Genesis 30:38
And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.
The verse belongs to Jacob's sojourn with Laban in Haran in Padan-aram, in the land of the children of the East. It falls after the dream at Bethel and before the departure for Canaan, in the time when he served Laban fourteen years for his two daughters and sons were born to him. It is part of the account of that sojourn during which God cared for Jacob.
The verse describes the setting of peeled, ring-straked rods before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink. The flocks conceived there when they came to drink and brought forth ring-straked offspring. This was the work of a hired herdsman caring for the stock, and part of how his flocks and herds increased.
God cared for and prospered Jacob in flocks and herds despite Jacob's selfishness and unfaithfulness. He prospered him despite Laban's efforts to deprive him of his right. Temporal blessing with abundant flocks accompanied Jacob's faithfulness as evidence of God's care.
The verse also exposes Jacob's checkered and unsatisfactory experience of selfish plotting and consequent suffering. He who overreached and supplanted met overreaching himself. God's providence, though seeming slow, brings retribution sooner or later.
The verse stands among examples of patriarchal violations of the marriage institution, which did not make marriage any less sacred. It belongs to the record of Jacob's polygamous household, which proves that polygamy causes very great unhappiness in every family where it enters. Polygamy was never anything but evil and wrong.
The verse teaches the physiological law that by beholding we become changed into the same image. That beholding law applies to women, especially mothers shaping human destinies. Beholding absurd fashions can imprint itself on the unborn child, so that a mother wearing an enlarged, deformed hat risks bearing a child with a head of proportionate dimensions. Mothers must not be high-minded but fear, lest mad pursuit of folly in dress bring dreadful judgment on themselves and their children.
The work in the verse illustrates the actually necessary daily care for the life and welfare of stock, such as feeding and watering. Such care must be performed on the Sabbath the same as on any day. It is always to be reduced to a practical, merciful minimum.