Genesis
Chapter 31
Jacob’s Flight
Jacob learned that the sons of Laban were saying, “Jacob has taken everything our father owned, and it is at our father’s expense that he has accumulated this fortune.”
Jacob perceived from Laban’s expression that his attitude toward him had changed.
Then the Lord said to Jacob: “Go back to your homeland, the country of your kinsmen. I will be with you.”
Jacob had Rachel and Leah called to the field where his flocks were.
He told them: “I see that your father no longer looks kindly on me, but the God of my father has been with me.
You know I have worked for your father with all my strength.
But your father has not been honest with me, changing my wages ten times. However, God has not allowed him to harm me.
Whenever he said: ‘The spotted ones will be your wages,’ then all the ewes had spotted lambs. And whenever he said: ‘The streaked ones will be your wages,’ then all the ewes produced streaked lambs.
God, who has taken your father’s livestock this way and given it to me.
For during the breeding season, when I looked up, I saw in a dream that the rams mating with the ewes were streaked, spotted, or speckled.
And the angel in the dream said to me: “Jacob.” “Here I am,” I replied.
He then said: “Look up and see that all the rams mating with the ewes are streaked, spotted, or speckled. I have seen all that Laban has done to you.
I am the God who appeared to you at Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and vowed to me by oath. Now get ready, leave this country, and return to the land of your birth.”
Then Rachel and Leah replied: “Have we still any share in the inheritance of our father’s estate?
Haven’t he regarded us as foreigners since he has sold us, and well and truly used up our money?
Surely all the fortune that God has taken from our father belongs to us and our children. So do then all that God has told you.”
Jacob prepared and loaded his children and wives onto camels.
He also brought along all his livestock and everything he had gathered (the livestock he had acquired at Paddan-aram) to return to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan.
Persecution and Encounter
Rachel then took advantage of Laban. While he was shearing his sheep, she stole her father’s household gods.
So Jacob deceived Laban by preventing him from discovering that he was escaping.
He escaped with all his possessions, and after crossing the Euphrates River, he headed toward the hill country of Gilead.
Three days later, Laban heard that Jacob had fled.
Taking his brothers with him, he followed Jacob for seven days and caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead.
God appeared to Laban in a dream at night and said: “Be careful not to say anything—either good or bad—to Jacob.”
Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country of Gilead when Laban overtook him. Laban and his brothers al-so camped on the hills of Gilead.
Then Laban said to Jacob: “What have you done, tricking me and carrying my daughters off like prisoners of war?
Why did you run away secretly and cheat me? Why didn’t you tell me? I could have sent you off with joy, singing, and the music of tambourine and harp.
You didn’t even let me kiss my grandchildren and daughters goodbye. You made a foolish choice,
and I have the power to harm you, but last night the God of your father warned me saying: ‘Be careful not to say anything—good or evil—to Jacob.’
Now, if you have gone off because you were planning to return to your father’s house, why did you steal my gods?”
Jacob replied to Laban: “It was because I was afraid you would take your daughters from me!
But whoever is found in possession of your gods will not live. In the presence of our relatives, see for yourself if anything that belongs to you is here with me and, if so, take it.” Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the gods.
Laban entered Jacob’s tent, then Leah’s, and then the tents of the two maidservants, but he found nothing. When Laban came out of Leah’s tent, he entered Rachel’s tent.
Rachel had taken the gods and hidden them in the camel’s saddle, sitting on them. Laban searched throughout the tent but did not find them.
Rachel said to her father: “Do not be angry with me, my lord, if I do not stand in your presence, for I am having my period.” So he searched again but did not find the gods.
Then Jacob became angry and rebuked Laban: What is my crime?” he asked him. “What sin of mine makes you hound me down?
Now that you have searched through all my belongings, have you found anything that belongs to your household? If so, let it be seen here in the presence of your family and mine, and let them judge between us.
During the twenty years I have been with you, your ewes and your she-goats have not miscarried, and I haven’t eaten any of the rams from your flocks.
I haven’t brought you any animal torn by a wild beast. I suffered the loss, and you demanded payment from me for whatever was stolen by day or night.
During the day, I have been stifled by the heat, and at night, I have suffered from the cold, and sleep has left my eyes.
It’s twenty years since I’ve been with you. I worked fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks, and ten times you have altered my wages.
If the God of my father Abraham and the Fearsome God of Isaac had not been with me, you would have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands, and last night he passed sentence.”
Laban answered and said to Jacob: “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, these sheep are my sheep, and all that you see are mine. How can I harm today these daughters of mine or their children?
Come now, let us make a treaty, you and me, and let it be a witness between us.”
Laban and Jacob’s Covenant
Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar.
He then said to his kinsmen: “Collect stones.” So they gathered stones and piled them up and ate there by the pile.
Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, and Jacob called it, Galeed.
Laban said: “This pile of stones is a witness between you and me today.” That is why it was called Galeed;
and it was also known as Mizpah because Laban had said: “May the Lord watch between me and you when we are no longer in sight of each other.
If you harm my daughters or take other wives besides my daughters, even though no man is with us, remember that God is a witness between you and me.”
Then Laban said to Jacob: “Here is the pile and the pillar I have set between you and me.
This pile and this pillar will witness that I will not pass beyond this pile to harm you, and that you will not pass beyond this pile and pillar to harm me.
May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor judge between us!” So Jacob swore by the Fearful God of his father Isaac.
Jacob also offered a sacrifice on the mountain and invited his brothers to the meal. After they ate, they spent the night there.
Commentaries
Jacob’s Flight.
This new movement from Mesopotamia to Canaan aligns once again with the divine will. The God of Abraham, who is also the God of Jacob, commands him to depart once more for the land of Canaan (3:13 b); God reveals himself to Jacob as the same one to whom the patriarch made a vow at Bethel (13a) and promises him his enduring companionship and support. Jacob, for his part, does everything he can to ensure that his departure does not seem like an abduction of Laban’s daughters or a theft of their livestock (17f). Although it is a divine “command,” Jacob leaves with his family and flocks very early to avoid being detained by his father-in-law Laban.
Persecution and Encounter.
In the dispute between Laban and his son-in-law Jacob, the position that God has established in Jacob’s favor remains in effect (24.42). Moreover, God himself warns Laban not to interfere with Jacob, whether for good or for evil (24).
The story builds tension, and Laban’s intentions are concealed by the incident involving the theft of his amulets or statuettes of the family gods, which Rachel (19) has taken without anyone knowing until now. This leads to a death sentence pronounced by Jacob (32), which will not yet be executed, as Laban finds no one with the objects. Rachel will survive, but her death likely fulfills Jacob’s words. Laban’s unsuccessful search for the objects further fuels Jacob’s anger, who again invokes his righteous behavior during the twenty years of service and incidentally recalls the evil deeds of his father-in-law (36-42).
Laban and Jacob’s Covenant.
The meeting between father-in-law and son-in-law concludes positively with the celebration of a pact or alliance between them. The divine warning to Laban (31:24) and Jacob’s words (31:42) encourage Laban to settle the quarrel and preserve their kinship without hostility.
Note the “ritual” of the covenant: the stones they pile up serve as a sign of the ongoing testimony of the commitments made (46); the enumeration of the clauses and obligations (48-53); the offering of a sacrifice and the participation of everyone present in a meal (54).
This story, featuring Laban and Jacob, reflects the conflicts among the different ethnic groups of the so-called “Fertile Crescent,” which focused on tending their flocks and staying vigilant to protect their land. In this context, alliances and agreements between groups were essential; non-aggression pacts and mutual defense promises became crucial. Bonds as strong as blood ties formed, to the extent that all regarded each other as brothers and called the main party to the pact the father of all. This phenomenon helps us better understand Abraham’s paternity over Isaac and Jacob; more specifically, Jacob’s paternity over the twelve tribes of Israel.