Genesis 30:37
And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.
The verse belongs to the years Jacob spent serving Laban in Haran, in Padan-aram in Syria, for his two daughters. During that time sons were born to him, and God blessed his work and prospered him in flocks and herds despite Laban's efforts to deprive him of his right. Before he left Syria for Palestine he had a prosperous family and abundant flocks and herds. It belongs to the checkered and unsatisfactory experiences of Esau and Jacob in Genesis 27 to 31.
It describes Jacob taking rods of green poplar and of hazel and chestnut and peeling white stripes in them so that the white within the rods appeared. He set them before Laban's cattle so that the cattle brought forth ring-straked young. It shows Jacob was a herdsman with direct charge of flocks and cattle, whose work involved daily handling, feeding, and care of the animals. In its wider passage Jacob's cattle were mixed in color and not uniform, giving a picture of variety and disunity rather than oneness.
The verse shows Jacob's selfish plotting, overreaching and supplanting, and his consequent suffering in meeting overreaching himself. It demonstrates that God's providence, though seeming slow, brings retribution sooner or later. It teaches the physiological law that by beholding we become changed into the same image, and what is looked upon impresses itself upon offspring.
Applied to women, especially mothers shaping human destinies, what a mother beholds can mark her unborn child. Foolish fashions such as hats with absurdly enlarged crowns risk producing children with deformed enlarged heads. Women should be not high-minded but fear lest mad pursuit of folly bring dreadful judgment upon themselves and upon their children. That kind of care for the life and welfare of people and stock, such as feeding, watering, and milking, reduced to a practical, merciful minimum, must be done on the Sabbath the same as on any day.