Chapter 31
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.
1He heard the words of Laban’s sons: “Jacob has taken all that belonged to our father, and from what belonged to our father he has made all this wealth.”
2Jacob saw Laban’s face, and it was not toward him as it had been before.
3Then Yahweh said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you.”
4Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah out to the field, to his flock,
5and he said to them, “I see your father’s face, that it is not toward me as before. But the God of my father has been with me.
6You yourselves know that I have served your father with all my strength.
7Your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times, but God did not let him harm me.
8If he said, ‘The speckled will be your wages,’ then the whole flock bore speckled. If he said, ‘The striped will be your wages,’ then the whole flock bore striped.
9So God has taken away your father’s livestock and given them to me.
10Once, at the mating time of the flock, I lifted my eyes and saw in a dream, and the male goats that were mounting the flock were striped, speckled, and spotted.
11The angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am.’
12He said, ‘Lift your eyes and see. All the male goats mounting the flock are striped, speckled, and spotted, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you.
13I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a standing stone and where you made a vow to me. Now get up, leave this land, and return to the land of your kindred.’”
14Rachel and Leah answered him, “Do we still have any share or inheritance in our father’s house?
15Are we not regarded by him as foreigners? He sold us, and he has used up our price as well.
16All the wealth that God has taken away from our father is ours and our children’s. So now, do whatever God has told you.”
17Then Jacob got up and set his children and his wives on the camels,
18and he drove off all his livestock and all the property he had gained, the livestock in his possession that he had gained in Paddan-aram, to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan.
19Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole the household gods that belonged to her father.
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- Translation
The Hebrew is teraphim. “Household gods” is the sense. The word is not a personal name.
20Jacob stole Laban’s heart, the heart of the Aramean, by not telling him that he was fleeing.
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- Translation
“Stole the heart” is the Hebrew idiom for keeping a plan from someone. It is printed rather than flattened into “deceived,” because the same “heart” returns in Laban’s complaint.
21He fled with all that he had. He set out, crossed the River, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.
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“The River,” with no other name, is the Euphrates. The codex does not add the name here.
22On the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled.
23He took his kinsmen with him and pursued him seven days’ journey, and he caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead.
24God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream by night and said to him, “Watch yourself. Do not speak to Jacob either good or harm.”
25Laban overtook Jacob. Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsmen pitched in the hill country of Gilead.
26Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done? You stole my heart and drove my daughters off like captives of the sword.
27Why did you flee in secret and steal away from me, and not tell me? I would have sent you off with joy and with songs, with drum and lyre.
28You did not even let me kiss my sons and my daughters. Now you have done a foolish thing.
29It is in my power to do you harm, but the God of your father said to me last night, ‘Watch yourself. Do not speak to Jacob either good or harm.’
30Now you have gone because you longed so much for your father’s house. But why did you steal my gods?”
31Jacob answered Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought you would take your daughters from me by force.
32Anyone with whom you find your gods will not live. In front of our kinsmen, recognize what is yours with me, and take it.” Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.
33Laban went into Jacob’s tent, into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of the two servants, and he did not find them. He came out of Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s tent.
34Rachel had taken the household gods, put them in the camel’s saddle, and sat on them. Laban felt through the whole tent and did not find them.
35She said to her father, “Let my lord not be angry that I cannot rise in your presence, for the way of women is on me.” He searched, and he did not find the household gods.
36Then Jacob became angry and argued with Laban. Jacob answered Laban, “What is my offense? What is my sin, that you have chased after me?
37You have felt through all my goods. What have you found of all your household goods? Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen, and let them decide between the two of us.
38These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, and the rams of your flock I have not eaten.
39An animal torn by beasts I did not bring you. I bore the loss myself. From my hand you claimed it, what was stolen by day and what was stolen by night.
40It was like this for me: by day the heat consumed me, and the frost by night, and sleep fled from my eyes.
41These twenty years I have been in your household. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flock, and you changed my wages ten times.
42If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Dread of Isaac, had not been mine, you would surely have sent me away empty. God saw my misery and the labor of my hands, and he rebuked you last night.”
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- Translation
“The Dread of Isaac” is a title, pachad yitschaq. It is not a report of Isaac’s feelings. The same title returns at the oath in verse 53.
43Laban answered Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flock is my flock, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do today for these daughters of mine, or for the children they have borne?
44Come now, let us cut a covenant, you and I, and let it be a witness between you and me.”
45Jacob took a stone and set it up as a standing stone.
46Jacob said to his kinsmen, “Gather stones.” They took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap.
47Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, and Jacob called it Galeed.
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Jegar-sahadutha is Aramaic for “heap of witness.” Galeed is Hebrew for the same thing. Both names are in the codex, and both are printed.
48Laban said, “This heap is a witness between you and me today.” Therefore it was named Galeed,
49and Mizpah, for he said, “May Yahweh watch between you and me when we are hidden from each other.
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Mizpah means “watchpost.”
50If you oppress my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, though no one else is with us, see: God is witness between you and me.”
51Laban said to Jacob, “See this heap, and see the standing stone that I have set between you and me.
52This heap is a witness, and the standing stone is a witness, that I will not pass beyond this heap to you, and you will not pass beyond this heap and this standing stone to me, to do harm.
53The gods of Abraham and the gods of Nahor, the gods of their father, will judge between us.” And Jacob swore by the Dread of his father Isaac.
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- Translation
The verb “will judge” is plural, so Laban’s line is printed as gods, not as a singular God. Jacob does not take up that formula. He swears by the Dread of Isaac.
54Jacob offered a sacrifice on the hill, and he called his kinsmen to eat a meal. They ate a meal and spent the night on the hill.
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- Text
This is the last verse of chapter 31 in the Leningrad copy. There is no verse 55. Laban’s departure in the morning is the first verse of chapter 32.