Jacob answered Laban, “We left secretly because I was afraid. I thought that if I told you we were leaving, you might take your two daughters from me by force. 32 However we did not take your gods. In fact, if you find your gods with anyone here, that person will die for stealing them! So while our relatives are watching, go ahead and search all my belongings for yourself. If you find anything that is yours, take it.” When Jacob said that, he did not know that Rachel was the one who had stolen the idols.

33 So Laban started searching in Jacob’s tent. Then he searched through Leah’s tent and through the two servant women’s tent, but he did not find anything that belonged to him. Next after he left those tents, he went into Rachel’s tent. 34 Now Rachel had hidden the idols inside her camel saddlebag, and she was sitting on them. So although Laban searched through everything else in the tent, he could not find them. 35 As he was searching, Rachel said to him, “Sir, please do not be upset that I am not able to get up to greet you, because it’s that time of the month when I feel weak.” That is also why he could not find his idols when he searched her tent.

36 Then Jacob became very angry at Laban and confronted him by saying to him, “Tell me my crime! Tell me what sin I have done against you that gives you the right to chase after me! 37 Now that you have searched through all my things, did you find anything that anyone took from your household? If so, put it here in front of our relatives, so that they can decide which one of us is right!

38 “For twenty years I have worked for you! During all that time your sheep and your goats had no trouble bearing young, and I have never killed and eaten any animals from your flocks. 39 Whenever wild animals killed any of your animals, I never brought the dead animal to you to prove I was innocent. Rather, I replaced them at my own expense. Besides that, you required me to pay for any animals that anyone ever stole at any time of day or night. 40 That was my situation! During the days, I suffered from the hot sun, and during the nights it was so cold that I could not sleep. 41 It was like that for me during the entire twenty years that I was with you. I worked for you for fourteen years in order to marry your two daughters, and I worked another six years to earn flocks of animals from you, even though you changed my pay ten times. 42 If God, whom my ancestors Abraham and Isaac serve and revere, had not been with me to take care of me, there is no doubt that I would now be leaving here with absolutely nothing. But God knows how much you have mistreated me and how hard I have worked for you, so last night he rebuked you.”

Jacob and Laban Establish a Peace Treaty with Each Other

31:43-55

43 Then Laban responded to Jacob, “These women are my daughters, and their children are my grandchildren, and these flocks are also mine. In fact, all that you see here is mine! But there is nothing I can do today to keep my daughters or their children near me any longer! 44 So then, you and I should make a peace treaty with each other, and there should be something to remind us to keep that treaty.” 45 So Jacob picked out a large stone and set it up on its end as a monument to mark the place where they made their treaty. 46 Then he told his relatives, “Gather some more stones.” So they all gathered stones and put them in a large pile. Then everyone ate a meal together there next to the pile of stones. 47 Laban gave the pile the Aramaic name Jegar Sahadutha, which means “pile that reminds,” while Jacob gave it the Hebrew name Galeed, which has the same meaning. 48 Laban said to him, “Starting today this pile of stones will remind you and me about our peace treaty.” That is why the name of that place is Galeed. 49 Another name for the place is Mizpah, which means “watchtower,” because Laban said to Jacob, “May Yahweh watch both of us to make sure that we keep our treaty while we are apart from each other. 50 If you treat my daughters badly, or if you marry other wives besides them, remember that even if no one else is watching us, God is always watching both of us to hold us accountable.”

51 Then Laban also said to Jacob, “Here is this pile of stones, and here is this monument which we stood up between us to remind us about our peace treaty. 52 This pile of stones and this monument both remind us that I must never go past this pile to attack you, and that you must never go past this pile and this monument to attack me. 53 May your grandfather Abraham’s God and my grandfather Nahor’s gods, which were also their father Terah’s gods, judge between us and punish us if we break this agreement!” But Jacob made a vow by the God whom his father Isaac revered that he would keep their treaty, 54 and he burned the body of an animal on an altar as a sacrifice to God on the mountain. Then he invited his relatives to eat a meal together there. So they all ate the meal together and spent the night there.

55 Early the next morning Laban got up and kissed his grandchildren and his daughters goodbye on the cheeks and asked God to bless them. Then he and his men left from there and returned home.