Genesis 30:39

they should have the rods before their eyes, and they should conceive in [the] sight of the rods. And it was done that in that heat of riding, or engendering, the sheep should behold those rods, and that they should bring forth spotted beasts, and diverse, and besprinkled with diverse colour. (they would have the branches before their eyes, and they would conceive in front of the branches. And so it was done that in the heat of riding, or of begetting, the sheep saw those branches, and later they brought forth beasts that were spotted, and diverse, and besprinkled with diverse colour, like the branches were.)

Wycliffe Modern Spelling

In The King James Version

And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.

In Context

38And Jacob put those rods in the troughs, where the water was poured out, that when the flocks should come to drink, (And Jacob put up those branches in the troughs, where the water was poured out, so that when the flocks would come to drink,)

40And Jacob separated the flock, and put the rods in the [water] troughs, before the eyes of the rams, (or And so Jacob separated out the flock, and put up the branches in the water troughs, before the eyes of the rams). Soothly all the white and [the] black were Laban’s; soothly all the others were Jacob’s; for the flocks were separated (out) betwixt themselves.

Read all of Genesis 30

Cross References

Genesis 31:9and God took away the substance of your father (or and so God took away your father’s property), and gave it to me.

Genesis 31:38Was I (not) with thee therefore twenty years? (or Was I not with thee for twenty years?) Thy sheep and (thy) goats were not barren, I ate not the rams of thy flock,

Genesis 31:42But if [the] God of my father Abraham, and the dread of Isaac had not helped me, peradventure now thou haddest left me naked; the Lord hath beheld my tormenting and the travail of mine hands, and reproved thee yesterday (or and yesterday rebuked thee).

Matthew Henry on Genesis 30:38-43

Jacob's Ingenious Policy. ( b. c. 1745.) 37 And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. 38 And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. 39 And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted. 40 And Jacob did separate… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Genesis 30:39