Genesis 31:17-21

"Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives upon the camels; and he carried away all his cattle, and all his substance which he had gathered, the cattle of his getting, which he had gathered in Paddan-aram, to go to Isaac his father unto the land of Canaan. Now Laban was gone to shear his sheep: and Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father's. And Jacob stole away unawares to Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled. So he fled with all that he had; and he rose up, and passed over the River, and set his face toward the mountains of Gilead."

See the comment in chapter introduction about this so-called report of Jacob's departure. Jacob's oldest son was only about thirteen years old, and his youngest was about six, and they "were unable to undertake a journey to Canaan on foot. Therefore, the children and wives were placed upon the camels."[13]

"Rachel stole the teraphim ..." These were pagan gods, small idols, prominently used by many idolatrous pagans, corresponding, as Dummelow thought, "to the `Lares and Penates,' household gods of the Romans, which were supposed to ward off danger from the home, and bring luck."[14] All kinds of reasons have been supposed to lie behind Rachel's actions here. Morris pointed out that, according to the Nuzu tablets, excavated in 1930, "The teraphim were associated with the inheritance and property rights of the owner,"[15] and that it could have been possible that Rachel supposed her possession of these would "help to validate the legitimacy of her husband's title to the flocks and herds he had acquired while serving Laban."[16] "One Jewish midrash suggested that Rachel took the idols in order to keep her father from worshipping them!"[17] Our own view is that Rachel herself was inclined to idolatry. The fact that her posterity later led the way in the paganizing of Israel suggests that the root of that apostasy actually lay right here in the attitude of Rachel!

"The teraphim ..." "These objects were worshipped as gods, consulted for oracles, and believed to be the custodians and promoters of human happiness."[18] They were variously made of wood, precious metals, or stone, and seemed to have been of different sizes ranging from small and easily concealed objects to a figure the equivalent of a human bust. (Judges 17:4). They evidently bore some resemblance to the human figure, and some have supposed that they were carved images of the devotee's ancestors.

"Stole away unawares ..." The literal words here, "stole the heart of Laban," do not mean that Laban's heart was focused on his daughters and that Jacob had, in taking them, stolen Laban's heart, but, as Skinner noted, "It means he deceived the heart, the seat of his intelligence."[19] The colloquial American idiom, "He stole him blind," is the equivalent!

"He passed over the River ..." The River here is the Euphrates, which in the Bible is called, "by preeminence, the river (1 Kings 4:21; Ezra 4:10,16)."[20]

"Set his face toward the mountains of Gilead ..." "These mountains lay eastward from the territories later possessed by Rueben and Gad, extending from Mount Hermon to the mountains of Moab, and called in the New Testament, Trachonitis."[21]