Genesis 30 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

Gen 30:1

Gen 30:1When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!”

Gen 30:2

Gen 30:2Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”

Gen 30:3

Gen 30:3Then she said, “Here is my servant Bilhah; go in to her, so that she may give birth on my behalf,[fn] that even I may have children[fn] through her.”

Gen 30:4

Gen 30:4So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her.

Gen 30:5

Gen 30:5And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.

Gen 30:6

Gen 30:6Then Rachel said, “God has judged me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son.” Therefore she called his name Dan.[fn]

Gen 30:7

Gen 30:7Rachel’s servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.

Gen 30:8

Gen 30:8Then Rachel said, “With mighty wrestlings[fn] I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed.” So she called his name Naphtali.[fn]

Gen 30:9

Gen 30:9When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.

Gen 30:10

Gen 30:10Then Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son.

Gen 30:11

Gen 30:11And Leah said, “Good fortune has come!” so she called his name Gad.[fn]

Gen 30:12

Gen 30:12Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son.

Gen 30:13

Gen 30:13And Leah said, “Happy am I! For women have called me happy.” So she called his name Asher.[fn]

Gen 30:14

Gen 30:14In the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.”

Gen 30:15

Gen 30:15But she said to her, “Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?” Rachel said, “Then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son’s mandrakes.”

Gen 30:16

Gen 30:16When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, “You must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he lay with her that night.

Gen 30:17

Gen 30:17And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.

Gen 30:18

Gen 30:18Leah said, “God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband.” So she called his name Issachar.[fn]

Gen 30:19

Gen 30:19And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son.

Gen 30:20

Gen 30:20Then Leah said, “God has endowed me with a good endowment; now my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six sons.” So she called his name Zebulun.[fn]

Gen 30:21

Gen 30:21Afterward she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah.

Gen 30:22

Gen 30:22Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb.

Gen 30:23

Gen 30:23She conceived and bore a son and said, “God has taken away my reproach.”

Gen 30:24

Gen 30:24And she called his name Joseph,[fn] saying, “May the LORD add to me another son!”

Jacob’s Prosperity

Gen 30:25

Gen 30:25As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country.

Gen 30:26

Gen 30:26Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.”

Gen 30:27

Gen 30:27But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that[fn] the LORD has blessed me because of you.

Gen 30:28

Gen 30:28Name your wages, and I will give it.”

Gen 30:29

Gen 30:29Jacob said to him, “You yourself know how I have served you, and how your livestock has fared with me.

Gen 30:30

Gen 30:30For you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly, and the LORD has blessed you wherever I turned. But now when shall I provide for my own household also?”

Gen 30:31

Gen 30:31He said, “What shall I give you?” Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it:

Gen 30:32

Gen 30:32let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and they shall be my wages.

Gen 30:33

Gen 30:33So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.”

Gen 30:34

Gen 30:34Laban said, “Good! Let it be as you have said.”

Gen 30:35

Gen 30:35But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in the charge of his sons.

Gen 30:36

Gen 30:36And he set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban’s flock.

Gen 30:37

Gen 30:37Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks.

Gen 30:38

Gen 30:38He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink,

Gen 30:39

Gen 30:39the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted.

Gen 30:40

Gen 30:40And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban. He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban’s flock.

Gen 30:41

Gen 30:41Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the sticks,

Gen 30:42

Gen 30:42but for the feebler of the flock he would not lay them there. So the feebler would be Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s.

Gen 30:43

Gen 30:43Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

See the ESV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

ESV Footnotes

(30:3)

Hebrew on my knees

(30:3)

Hebrew be built up, which sounds like the Hebrew for children

(30:6)

Dan sounds like the Hebrew for judged

(30:8)

Hebrew With wrestlings of God

(30:8)

Naphtali sounds like the Hebrew for wrestling

(30:11)

Gad sounds like the Hebrew for good fortune

(30:13)

Asher sounds like the Hebrew for happy

(30:18)

Issachar sounds like the Hebrew for wages, or hire

(30:20)

Zebulun sounds like the Hebrew for honor

(30:24)

Joseph means May he add, and sounds like the Hebrew for taken away

(30:27)

Or have become rich and

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016 by Crossway Books and Bibles, a Publishing Ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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For more information on this translation, see the ESV Preface.

Genesis Chapter 30 — Additional Translations:

King James Version New King James Version New Living Translation New International Version Christian Standard Bible New American Standard Bible 2020 New American Standard Bible 1995 Legacy Standard Bible Amplified Bible New English Translation Revised Standard Version American Standard Version Young's Literal Translation Darby Translation Webster's Bible Hebrew Names Version Latin Vulgate Westminster Leningrad Codex Septuagint Smith Van Dyck Arabic Bible Open New Arabic Version Brenton's English Septuagint Reina Valera 1909 Reina-Valera 1960 Bible in Basic English Chinese Traditional Union Espanol Moderno Korean Holy Bible Louis Segond German Luther Russian Synodal Translation Sagradas Escrituras

Genesis 30 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

Jacob’s Prosperity

ESV Footnotes

Genesis Chapter 30 — Additional Translations:

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