Genesis 30:36

Gen 30:36 And he set three days’ journey betwixt himself and Jacob: and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.

Ver. 36. And he set three days’ journey.] Hoping so to disappoint Jacob of having anything, and to make his own party good with him. For, naturally, the cattle would bring forth others like themselves; and so Jacob’s part should be little enough. Sed et hic fallitur sordidus impostor , saith Pareus. Laban was utterly out in his count, and crossed in his design.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(36) He set three days’ journey betwixt himself and Jacob.—This means that Laban required that there should be an interval of between thirty and forty miles between “himself,” that is, his flocks, and those of Jacob. His wealth in sheep and goats must have been enormous to require so large a separate feeding-ground; and this we learn from Gen_30:30 had been the result of Jacob’s care. The words “and Jacob fed,” &c., are added to correct the natural supposition that he would at least give some part of his time and care to his own flocks, whereas it was his personal duty to attend only to those of Laban. The verse, nevertheless, is awkward, and the Syriac has probably preserved the right-reading: “And he set three days’ journey between himself and Laban: and Jacob fed the flock of Laban that was left.” The Samaritan and LXX. read, “between them and Jacob.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

36. three days’ journey] In order to prevent the least possibility of confusion or of intermingling, Laban separates his sons’ flocks by a great distance from those which Jacob is to tend.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Jacob did separate the lambs,.... The ringstraked, speckled, and spotted:

and set the faces of the flocks, that were all white:

towards the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban; either to go before those that were all white, that they by looking at them might conceive and bring forth such, which was another artifice of Jacob's to increase his own sheep; or else he set at the water troughs the white sheep on one side of them, and on the opposite side the speckled ones, &c. that the same effect might also be produced the more successfully both by the rods and by the speckled lambs:

and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle; partly that they might not be mixed together, but kept distinct, that what was his property might be discerned from Laban's; and partly, lest his spotted ones, being mixed with Laban's white sheep, by continual looking at them, should conceive and bring forth such likewise, and so his flocks be lessened.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Three days’ journey; understand it of the journeying or travelling of sheep, not of men. He did this lest either Jacob should mingle and exchange the sheep, or the sheep, by the contemplation of the diverse coloured ones, should bring forth others like to them.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And (as if to insure the impossibility of the two flocks mingling and breeding) he set three days journey betwixt himself (with his sons and the parti-colored animals) and Jacob: and Jacob fed the rest of Laban"s flocks out of which he was to pay himself as best he could in accordance with the contract.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

הנותרות [THE FLOCK OF LABAN] THAT WAS LEFT — The defective animals amongst them, the sickly and the barren, which were nothing but the leavings — these he (Laban) handed over to him (Genesis Rabbah 73:9).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

וישם, Lavan instructed his sons to make the spotted and speckled sheep in his flocks graze 3 days away from the animals Yaakov was tending. Yaakov let the remainder of the flock graze in the areas he had been used to. Lavan was so concerned that some of the striped and spotted animals under his sons’ care might wander back to the meadows in which they had grazed previously, and become mixed with the animals Yaakov was now tending. Yaakov might then claim that these animals were his.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.