Bible Strands
Genesis 31:19
Now while Laban was out shearing his sheep, Rachel stole her father’s household idols.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrator records Jacob’s household departing Paddan-aram while Laban is away shearing sheep, occurring just before Jacob conceals his departure from his father-in-law.
The words — וַ/תִּגְנֹ֣ב (va./tig.No) = and/ she stole [H1589] marks the covert removal of the idols, stressing the secretive nature of the act.
The thread — The theft resurfaces when Laban demands the stolen gods (Genesis 31:30), parallels Michal’s placement of a household idol to deceive pursuers (1 Samuel 19:13), and aligns with Hosea’s record of Israel living without sacred objects (Hosea 3:4).
Why it lands — The verse states a factual theft during a moment of distraction, requiring the reader to track how concealed religious objects trigger later confrontation and shift the narrative toward covenant consequences.
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 Laban went to shear his sheep: and Rachel had stolen the images that were her father’s.
Cross-references
- 1 Samuel 19:13 Then Michal took a household idol and laid it in the bed, placed some goat hair on its head, and covered it with a garment.
- Genesis 31:30 Now you have gone off because you long for your father’s house. But why have you stolen my gods?”
- Hosea 3:4 For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or idol.
- Genesis 35:2 So Jacob told his household and all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you. Purify yourselves and change your garments.
- Ezekiel 21:21 For the king of Babylon stands at the fork in the road, at the junction of the two roads, to seek an omen: He shakes the arrows, he consults the idols, he examines the liver.
- Genesis 31:32 If you find your gods with anyone here, he shall not live! In the presence of our relatives, see for yourself if anything is yours, and take it back.” For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the idols.
- Genesis 31:34 Now Rachel had taken Laban’s household idols, put them in the saddlebag of her camel, and was sitting on them. And Laban searched everything in the tent but found nothing.
- Judges 17:4 So he returned the silver to his mother, and she took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to a silversmith, who made them into a graven image and a molten idol. And they were placed in the house of Micah.
- Judges 18:14 Then the five men who had gone to spy out the land of Laish said to their brothers, “Did you know that one of these houses has an ephod, household gods, a graven image, and a molten idol? Now think about what you should do.”
- Joshua 24:2 And Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your fathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates and worshiped other gods.