Genesis 30:40

Gen 30:40 And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban’s cattle.

Ver. 40. And set the faces of the flocks, &c.] That by the sight of the speckled cattle they might bring forth lambs like them that were in their eye.

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.

Gen 30:40. Jacob set the faces of the flocks toward the ring-streaked — Having used the pilled rods by divine direction, and seeing the effects they produced, he here employs his own natural sagacity, and turns the faces of Laban’s flocks toward the ring-streaked and the brown, that by looking frequently on them, they might be disposed in their conception to bring forth the like. And he put his own flocks apart, lest, by looking at Laban’s, their young might fall off from being ring-streaked and brown.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 40. Jacob did separate the lambs, c.] When Jacob undertook the care of Laban's flock, according to the agreement already mentioned, there were no party-coloured sheep or goats among them, therefore the ring-streaked, &c., mentioned in this verse, must have been born since the agreement was made and Jacob makes use of them precisely as he used the pilled rods, that, having these before their eyes during conception, the impression might be made upon their imagination which would lead to the results already mentioned.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(40) Jacob . . . set the faces of the flocks toward . . . —As the speckled lambs and kids would for some time remain with Labau’s flocks, this may perhaps mean that, when driving them to water, Jacob placed all the striped kids and dark lambs together, that, by being in a mass, they might work upon the imagination of the ewes and she-goats. Finally, after these had conceived he drove the parti-coloured young away to his own flocks.

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

40. set the faces … Laban] This is a very obscure sentence in the original. It probably describes a second device practised by Jacob. At the breeding time he caused the ewes which belonged to Laban to pasture within view of his own parti-coloured and black animals, in order to increase the tendency of Laban’s flock to produce spotted and parti-coloured lambs. The difficulty, however, of the language has made some scholars suppose that the words “and set … of Laban” are a gloss. As they stand, they seem to contradict Gen_30:33; Gen_30:36, according to which Laban had already removed to a distance the parti-coloured animals.

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.

All the white, &c. Notwithstanding Jacob’s stratagem, some had lambs all of a colour. The force of fancy is very surprising on such occasions. Oppian, Aristotle, and others, recommend Jacob’s plan as consonant to nature. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Jacob did separate the lambs, such as were ring-straked and brown from the white, as it here follows. He caused

the ring-straked and all the brown to go foremost, and the white to follow them, that by the continued beholding of them in the time of their conjunction, they might have their colour more imprinted upon their fancies, and thereby convey it to their young ones. He

put them not unto Laban’s cattle; which he did upon the same reason, lest the constant beholding of them should make them bring forth the like, i.e. single-coloured ones.

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

40. Separate the lambs — That is, the lambs produced after the separation mentioned in Gen_30:35. These ringstreaked lambs were, as a second artifice, made like the rods to serve his purpose.

Put his own flocks by themselves — As he had a right to do. Laban’s cattle here denote those of uniform color in the flocks tended by Jacob.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Jacob did separate the lambs (i.e. the speckled lambs procured by the foregoing artifice he removed from the main body of the flock), and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban (this was Jacob"s second artifice, to make the speckled lambs serve the same purpose as the pilled rods); and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban"s cattle so that they were not exposed to the risk of producing offspring of uniform color.

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

והכשבים הפריד יעקב AND JACOB PARTED THE LAMBS — Those sheep that were thus born spotted on the ankles and speckled he separated and set apart by themselves, thus forming them into a separate flock. He led that spotted flock in front of ordinary sheep so that the faces of the sheep that followed behind them were gazing at them. This is what Scripture means in saying, “He set the faces of the flocks towards the spotted” — that the faces of the sheep were directed towards the spotted animals and towards all that were brownish which he found amongst Laban’s sheep (i. e., amongst the sickly sheep which Laban had left him; cf. Genesis 5:36).

וישת לו עדרים means he formed them into a separate flock as I have already explained.

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.

AND JACOB SEPARATED THE LAMBS. Rashi comments: “Those sheep that were thus born spotted on the ankles and speckled, he separated and set apart by themselves, thus forming them into a separate flock. The spotted flock he led in front of the ordinary sheep so that the faces of the sheep that followed behind them were gazing at them. This is what Scripture means in saying, And he set the faces of the flocks towards the spotted; the faces of the sheep were directed towards the spotted animals and towards all that were brownish which were found amongst Laban’s sheep. And he put his own droves by themselves, and set them not with Laban’s flocks, as I have already explained.” This is the Rabbi’s [Rashi’s] language. But his words here are not correct. For why did Jacob separate the spotted lambs so that there did not remain in Laban’s flock any speckled or brownish ones, neither in the sheep nor in the goats? And if those that he separated were the ringstraked, speckled and spotted which the sheep had given birth to and which belonged to him, and it was from them that he made this spotted flock, why did he separate only the lambs and did not take also the he-goats and she-goats which were born spotted and make from all of them this spotted flock which he led before the sheep? Moreover, Scripture makes no mention of the fact that brownish ones were born. And again, according to the opinion of the Rabbi [Rashi], there were no ringstraked and spotted among the lambs for these were not his hire. Only the brownish were, and for the brownish he had made no sticks.But the explanation of the verse is that Jacob separated the lambs from the goats and made from them a separate flock. Now he had a flock of brownish lambs and a flock of spotted and speckled goats. He then had the faces of all the flocks — of the lambs and of the goats — directed towards the ringstraked and towards all the brownish which were in the flock of Laban, since he put the ringstraked before the goats and all the brownish before the lambs, this being in accordance with the opinion of the earlier Rabbis, [Rashi and Ibn Ezra, as explained above], or, according to [Ramban’s] opinion, the ringstraked and all the brownish before the lamb. For the purpose of the separation of the lambs from the goats was on account of the brownish which were his hire from the lambs alone.The correct interpretation appears to me to be that Scripture is saying, Jacob separated [only] the lambs and set the faces of the flocks, which refer to the above mentioned lambs, to the ringstraked and all the brownish in the flock of Laban, and he put his own droves of the ringstraked and the brownish by themselves, and he set them not with Laban’s flocks, for these, [the ringstraked and the brownish], were his hire. And the meaning of the expression, in the flock of Laban, is that he did so with all of Laban’s flocks but not that they belonged to Laban since the ringstraked among the lambs were Jacob’s.Now do not ask why Scripture at first says “lambs” and then says “the faces of the flocks” rather than “the faces of the lambs”, for it is normal for Scripture to express itself this way. In this section there is a similar case in connection with the mountain of Gilead.. “The mountain” mentioned at the beginning of the verse is the “mountain of Gilead” mentioned at the end. And the reason Jacob did this with the lambs more than with the goats is that there were no brownish ones among the sticks he put up. It is possible that he knew that because of their heaviness, it is natural for lambs to require many signs to arouse them — more than the light-weight he-goats require.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

והכבשים הפריד יעקב, he separated the females from the goats whether male or female, not watering the two species at the same time, in order to prevent goats with undesirable skin patterns being born. None of the goats that were not black belonged to Yaakov [according to Joseph Kimichi’s commentary, there was nothing wrong in what Yaakov did or failed to do, since these goats never had displayed such skin patterns, so why should Yaakov encourage their being born with new skin patterns. Ed.] Yaakov watered the goats elsewhere where they did not observe any sticks or branches that could arouse their imagination. Yaakov did not have any black paint which would have enabled him to paint sticks black. Even if he had possessed such paint, his stratagem would have become public knowledge as naturally black sticks or branches did not exist in that region. He therefore had to content himself with increasing his share of the births of the sheep, foregoing any artificial measures to make the goats throw young ones that were black-skinned. [the interested reader will find that different commentators arrive at different conclusions regarding exactly what was agreed between Yaakov and Lavan, and they each explain his procedures according to their understanding of the agreement. Ed.]

וישת לו עדרים לבדו, from the lambs that were born as his share, year after year, Yaakov formed separate flocks which he kept apart seeing that they amounted to a formidable number of animals. He did not let them graze anywhere near where Lavan’s flocks were grazing. Lavan had displayed envy of Yaakov, and therefore Yaakov did not want to inflame his envy by letting him see his flocks all the time, knowing that Yaakov’s share of the newly born sheep had outnumbered those born as his own share

על צאן, as if the Torah had written עם צאן, “with the sheep.” A similar construction is found in Exodus 35,22 ויבאו האנשים על הנשים, “the men came together with the women.”

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.