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I will pass through all thy flock to day, removing from thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and of such shall be my hire.

New Defender's Study Bible Notes

30:32 speckled and spotted cattle. Laban had received fourteen years of free labor from Jacob, and had prospered greatly as a result. Therefore he, in effect, told Jacob he would pay whatever Jacob wanted, if Jacob would continue. Jacob responded with a proposal which Laban quickly accepted, recognizing it as highly beneficial to himself. Jacob’s wages would be the spotted and off-color animals which the flocks might produce in the future–first, however, removing all such animals in the existing flocks so they could not be used in breeding. Thus, Jacob would get only the off-colored and speckled animals which might be born to a flock containing only solid-colored, dominant-colored animals. These terms, apart from God’s intervention, would have enormously favored Laban. Jacob did know, from long experience as a shepherd and stock breeder that some “heterozygous” animals would be in the flock even though all appeared to be “homozygous,” so that at least a few animals would be born spotted and speckled, even from Laban’s solid-colored animals. He trusted the Lord to determine how many.


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