John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Genesis 30:40
And Jacob did separate the lambs ,.... The ringstraked, speckled, and spotted: and set the faces of the flocks , that were all white: towards the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban ; either to go before those that were all white, that they by looking at them might conceive and bring forth such, which was another artifice of Jacob's to increase his own sheep; or else he set at the water troughs the white sheep on one side of them, and on the opposite side the... read more
Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Genesis 30:37-43
Here is Jacob's honest policy to make his bargain more advantageous to himself than it was likely to be. If he had not taken some course to help himself, it would have been a bad bargain indeed, which he knew Laban would never consider, or rather would be well pleased to see him a loser by, so little did Laban consult any one's interest but his own. Now Jacob's contrivances were, 1. To set peeled sticks before the cattle where they were watered, that, looking much at those unusual... read more