Genesis Chapter 31

Called home by the God of Bethel, Jacob leaves Laban; God restrains the pursuing Laban, and the two men part under a covenant at Galeed.

Genesis 31:1-3

The Moment to Leave

Genesis 31:4-16

Jacob Wins His Wives’ Consent

Genesis 31:17-24

Flight and Pursuit

Genesis 31:25-42

The Confrontation in Gilead

Genesis 31:43-55

The Covenant at Galeed

Genesis 31:1

The chapter opens with overheard talk. Laban’s sons, who appear here for the first time, have watched their inheritance shrink while their brother-in-law’s flocks multiply, and they complain that Jacob “hath taken away all that was our father’s.” The claim is an exaggeration born of resentment. Laban still has flocks to shear in verse 19, and nothing in the narrative shows Jacob breaking the terms of the agreement in Genesis 30:31–34. Yet the sons speak as if every speckled goat in Jacob’s pens had been taken from their father’s fold.

The complaint contains a sliver of truth that makes it sting. Jacob had used his own methods with the peeled rods (Genesis 30:37–43), and his reputation as a supplanter followed him from Canaan (Genesis 27:36). The narrator lets the reader feel both sides: the sons are envious and unfair, yet Jacob is not a man whose dealings have always been transparent. What neither the sons nor, at first, the reader fully sees is that God has been the decisive actor, as Jacob will explain in verses 5–12.

The word translated “glory” is the ordinary Hebrew word for weight and substance, here meaning wealth. It is the same envy that Isaac met among the Philistines when his flocks grew great (Genesis 26:14). Prosperity given by God often provokes hostility from those who measure everything by their own loss. In the providence of God, this hostility becomes the push that loosens Jacob from Haran, so that the resentment of men serves the purpose of God (Psalm 76:10).

Study Links

Cross References

Genesis 26:14Genesis 30:43

Word / Phrase Notes

כָּבֹד (kavod) — glory

The noun comes from the idea of heaviness and so can describe what gives a person weight in society: riches, honor, splendor. Here it means Jacob’s accumulated wealth in flocks and servants, as Abram was “very rich” (literally heavy) in cattle. The same word later describes the glory of the LORD, but the context here is plainly material.

Genesis 13:2Genesis 45:13