Drafted by Grok 4.7 on 8 October 2026. First draft. Not independently reviewed. Leningrad Codex, through the Open Scriptures Westminster Leningrad Codex. The written consonants are printed. A Masoretic reading is footnoted when it differs. No Dead Sea reading was substituted unless it was read from a fragment. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions are witnesses, not the default.
1Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, and Rachel envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me sons. If you do not, I am a dead woman.”
2Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”
3She said, “Here is my servant Bilhah. Go in to her, so that she may bear on my knees and I too may be built up through her.”
4So she gave him Bilhah her servant as a wife, and Jacob went in to her.
5Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.
6Rachel said, “God has judged me, and he has also heard my voice and given me a son.” Therefore she named him Dan.
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Dan is explained by “he has judged.”
7Bilhah, Rachel’s servant, conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.
8Rachel said, “Wrestlings of God I have wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed.” And she named him Naphtali.
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Naphtali is explained by the wrestling. “Of God” can mark the struggle as overwhelming, or as God’s. Both stay in the phrase “wrestlings of God.”
9Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, so she took Zilpah her servant and gave her to Jacob as a wife.
10Zilpah, Leah’s servant, bore Jacob a son.
11Leah said, “With fortune.” So she named him Gad.
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The written words are bagad, “with fortune,” or “by fortune.” The reading tradition divides them as ba gad, “fortune has come.” The written wording is printed. The name Gad is the same word as fortune.
12Zilpah, Leah’s servant, bore Jacob a second son.
13Leah said, “In my happiness, for daughters will call me happy.” So she named him Asher.
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Asher is explained by “happy.”
14In the days of the wheat harvest Reuben went out and found dudaim in the field, and he brought them to Leah his mother. Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s dudaim.”
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Dudaim is a plant. The codex does not name the species. It is often identified later as mandrake. That identification is not printed as if the Hebrew had said it. The word is kept.
15She said to her, “Was it a small thing that you took my husband? Will you take my son’s dudaim as well?” Rachel said, “Very well. He may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son’s dudaim.”
16Jacob came in from the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him and said, “You must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son’s dudaim.” So he lay with her that night.
17God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.
18Leah said, “God has given me my wages, because I gave my servant to my husband.” So she named him Issachar.
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Issachar is explained by “wages.”
19Leah conceived again and bore a sixth son to Jacob.
20Leah said, “God has given me a fine gift. This time my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six sons.” So she named him Zebulun.
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She uses two words. “Gift” is zavad, and “honor” is zabal, which is the sound in Zebulun. Both stay in her speech.
21Afterward she bore a daughter and named her Dinah.
22God remembered Rachel. God listened to her and opened her womb.
23She conceived and bore a son and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.”
24She named him Joseph, saying, “May Yahweh add another son to me.”
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Verse 23 explains the birth by “taken away,” asaf. Verse 24 explains the name Joseph by “may he add,” yosef. Both sentences are hers, and both are printed.
25When Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, so that I may go to my own place and my own land.
26Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, and let me go. You yourself know the service I have given you.”
27Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your eyes — I have learned by divination that Yahweh has blessed me because of you.”
28He said, “Name your wages to me, and I will give them.”
29He said to him, “You know how I have served you, and how your livestock has done with me.
30What you had before I came was little, and it has burst into a multitude. Yahweh has blessed you wherever I went. And now, when shall I provide for my own house as well?”
31He said, “What shall I give you?” Jacob said, “You will give me nothing. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it.
32Let me pass through your whole flock today. Remove from it every speckled and spotted animal, every dark animal among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats. That will be my wages.
33My honesty will answer for me later, when you come to check my wages. Every one that is not speckled or spotted among the goats, or dark among the sheep, if it is with me, will count as stolen.”
34Laban said, “Good. Let it be as you have said.”
35That day he removed the striped and spotted male goats, and all the speckled and spotted female goats, every one that had white on it, and every dark one among the sheep, and he put them in the care of his sons.
36He put three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob was pasturing the rest of Laban’s flock.
37Jacob took fresh rods of poplar, almond, and plane, and peeled white streaks in them, laying bare the white of the rods.
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The three trees are livneh, luz, and armon. Poplar, almond, and plane are the usual identifications. The codex does not describe the trees further, so the species remain conventional.
38He set the rods he had peeled in the troughs, in the watering channels, where the flock came to drink, in front of the flock. They mated when they came to drink.
39The flock mated by the rods, and the flock bore striped, speckled, and spotted young.
40Jacob separated the lambs, and he set the flock toward the striped and all the dark animals in Laban’s flock. He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban’s flock.
41Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob put the rods in the channels in front of the flock, so they would mate by the rods.
42When the flock was feeble he did not put them there. So the feeble became Laban’s, and the stronger became Jacob’s.
43The man spread out greatly, and he had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.