Genesis 30:25-43 NKJV 25 And it came to pass, when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own place and to my country. 26 Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me go; for you know my service which I have done for you.”
27 And Laban said to him, “Please stay, if I have found favor in your eyes, for I have learned by experience that the Lord has blessed me for your sake.” 28 Then he said, “Name me your wages, and I will give it.”
29 So Jacob said to him, “You know how I have served you and how your livestock has been with me. 30 For what you had before I came was little, and it has increased to a great amount; the Lord has blessed you since my coming. And now, when shall I also provide for my own house?”
31 So he said, “What shall I give you?”
And Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this thing for me, I will again feed and keep your flocks: 32 Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from there all the speckled and spotted sheep, and all the brown ones among the lambs, and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and these shall be my wages. 33 So my righteousness will answer for me in time to come, when the subject of my wages comes before you: every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the lambs, will be considered stolen, if it is with me.”
34 And Laban said, “Oh, that it were according to your word!” 35 So he removed that day the male goats that were speckled and spotted, all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had some white in it, and all the brown ones among the lambs, and gave them into the hand of his sons. 36 Then he put three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.
37 Now Jacob took for himself rods of green poplar and of the almond and chestnut trees, peeled white strips in them, and exposed the white which was in the rods. 38 And the rods which he had peeled, he set before the flocks in the gutters, in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink, so that they should conceive when they came to drink. 39 So the flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks brought forth streaked, speckled, and spotted. 40 Then Jacob separated the lambs, and made the flocks face toward the streaked and all the brown in the flock of Laban; but he put his own flocks by themselves and did not put them with Laban’s flock.
41 And it came to pass, whenever the stronger livestock conceived, that Jacob placed the rods before the eyes of the livestock in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. 42 But when the flocks were feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s. 43 Thus the man became exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks, female and male servants, and camels and donkeys.
Man’s reason can be a tricky thing. As with most things, it can sometimes get in the way of proper thinking—as in, limiting the actual efficacy of God working through His mysterious means of grace. Man’s finite (limited) reason simply cannot comprehend the infinite (endless) spiritual ways of God. So, it either continually doubts His ways out and out, or it concocts a human understanding of them, pulling God’s lofty spiritual ways down to be under man’s reasonable thinking.
Yet, man’s reason is also a blessing from God in that it helps us to weigh things out in life. Luther’s Small Catechism even has us confessing this gift from God in the explanation to the First Article of the Apostles Creed (Creation). We confess: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. What does this mean? I believe that God has made me and all created things; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them.”
This understanding of reason is brought up to reveal how Jacob actually used the reason God had given to him to figure out how he would garner larger flocks of sheep and goats. He utilized a special technique using three kinds of tree bark that greatly improved the fertility rate and the strength of the sheep and goats. And when it came to how they would conceive spotted and speckled offspring (with Laban having dishonestly stolen all of the existing animals that had spots or speckles), well, Jacob, having shepherded these very flocks for 14 years, knew their traits but, more importantly, he trusted in the Lord.
When looking into the next chapter, Jacob’s trust in God gets revealed, for it states: “Then the Angel of God spoke to me in a dream, saying, ‘Jacob.’ And I said, ‘Here I am.’ And He said, ‘Lift your eyes now and see, all the rams which leap on the flocks are streaked, speckled, and gray-spotted; for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you” (31:11–12).
Let us pray: Lord, keep me steadfast in Your efficient Word and bring me to bow my reason to Your infinite wisdom. Amen.