Genesis 31: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jacob hears Laban's sons complaining that he has taken their father's wealth, and he sees that Laban's face toward him has changed; the LORD tells him to return to the land of his fathers. Jacob explains to Rachel and Leah how Laban changed his wages and how God gave him the flocks, and they tell him to do what God has said. Jacob leaves with his family and livestock without telling Laban, and Rachel takes her father's household idols; Laban pursues him to Gilead, searches for the idols, and does not find them. After Jacob answers Laban's charges, the two men set up a pillar and a heap of stones as a witness and make a covenant not to pass the heap to harm each other.

Claim by Claim

1. 31:1
   • Jacob heard the words of Laban's sons.
   • Laban's sons said Jacob had taken away everything that belonged to their father.
   • Laban's sons said Jacob had built up all this wealth from what belonged to their father.
2. 31:2
   • Jacob looked at Laban's face.
   • Laban's face was not toward Jacob as it had been before.
3. 31:3
   • The LORD spoke to Jacob.
   • The LORD told Jacob to return to the land of his fathers and to his kindred.
   • The LORD said he would be with Jacob.
4. 31:4
   • Jacob sent word and called Rachel and Leah out to the field where his flock was.
5. 31:5
   • Jacob told Rachel and Leah he saw that their father's face was not toward him as it had been before.
   • Jacob said the God of his father had been with him.
6. 31:6
   • Jacob said Rachel and Leah knew he had served their father with all his strength.
7. 31:7
   • Jacob said their father had cheated him.
   • Jacob said their father had changed his wages ten times.
   • Jacob said God did not allow Laban to harm him.
8. 31:8
   • Jacob said that when Laban said the speckled ones would be his wages, the whole flock bore speckled young.
   • Jacob said that when Laban said the streaked ones would be his wages, the whole flock bore streaked young.
9. 31:9
   • Jacob said God had taken away their father's livestock.
   • Jacob said God had given that livestock to him.
10. 31:10
    • Jacob said that at the time the flock was breeding he lifted his eyes and saw in a dream.
    • Jacob said the males mating with the flock were streaked, speckled, and mottled.
11. 31:11
    • Jacob said the angel of God spoke to him in the dream and called him by name.
    • Jacob said he answered, 'Here I am.'
12. 31:12
    • The angel told Jacob to lift up his eyes and see.
    • The angel said all the males mating with the flock were streaked, speckled, and mottled.
    • The angel said he had seen everything Laban was doing to Jacob.
13. 31:13
    • The angel said, 'I am the God of Bethel.'
    • The angel said Jacob had anointed a pillar there.
    • The angel said Jacob had vowed a vow to him there.
    • The angel told Jacob to arise and go out from that land.
    • The angel told Jacob to return to the land of his birth.
14. 31:14
    • Rachel and Leah answered Jacob.
    • Rachel and Leah asked whether they still had any portion or inheritance in their father's house.
15. 31:15
    • Rachel and Leah asked whether their father regarded them as foreigners.
    • Rachel and Leah said their father had sold them.
    • Rachel and Leah said their father had consumed the money paid for them.
16. 31:16
    • Rachel and Leah said all the wealth God had taken from their father belonged to them and to their children.
    • Rachel and Leah told Jacob to do whatever God had said to him.
17. 31:17
    • Jacob got up.
    • Jacob put his sons and his wives on camels.
18. 31:18
    • Jacob drove away all his livestock.
    • Jacob took all the goods he had acquired.
    • The livestock he had acquired was acquired in Paddan-aram.
    • Jacob set out to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan.
19. 31:19
    • Laban had gone to shear his sheep.
    • Rachel stole the household idols that belonged to her father.
20. 31:20
    • Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean.
    • Jacob did not tell Laban that he was fleeing.
21. 31:21
    • Jacob fled with all that he had.
    • Jacob got up and crossed the River.
    • Jacob set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.
22. 31:22
    • On the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled.
23. 31:23
    • Laban took his kinsmen with him.
    • Laban pursued Jacob a seven days' journey.
    • Laban and his kinsmen overtook Jacob in the hill country of Gilead.
24. 31:24
    • God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night.
    • God told Laban to take care not to speak to Jacob either good or bad.
25. 31:25
    • Laban overtook Jacob.
    • Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country.
    • Laban and his kinsmen pitched camp in the hill country of Gilead.
26. 31:26
    • Laban asked Jacob what he had done.
    • Laban said Jacob had deceived him.
    • Laban said Jacob had carried off his daughters like captives taken by the sword.
27. 31:27
    • Laban asked why Jacob fled secretly and deceived him.
    • Laban said Jacob did not tell him.
    • Laban said he would have sent Jacob away with rejoicing and songs, with tambourine and lyre.
28. 31:28
    • Laban said Jacob did not allow him to kiss his sons and his daughters.
    • Laban said Jacob had acted foolishly in doing so.
29. 31:29
    • Laban said it was in the power of his hand to do them harm.
    • Laban said the God of Jacob's father spoke to him the previous night.
    • Laban said God told him to take care not to speak to Jacob either good or bad.
30. 31:30
    • Laban said Jacob had gone because he longed greatly for his father's house.
    • Laban asked why Jacob had stolen his gods.
31. 31:31
    • Jacob answered Laban.
    • Jacob said he was afraid.
    • Jacob said he thought Laban might take his daughters from him by force.
32. 31:32
    • Jacob said whoever is found with Laban's gods shall not live.
    • Jacob told Laban to identify before their kinsmen whatever of his was there and take it.
    • Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the idols.
33. 31:33
    • Laban went into Jacob's tent.
    • Laban went into Leah's tent.
    • Laban went into the tents of the two maidservants.
    • Laban did not find the idols.
    • Laban went out of Leah's tent and entered Rachel's tent.
34. 31:34
    • Rachel had taken the household idols.
    • Rachel had put them in the camel's saddle basket.
    • Rachel sat on them.
    • Laban searched through the whole tent.
    • Laban did not find the idols.
35. 31:35
    • Rachel said to her father that he should not be angry that she could not rise before him.
    • Rachel said the way of women was upon her.
    • Laban searched and did not find the household idols.
36. 31:36
    • Jacob became angry.
    • Jacob contended with Laban.
    • Jacob asked Laban what his offense was.
    • Jacob asked what his sin was that Laban had pursued so hotly after him.
37. 31:37
    • Jacob said Laban had searched through all his goods.
    • Jacob asked what Laban had found belonging to his own household.
    • Jacob told Laban to set it out before their kinsmen.
    • Jacob said the kinsmen should judge between the two of them.
38. 31:38
    • Jacob said he had been with Laban twenty years.
    • Jacob said Laban's ewes and she-goats had not miscarried.
    • Jacob said he had not eaten the rams of Laban's flock.
39. 31:39
    • Jacob said he did not bring to Laban animals torn by beasts.
    • Jacob said he bore the loss himself.
    • Jacob said Laban required it from his hand, whether stolen by day or stolen by night.
40. 31:40
    • Jacob said the heat consumed him by day.
    • Jacob said the frost consumed him by night.
    • Jacob said sleep fled from his eyes.
41. 31:41
    • Jacob said he had been twenty years in Laban's house.
    • Jacob said he served fourteen years for Laban's two daughters.
    • Jacob said he served six years for Laban's flock.
    • Jacob said Laban changed his wages ten times.
42. 31:42
    • Jacob said that if the God of his father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with him, Laban would have sent him away empty-handed.
    • Jacob said God had seen his affliction and the labor of his hands.
    • Jacob said God rebuked Laban the previous night.
43. 31:43
    • Laban answered Jacob.
    • Laban said the daughters were his daughters.
    • Laban said the children were his children.
    • Laban said the flocks were his flocks.
    • Laban said everything Jacob saw was his.
    • Laban asked what he could do that day for his daughters or for the children they had borne.
44. 31:44
    • Laban told Jacob to come and make a covenant with him.
    • Laban said the covenant would be a witness between him and Jacob.
45. 31:45
    • Jacob took a stone.
    • Jacob set the stone up as a pillar.
46. 31:46
    • Jacob told his kinsmen to gather stones.
    • They took stones and made a heap.
    • They ate there by the heap.
47. 31:47
    • Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha.
    • Jacob called it Galeed.
48. 31:48
    • Laban said the heap was a witness between him and Jacob that day.
    • The place was therefore named Galeed.
49. 31:49
    • The place was also called Mizpah.
    • Laban said the LORD should watch between him and Jacob when they were out of each other's sight.
50. 31:50
    • Laban said if Jacob mistreated his daughters, or took wives besides his daughters, though no man was with them, God was witness between him and Jacob.
51. 31:51
    • Laban said to Jacob to look at the heap.
    • Laban said to look at the pillar he had set between himself and Jacob.
52. 31:52
    • Laban said the heap was a witness.
    • Laban said the pillar was a witness.
    • Laban said he would not pass beyond the heap to Jacob for harm.
    • Laban said Jacob would not pass beyond the heap and the pillar to him for harm.
53. 31:53
    • Laban said the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, should judge between them.
    • Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac.
54. 31:54
    • Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain.
    • Jacob called his kinsmen to eat bread.
    • They ate bread.
    • They spent the night on the mountain.
55. 31:55
    • Early in the morning Laban got up.
    • Laban kissed his sons and his daughters.
    • Laban blessed them.
    • Laban departed and returned to his place.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

31:1

The King James "glory" here means wealth and standing, not splendor or praise. Laban's sons are complaining about property they expected to inherit, and saying Jacob's herds were built out of what should have been theirs.

31:2

"Countenance" means face, and in Hebrew idiom a person's face standing toward you or away from you describes their attitude. Jacob is reading a change of mood, not a change of appearance.

31:3

When LORD is printed in capital letters, it stands for God's own personal name in Hebrew.

31:7

"Ten times" is a Hebrew way of saying "over and over"; it need not be an exact count.

31:8

Jacob's pay was not money but a share of the flock, defined by markings. In Near Eastern sheep and goats, plain-colored animals are the norm and speckled or streaked ones the minority, so whoever set the terms controlled how much the herdsman earned. Laban kept switching which markings counted as Jacob's.

31:10

"Grisled" is the old spelling of grizzled, meaning patched with gray or blotched. The King James lists three separate markings: banded, spotted with small marks, and blotched with large ones.

31:11

The word rendered "angel" simply means "messenger." Notice that in the next verse the messenger speaks as God in the first person, the text does not distinguish sharply between the two.

31:13

This refers back to Genesis 28, where Jacob, sleeping at a place he then named Bethel, set up the stone he had used as a pillow, poured oil over it to mark it as set apart, and promised to serve God if he returned home safely.

31:14

A daughter normally had no claim on her father's estate, but the payment a bridegroom made for her was expected to be held for her benefit, a kind of security if she was ever widowed or divorced. Rachel and Leah are asking whether anything of theirs is left in Laban's hands.

31:15

Jacob had paid for his brides with fourteen years of labor rather than cash. The sisters say Laban treated that payment as his own to spend, as if he had sold them outright to a foreigner rather than settling them with a household.

31:17

Camels are big animals that carry people and bags. They can walk a long way in dry land.

31:18

Paddan-aram is the region of upper Mesopotamia around the city of Haran, in what is now southeastern Turkey, several hundred miles northeast of Canaan.

31:19

Sheep-shearing was a days-long job, usually done away from the camp and ending in a feast, so Laban would be gone and unlikely to notice anything missing. The "household idols" (Hebrew *teraphim*) were small figures kept in the home. Ancient texts connect them with family protection, with consulting for omens, and possibly with the right to inherit or head the household, which is why their theft is treated as serious, though exactly what Rachel was after the text never says.

31:20

"Aramean" (KJV "Syrian") is Laban's ethnic label: the Arameans were the peoples of upper Mesopotamia and inland Syria. Their language, Aramaic, shows up in verse 47.

31:21

"The river," with no name attached, means the Euphrates. Gilead is the highland country east of the Jordan River, in modern Jordan.

31:22

Laban's own flocks had been kept three days' distance from Jacob's (Genesis 30:36), which is why the news took three days to reach him.

31:23

"His brethren" means his kinsmen, the men of his extended household. This is an armed pursuit party, not a family visit.

31:24

"Either good or bad" is a legal idiom for the whole range of a thing, say nothing at all on the matter, neither pressure nor threat. It amounts to an order not to interfere.

31:26

"As captives taken with the sword" means women carried off in a raid. Laban is accusing Jacob of treating his own wives like plunder, which is deliberate overstatement for effect.

31:27

"Wherefore" means why. A "tabret" is a tambourine, a small hand drum. Laban is describing the send-off party a departing family member would normally be given, which makes Jacob's silent exit look like an insult.

31:28

Hebrew uses "sons" for descendants generally, so Laban is talking about his grandchildren, Jacob and Leah and Rachel's children.

31:29

"It is in the power of my hand" is an idiom meaning I have the strength to do it. "Yesternight" simply means last night.

31:30

"Thou wouldest needs be gone" means you were determined to go, and "sore longedst" means missed badly. Laban concedes the homesickness and then pivots to the real charge, the missing household figures of verse 19.

31:31

"Peradventure" means perhaps. Jacob's fear is not imaginary: Laban has just claimed the daughters and their children as his own property.

31:32

Jacob is swearing a formal death-oath on the unknown thief, and such curses were taken as binding on whoever they landed on. He does not know he has just pronounced it over Rachel.

31:33

The two maidservants are Bilhah and Zilpah. Each woman had her own tent, so four tents is the whole camp searched, and Laban leaves the likeliest place for last.

31:34

A camel's saddle here is the padded frame and pack-basket strapped to the animal, big enough to sit in and to hide things inside.

31:35

By the customs later written into Israelite law, a menstruating woman was ritually unclean, and so was anything she sat on. Rachel's excuse does two things at once: it explains her not standing, and it makes Laban reluctant to disturb the cushion under her.

31:36

"Wroth" means furious, and "chode" is the old past tense of chide, meaning he told Laban off. "Trespass" here means offense or crime, not walking on someone's land.

31:37

With no courts, disputes between households were settled in front of the assembled male relatives of both sides, who heard the case and gave a verdict. Jacob is demanding exactly that.

31:38

"Cast their young" means miscarry. Jacob is listing the standard duties of a hired herdsman: keep the breeding stock healthy and do not help yourself to the owner's animals for food. A shepherd who ate the rams was stealing from his employer.

31:39

Herding contracts of the period, including those in the Babylonian law codes, released a shepherd from liability for animals killed by predators, provided he produced the carcass as evidence. Jacob says Laban ignored that protection and charged every loss to him.

31:40

"The drought consumed me" means the scorching daytime heat wore him down. The same highlands that bake by day drop close to freezing at night, and a shepherd sleeping outside with the flock got both.

31:41

The fourteen years are the seven Jacob worked for Rachel and the second seven Laban extracted after substituting Leah on the wedding night (Genesis 29). Labor took the place of the bride-payment a groom would normally make in goods.

31:42

"The Fear of Isaac" is an unusual title for God, found almost nowhere else. It may mean the God whom Isaac holds in awe; some scholars read the same word as "Kinsman" or "Protector" of Isaac. The phrase is genuinely uncertain.

31:43

Laban is asserting the strongest version of a father's customary claim: that married daughters, their children and everything acquired in his household still belong to him. The second half of the verse is him admitting he has no way to enforce it.

31:44

A covenant is a formal, binding agreement, sworn before witnesses and normally sealed with a ritual, here a stone marker and a shared meal. Between two parties of equal standing it functions much like a treaty.

31:45

An upright stone set on end (Hebrew *massebah*) served as a permanent public marker: of a grave, a boundary, or an agreement. It stands in for the parties' sworn word once they have gone their separate ways.

31:46

A piled cairn of stones was a recognized boundary marker and a standing reminder of what had been agreed at that spot.

31:47

Both names mean "heap of witness", Laban's in Aramaic, Jacob's in Hebrew. The two men are already speaking different languages, a sign that the families are parting for good. "Galeed" also echoes the name Gilead.

31:49

Mizpah means "lookout" or "watchpost," which is the point of Laban's words about God keeping watch. It is a wary agreement between men who no longer trust each other, not a fond farewell.

31:50

Agreements were normally sworn in front of human witnesses who could later testify. Out here there are none, so the parties call on God to fill that role.

31:52

This makes the cairn a border. Neither man may cross it toward the other with hostile intent, a non-aggression pact fixed to a physical line.

31:53

Nahor was Abraham's brother and Laban's grandfather; the two men descend from different branches of one family. The Hebrew verb "judge" here is plural, which may mean Laban is naming two separate family gods rather than one shared God. The text leaves it open, and Jacob answers by swearing only by his own father's God.

31:54

Sacrifice normally meant a shared meal: part of the animal burned, the rest eaten together. Eating from one dish bound the parties to the terms just sworn.

31:55

In Hebrew Bibles this verse is numbered as the first verse of chapter 32, so chapter and verse numbers here run one ahead of some other editions.