Bible Strands
Genesis 30:39
they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrative describes Jacob's placement of peeled branches in watering troughs while Laban's flocks gathered to drink during their mating season.
The words — The text records the flock mating (וַיִּחֲמוּ, va-yi-chamū) before the branches and bearing young that are striped (עֲקֻדִּים, 'aḳuddîm) or speckled (נְקֻדִּים, nəquddîm).
The thread — This event precedes Jacob's later recounting of his twenty years of labor and God's provision in Genesis 31:9, Genesis 31:38, and Genesis 31:40.
Why it lands — The passage records a specific agricultural practice and its immediate result without commentary, leaving the mechanism and outcome to the reader's observation.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.
Cross-references
- Genesis 31:9 Thus God has taken away your father’s livestock and given them to me.
- Genesis 31:38 I have been with you for twenty years now. Your sheep and goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten the rams of your flock.
- Genesis 31:40 As it was, the heat consumed me by day and the frost by night, and sleep fled from my eyes.
- Genesis 31:42 If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, surely by now you would have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands, and last night He rendered judgment.”
- Exodus 12:35 Furthermore, the Israelites acted on Moses’ word and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold, and for clothing.