Genesis 30:32 - Exposition

I will pass through all thy flock today ,—wrongly rendered παρελθέτω πάντα τὰ πρόβάτα σου ( LXX ), gyra per omnes greges tuos , but "to remove," the verb being in the inf.— all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats . Since in Oriental countries sheep are commonly white and goats black, the number of speckled and spotted animals ( i . e . sheep with little spots and largo patches of black, and goats with little or large points of white, in their hair) would be unusually small. And of such shall be my hire — i . e . the dark-spotted or entirely black sheep and white or white-speckled goats were to be Jacob's reward (Knobel, Delitzsch, Keil, Lunge), which was to be subsequently increased by whatever speckled animals might appear among the one-colored flocks; but it seems more probable that Jacob only claimed the latter, and, both to make the bargain more attractive to Laban and to show that he wanted nothing from Laban but only what God might be pleased in accordance with this arrangement to bestow, he suggested that the flocks and herds should be purged of all such speckled and spotted animals to begin with (Tuch, Baumgarten, Kurtz, Rosenmüller, Kalisch, Candlish; Murphy, 'Speaker's Commentary,' Clarke, Bush).