And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.
The verse belongs to the account of Jacob's stay with Laban his uncle and his eventual departure from Syria for Palestine. That account shows God's care for Jacob despite his selfishness and unfaithfulness. The verse belongs also to the checkered and unsatisfactory experiences of Esau and Jacob recorded in Genesis 27-31. It falls within the record of Jacob's trials and victories that ends with his change of heart and his place among the Israel of God, to be read while keeping in mind the promised Seed and the channels through which that Seed would come.
The verse describes Jacob placing ring-straked rods before the cattle so that the flocks conceiving before them brought forth ringstraked, speckled, and spotted offspring. This illustrates the physiological law that by beholding one becomes changed into the same image. The verse shows God prospered Jacob in flocks and herds despite Laban's efforts to deprive him of his right. It recounts how God blessed Jacob's labor while he served Laban with abundant flocks and herds, a temporal blessing accompanying the spiritual heritage associated with Jacob.
The account shows God's care for Jacob despite his selfishness and unfaithfulness. The verse shows Jacob's selfish plotting and his consequent suffering, in which he overreached and supplanted others and himself met overreaching in return. It illustrates that God's providence, though seeming slow, brings retribution sooner or later. The verse is included among examples of patriarchal conduct that violated the marriage institution, but such violations did not make marriage itself unsacred. The chapter shows Jacob's polygamous family as proof that polygamy causes very great unhappiness in every family where it enters and was never anything but evil and wrong, tolerated only because of hardness of heart and contrary to the original order in Eden.
The verse shows Jacob caring for his flocks as a herdsman. That care is necessary work for the life and welfare of the stock, such as feeding, milking, and watering, reduced to a practical, merciful minimum, and it must be performed on the Sabbath the same as on any other day. The same law of beholding operates in women, especially as mothers shaping human destinies, so that beholding absurd fashions such as hats with enormously enlarged crowns threatens the unborn child with deformity proportionate to what the mother contemplates. Mothers must be not high-minded but fear, lest mad pursuit of folly bring dreadful judgment upon themselves and upon their children.
The verse belongs to the account of Jacob's stay with Laban his uncle and his eventual departure from Syria for Palestine. That account shows God's care for Jacob despite his selfishness and unfaithfulness. The verse belongs also to the checkered and unsatisfactory experiences of Esau and Jacob recorded in Genesis 27-31. It falls within the record of Jacob's trials and victories that ends with his change of heart and his place among the Israel of God, to be read while keeping in mind the promised Seed and the channels through which that Seed would come.
The verse describes Jacob placing ring-straked rods before the cattle so that the flocks conceiving before them brought forth ringstraked, speckled, and spotted offspring. This illustrates the physiological law that by beholding one becomes changed into the same image. The verse shows God prospered Jacob in flocks and herds despite Laban's efforts to deprive him of his right. It recounts how God blessed Jacob's labor while he served Laban with abundant flocks and herds, a temporal blessing accompanying the spiritual heritage associated with Jacob.
The account shows God's care for Jacob despite his selfishness and unfaithfulness. The verse shows Jacob's selfish plotting and his consequent suffering, in which he overreached and supplanted others and himself met overreaching in return. It illustrates that God's providence, though seeming slow, brings retribution sooner or later. The verse is included among examples of patriarchal conduct that violated the marriage institution, but such violations did not make marriage itself unsacred. The chapter shows Jacob's polygamous family as proof that polygamy causes very great unhappiness in every family where it enters and was never anything but evil and wrong, tolerated only because of hardness of heart and contrary to the original order in Eden.
The verse shows Jacob caring for his flocks as a herdsman. That care is necessary work for the life and welfare of the stock, such as feeding, milking, and watering, reduced to a practical, merciful minimum, and it must be performed on the Sabbath the same as on any other day. The same law of beholding operates in women, especially as mothers shaping human destinies, so that beholding absurd fashions such as hats with enormously enlarged crowns threatens the unborn child with deformity proportionate to what the mother contemplates. Mothers must be not high-minded but fear, lest mad pursuit of folly bring dreadful judgment upon themselves and upon their children.