Genesis 31:7 - Exposition

And your father hath deceived me ,— הֵתֵל , the hiph. of תָּלַל , means to rob or plunder (Furst), or to cause to fall, as in the cognate languages, whence to deceive (Gesenius)— and changed my wages ten times ;— i . e . many times, as in Numbers 14:22 ; Job 19:3 (Rosenmüller, Bush, Kalisch, Lange); as often as possible, the number ten expressing the idea of completeness (Keil, Murphy)— but God (Elohim, Jacob purposing to say that he had been protected, not by human stratagem, but by Divine interposition) suffered him not to hurt me —literally, to do evil to me . The verb here construed with עִמָּד = עִם is sometimes followed by עַל ( 1 Kings 17:20 ), and sometimes by בְּ ( 1 Chronicles 16:22 ).