The Sons of Jacob

¹ Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children*, Rachel envied her sister. So she said to Jacob:

Rachel

Give me children, or else I die.

² Jacob became angry at Rachel. So he said:

Jacob

Am I Anu who has prevented you from having children?

Rachel

³ Here is Bilhah, my servant. Have sex with her so that she can bear children for me and I too can build a family through her.

⁴ She gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife. So Jacob has sex with her.

⁵ Bilhah conceived, and bare Jacob a son.

Rachel

⁶ Anu had judged me and had heard my voice and given me a son. So she called him Dan.

⁷ Bilhah conceived again with a second son.

Rachel

I have had a great struggle with my sister, and I have won.

So she named him Naphtali.

⁹ When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took Zilpah her maid and gave her Jacob to wife.

¹⁰ Zilpah Leah’s maid bare Jacob a son.

¹¹ A troop cometh: and she called his name Gad.

¹² Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son.

Leah

¹³ How happy I am! The women will call me happy.

So she named him Asher.

¹⁴ During wheat harvest, Reuben went out into the fields and found some mandrake plants, which he brought to his mother Leah.

Rachel

[To Leah] Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.

Leah

¹⁵ Wasn’t it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son’s mandrakes too?

Rachel

Very well. He can have sex with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.

¹⁶ So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him.

Leah

You must have sex with me tonight. I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.

So they had sex that night.

¹⁷ Anu listened to Leah, and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a 5th son.

Leah

¹⁸ Anu has rewarded me for giving my servant to my husband.

So she named him Issachar.

¹⁹ Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son.

Leah

²⁰ Anu has presented me with a precious gift. This time my husband will treat me with honor, because I have borne him six sons.

So she named him Zebulun.

²¹ Some time later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.

²² Then Anu remembered Rachel; he listened to her and enabled her to conceive.

²³ She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said:

Rachel

Anu has taken away my disgrace.

²⁴ She named him Joseph.

Rachel

May the Lord add to me another son.

Jacob’s Flocks Increase

²⁵ After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban:

Jacob

Send me on my way so I can go back to my own homeland. 26 Give me my wives and children, for whom I have served you, and I will be on my way. You know how much work I’ve done for you.

Laban

²⁷ If I have found favor in your eyes, please stay. I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you. ²⁸ Name your wages, and I will pay them.

Jacob

²⁹ You know how I have worked for you and how your livestock has fared under my care. 30 The little you had before I came has increased greatly, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I have been. But now, when may I do something for my own household?

Laban

³¹ What shall I give you?

Jacob

I will go on tending your flocks and watch over them. 32 Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages.

³³ My honesty will testify for me in the future, whenever you check on the wages you have paid me. Any goat in my possession that is not speckled or spotted, or any lamb that is not dark-colored, will be considered stolen.

Laban

³⁴ “Agreed.”

³⁵ That same day, he removed:

• all the male goats that were streaked or spotted
• all the speckled or spotted female goats (all that had white on them)
• all the dark-colored lambs

He placed them in the care of his sons.

³⁶ Then he put a three-day journey between Laban and Jacob, while Jacob continued to tend the rest of Laban’s flocks.

³⁷ Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches.

³⁸ Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink.

When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, ³⁹ they mated in front of the branches.

They bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.

⁴⁰ Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves, but made the rest face the streaked and dark-colored animals that belonged to Laban.

Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban’s animals.

41 Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches.

42 But if the animals were weak, he would not place them there.

So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob.

43 In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and female and male servants, and camels and donkeys.