Genesis 31:36-42

"And Jacob was wroth, and chode with Laban: and Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is my trespass? what is my sin, that thou hast hotly pursued after me? Whereas thou hast felt about all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household stuff?. Set it here before my brethren and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt us two. These twenty years have I been with thee; thy ewes and thy she-goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock have I not eaten. That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from mine eyes. These twenty years have I been in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy flock: and thou hast changed my wages ten times. Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now hadst thou sent me away empty. God hath seen mine affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight."

This response bears all the earmarks of truth, being exactly the protest against outrageous injustice that the situation demanded. Note that Jacob in no way toned down the injustices previously reported to his wives, but that he expanded and elaborated them in the presence of Laban.

"The Fear of Isaac ..." This is another expression that means "Jehovah," and it is used here as a synonym for Jehovah. With this indisputable example of it before us, how can any man suppose that various names for God indicate separate authors? Much of the critical theory about the various names for God is absolutely destroyed by this glaring contradiction of it. We believe that, knowing several names for God, the ancients sometimes used such names synonymously and merely for variety.

There is absolutely no proof whatever that such was not the case, as Jacob most certainly did here.

"Of my hand didst thou require it ..." According to Hammurabi's laws, a shepherd who presented the remnants (of a sheep torn by a wild beast) as evidence, was not liable for the losses that Jacob described."[26] The prophet Amos made mention of shepherds retrieving just such evidence in Genesis 3:12, indicating that it was a well-established custom that in such cases, the owner of the flock, not the shepherd, made good the loss. Laban had thus exceeded his lawful rights in requiring of Jacob that he bear the loss of all animals lost in such a manner. This was later incorporated into the Divine Law (Exodus 22:13).

Of this situation, McKeating wrote: "The shepherd was accountable to the owner for any animal lost, unless he could prove that it was lost owing to circumstances beyond his control."[27] Because of the unfairness of Laban, Jacob spent many a sleepless night protecting the flocks from predatory beasts.

"In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night ..." In view here are the harsh temperature changes of the Arabian deserts, where "the temperature rises to 120 degrees during the day and falls as low as 55 degrees at night."[28] Frost occurs occasionally even during the hottest seasons. Laban was silenced by this protest. He immediately changed the subject.