Pole Peeling

I teach Primary (great calling!) and was reviewing Genesis 30 (we’re talking about Jacob and Laban) when I came across Genesis 30:25-43. There were a couple of questions regarding this incident in the lesson and I began to read it carefully as I was not familiar with this part of the story.

These scriptures discuss Jacob’s attempt to get something out of the labor he had performed for Laban for 14 years. He tells Laban that he will take the speckled, spotted or mottled sheep or goats born to his herds from this point on as his payment for services. Laban agrees to this and promptly removes all the speckled, spotted and mottled sheep and goats from the herds cared for by Jacob and sends them to other places far away. Obviously, this is done to reduce the chances of any offspring that Jacob could take with him when he leaves. Jacob has other plans though. He takes some rods from trees and peels and pocks the sticks and when the herds come down to the water to drink (and mate) they will see the rods. The idea was that what the animals see at the time of mating will influence the offspring. Sure enough, he gets some speckled, spotted and mottled lambs and kids (the goat kind). Then he makes sure that the animals in his herd see the speckled, spotted and mottled offspring to increase the chances of more of the same. He goes one step further. In Genesis 31:41-42, we see that Jacob makes sure that its the STRONG and HEALTHY animals that see the spots and streaks, not the weak sickly ones.

….so the feebler were Laban’s; and the strong Jacob’s.

As I was trying to make sense of this, I did a search on the internet and came across this blog entry which helped clarify the story for me.

https://bible.org/seriespage/jacob-gets-laban%E2%80%99s-goat-genesis-3025-3116

It’s written by an evangelical minister and thus has the flavor of his religious beliefs (lots of emphasis on grace) but he makes a couple of points I found very interesting. He says that Jacob believed his “pole peeling” and its accompanying activities were sanctioned by God because they worked.

I wonder how many times genuine Christians foolishly conclude that the success which we experience is proof of God’s blessing and approval of our carnal and unspiritual methods. Do we, like Jacob, suppose that any method that appears to work must be acceptable to God? As I look about me and as I observe many of the techniques that are commonly accepted by evangelicals today, I must admit that it appears that results are more important to us than righteousness. While we may be successful in convincing ourselves and perhaps others, God knows our hearts, and He will eventually make us stand and give account of our deeds. As someone has rightly pointed out, we are not commanded to be victorious, only obedient. We are not commanded to be fruitful, only to abide (John 15:1-.

Then he gets to the point I found most compelling:

Finally, many of us, like Jacob, fail to “adorn the doctrine of God” (Titus 2:10) in our work lives. We enter into an agreement with our employer but then conclude that he is not so interested in our future as we are. We begin to look out for our own interests at the expense of our boss. We begin to build our own little empires just as Jacob set his flock apart from Laban’s. We begin to spend an enormous portion of our time trying to figure out how we can get more of what belongs to the company. Rather than working diligently and leaving our well-being in God’s hands, we take matters into our own hands. While we may, like Jacob, stay within the letter of the law, we get ahead at the expense of another. Such conduct is not to the glory of God. Such does not “seek first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33). May God enable us to trust in Him and in His grace rather than in our schemes and in the work of our hands.

Aside from some of the interesting conclusions reached, I also found it interesting that as I searched (superficially I’ll admit) LDS sources on the story, I didn’t find much. What little I found painted Jacob as the hero and Laban as the (sort of) villain in the episode. The one LDS based commentary I found basically said that what Jacob did was good animal husbandry and left it at that.