Bar-Ilan University
Parashat VaYetze 5773/November 24, 2012
Parashat Hashavua Study Center
Lectures on the weekly Torah reading by the faculty of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. A
project of the Faculty of Jewish Studies, Paul and Helene Shulman Basic Jewish Studies Center, and the
Office of the Campus Rabbi. Published on the Internet under the sponsorship of Bar-Ilan University's
International Center for Jewish Identity. Prepared for Internet Publication by the Computer Center
Staff at Bar-Ilan University.
943
Meir Bar-Ilan
Jacob's Wages: The Speckled and Spotted (Gen. 30:32)
Laban knew that the Lord had been blessing him on account of Jacob, and therefore he
asked Jacob himself to determine his wages. Jacob suggested removing all the speckled and
spotted sheep and goats from Laban's flock (i.e., the white ones with dark dots or splotches),
leaving him a flock that was entirely white. He suggested that his wages should be the
speckled and spotted sheep and goats that would be born to the white ones. Laban agreed
to this proposal. However, after several years it became clear to Laban and his sons that
Jacob's wages - which at first appeared minimal - had become exceedingly great, to the
extent that they suspected him of cheating and stealing from Laban's flock. Scripture does
not provide precise figures, but gives the impression that Jacob's wages were far greater
than what Laban had intended, naturally raising the question of how this came about.
Scripture seems to present two (alternative) explanations of Jacob's success: the one, that
Jacob prepared rods of poplar, almond and plane trees and placed them in the troughs so
that seeing them would have an effect on the gestation of the sheep and goats - and indeed,
they gave birth to more spotted and speckled offspring than usual. According to the other
explanation, an angel of the Lord appeared to Jacob and it was he who caused the special

Prof. Bar-Ilan teaches in the Talmud Department.
1
blessing which befell upon Jacob as recompense for all that Laban had done to him. Both
explanations are incomprehensible and seem close to miraculous, as the traditional
commentaries make evident. In modern times Prof. Yehuda Felix seems to have been the
only one to rationally explain Jacob's high wages,1 and even though his analysis is founded
on principles of biology (dominant and recessive genes), it is far from convincing and the
attempt to reenact what happened on the basis of Felix's suggestion seems a failure.
Here we present a new interpretation of the growth of Jacob's flock, based on two
principles: one deduced from this week's reading, namely the principle of separation, and
the other from next week's reading, namely the principle of selection (males/females). First
we consider the principle of selection. In next week's reading, among the presents Jacob
gave his brother Esau were "200 she-goats and 20 he-goats; 200 ewes and 20 rams" (Gen.
32:15). Note that the flock of goats numbered 200 females and 20 males, and likewise with
the sheep. In raising livestock great importance attaches to the sex-ratio, and human
demographers have noted its importance in understanding socio-historical phenomena.2
The sex ratio is expressed in terms of the number of males per 100 females. For example, in
modern Western human society the rate is approximately 96 males, in traditional society,
approximately 110-130, and in ancient society the rate of males reached as high as 150 or
more. In contrast to human society, Jacob's flocks had ten males for every hundred females,
and a similar ratio is noted in modern animal husbandry, for milk cows through foul.
We only hear about the sexual composition of Jacob's flock when he returns to the land of
Israel, but it is completely clear that the same sex ratio pertained to the flock under
discussion, which produced greater wages for Jacob than Laban expected. To further
sharpen the question of the sexual composition of his flock, we must consider how the gap
between the sexes came about. Human experience shows that the number of male and
female births is roughly equal (with very slight deviations), so that a flock of 200 females and
20 males reflects 200 females and 200 males (ignoring the natural depreciation stemming
from sickness and accident). In other words, Jacob's flock was characterized by selection
disfavoring the males, since theoretically one would have expected there to be 400 animals
in the flock, but in Jacob's flock 180 males were "missing." Where had these males (he-goats
and rams) gone?
1
Yehuda Felix, in M. Haran (ed.), Olam ha-Tanakh: Bereshit, Tel Aviv 2002, pp. 180-183.
2
Meir Bar-Ilan, "Nissuin ve-She'elot Yesod Aherot ba-Hevrah ha-Yehudit ba-`Et ha-`Atikah," Cathedra
121 (2007), p. 23-52.
2
The "disappearance" of the males from Jacob's flock can be explained in two ways: 1) most
of the males were apparently eaten by the shepherds; 2) a small fraction of the males was
taken for starting a new flock, since shepherds tend to maintain the original size of their
flocks (a large flock being too difficult to take out to graze, care for, etc.) and set aside the
"extra" animals from the original flock in order to start a new flock.
Having understood that sexual selection is necessary for raising a flock (as well as for other
considerations), we can take a fresh look at Jacob's wages. Next we must clarify the matter
of separation appearing in this week's reading. We may presume that Jacob's flock started
out as an entirely white one, bearing in mind that very few spotted and streaked would be
born into such a flock. Added to the separation of the animals by color was a geographical
separation, for Laban put a distance of three days' journey between himself and Jacob, thus
isolating Jacob's flock so that even a stray spotted sheep would not reach his flock.
Moreover, Scripture states explicitly, "But Jacob dealt separately with the sheep…and so he
produced special flocks for himself, which he did not put with Laban's flocks" (Gen. 30:40).
In other words, Scripture emphasizes that one of the principles by which Jacob raised his
sheep was to separate the flocks.
Now we can explain how it was that Jacob's wages grew to larger proportions than Laban
had expected. Experience teaches shepherds a thing or two regarding the process of
improving their flock (in terms of wool, milk, etc.). Therefore, for the purposes of our
discussion we shall assume that Jacob divided his flock of 200 females and 20 males into
twenty smaller flocks, each consisting of one male and ten females, and then set a distance
between each flock so that they would not mingle. (This was done at the cost of increasing
the number of shepherds necessary to tend his flocks, but the children born to him could
help him tend these flocks.) Marking animals by branding or tattooing was practiced even in
the ancient world,3 thus it was easy to recognize to which flock any given animal belonged.
About a year after Laban's flocks and Jacob's flocks had been separated, one would see how
well Jacob's prospective flock was doing. Assuming that each sheep would have one lamb
(not factually correct, but convenient for statistical analysis), Jacob's flock would have grown
by 200 lambs, half of which would be male and half female. But in terms of Jacob wanting to
maximize his wages, it is important to know how many of the newborns were speckled and
spotted. Since we may assume that Laban also knew a thing or two about raising sheep,
3
C.P. Jones, "Stigma: Tattooing and Branding in Graeco-Roman Antiquity," Journal of Roman Studies
77 (1987), pp. 139-155.
3
clearly he must have done all he could, relying on his many years of experience, to assure
that all the sheep and goats given to Jacob would not only be white in appearance, but also
in terms of their genetics. Therefore we may assume that only a few of the young were
speckled or spotted (say, four). These marks of color saved their lives. Presumably Jacob
also understood that if the ten ewes with a certain ram all give birth to white lambs without
exception, there would be no use in maintaining such a flock and it should be disbanded. In
other words, all the rams that begot purely white lambs found themselves under the knife to
be slaughtered, whereas the rams that begot even one or two spotted lambs were singled
out to be kept alive.
Jacob continued his procedure of genetic improvement during the second year of tending
his flocks, separating the rams that begot white lambs from the rams that begot white as
well as spotted lambs (without actually knowing who was "responsible" for the color: the
ram that sired the lamb or the ewe that gave birth to it). To clarify the process of
improvement, we shall ignore for the moment the young lambs and may even assume that
they were raised separately, so that we can take a look at Jacob's original flock. Apparently
at least ten older rams were eaten by Jacob and his family, and the structure of the flocks
was altered. The only rams left for breeding were those that had also produced spotted or
speckled young. Thus Jacob doubled his chance of speckled and spotted lambs, for the same
rams that had sired a few (say, four) spotted lambs the first year could now double their
output (eight). Since Jacob preferred to keep the spotted ones close to him, as a person
guards his money, all the spotted ones were in the flock designated for him, a total of 12 out
of a flock of 220 (about 10%), which does not represent very high wages. If Laban were to
have sent one of his sons to see how his sheep were faring, he would have come back to his
father and confidently reported that he had nothing to fear: he had made a good deal with
Jacob.
In the third year the process of improvement entered a new stage: not only were the rams
that sired only white lambs slaughtered—as rams that had proved a disappointment for
Jacob—but by now the lambs of the first and second year had reached maturity, and among
them were several speckled (say, two). Two spotted rams or he-goats were put at the
disposal of the females as much as possible, and along with them other males who had been
proven to sire more spotted offspring than had other rams. Once more the flocks were
separated, again making a selection favoring the spotted ones (and slaughtering the females
that had past their productive years). Obviously the number of spotted young born in the
third year increased further (say, 30), and added to the previous 12 we now have 42—so by
4
then about 20% of the flock would have been spotted. Since we do not have precise data
available on the relative proportion of spotted to white, we cannot specify a number, but a
look at the procedures used in raising and improving his flock indicates that after six years of
tending Laban's sheep Jacob's wages had grown larger and larger (in a geometric
progression!), so much so that Laban's sons felt they had been cheated: the white flock that
had been given to Jacob had become almost entirely spotted.
There is one difficulty that casts a pall on the interpretation we suggest here: it ignores the
scriptural text's ascribing the mating of the sheep to the shoots of poplar that Jacob peeled
and set up in the troughs. What role was played by these rods? In my opinion the answer
can be found in the response to a similar question: what role is played by the wand in a
magician's hand? The wand in the magician's hand is not essential to his magic, rather, it is a
distraction causing the audience to think that the wand has special qualities, although such
is not the case: the wand in a magician's hand makes the observer focus his eyes on the
wand, while the magician carries out his trick using skills implemented behind the scenes.
The rods in our story are to be understood in like manner. The reader—like the magician's
audience—thinks the rods are what caused the sheep to have speckled and spotted young;
Jacob did not actually increase his wages in this way, but rather by the same method used by
animal breeders who work at improving their flocks.
Translated by Rachel Rowen
5