The Cunning of the Covenant: Jacob's Spotted Theology Text: Genesis 30:37-43
Introduction: God in the Grit
We have a tendency in our modern, sanitized Christianity to prefer our patriarchs to be stained glass saints. We want our Bible stories to be neat, tidy, and suitable for flannelgraph. We want men of God to act like ethereal beings who float a few inches off the ground, receiving divine revelation in King James English. But the book of Genesis will not allow us this pious luxury. The Bible is a book about God's glorious work in the lives of gritty, earthy, and often deeply flawed men. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the life of Jacob.
Jacob is the supplanter, the heel-grabber. He is a man who lives by his wits. He is not above a bit of sharp practice, as his brother Esau and his father Isaac could testify. And for twenty years, he has been locked in a contest of wits with his uncle Laban, a man who is every bit his match in the art of the deal. Laban is a master of the bait-and-switch, a man whose contracts have more trap doors than a magician's stage. He has changed Jacob's wages ten times, always seeking to exploit his son-in-law for his own gain.
It is in this context of familial strife, broken promises, and economic warfare that we come to our text. And it is a strange text. It involves peeled sticks, animal husbandry, and what appears to be a form of sympathetic magic. Modern readers, particularly those who want their faith to be a purely intellectual or spiritual affair, get squeamish here. They either try to explain it away with talk of recessive genes and selective breeding, or they dismiss it as a primitive folk tale that somehow snuck into the inspired record. But both approaches miss the point entirely. This is not a story about genetics, nor is it a manual for magical livestock breeding. This is a story about the providence of God working through the gritty, earthy means of a cunning man's faith. It is about how God fulfills His covenant promises not in a sterile laboratory, but in the muck and mire of a sheep pen.
God does not despise the material world; He made it. And He is not afraid to work through ordinary, and sometimes peculiar, means to accomplish His extraordinary purposes. He promised to make Jacob a great nation. He promised to bless him. And here we see God fulfilling that promise, not despite Jacob's cunning, but right through the middle of it.
The Text
Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees, and he peeled white stripes in them, exposing the white which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the trough, that is, in the watering channels, where the flocks came to drink; and they mated when they came to drink. So the flocks mated by the rods, and the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. And Jacob separated the lambs, and he made the flocks face toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban; and he set his own herds apart and did not set them with Laban’s flock. Now it would be that, whenever the stronger of the flock were mating, Jacob would place the rods in the sight of the flock in the trough, so that they might mate by the rods; but when the flock was feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s. So the man spread out exceedingly and had large flocks and female and male servants and camels and donkeys.
(Genesis 30:37-43 LSB)
Peeled Rods and Providence (v. 37-39)
We begin with Jacob's peculiar strategy.
"Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees, and he peeled white stripes in them, exposing the white which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the trough... and they mated when they came to drink. So the flocks mated by the rods, and the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted." (Genesis 30:37-39)
Now, let us be clear. There is no scientific principle known to man whereby looking at striped sticks causes sheep and goats to produce striped and spotted offspring. If you tried this today, your local agricultural extension agent would have a good laugh at your expense. This is not a lesson in animal genetics. The text is not claiming that the sticks themselves had any inherent power. So what is going on?
Jacob is operating within the terms of a worldview that understood the power of visual impressions, but more importantly, he is operating under the promise of God. In the very next chapter, Jacob explains to his wives that God had appeared to him in a dream, showing him that the rams mating were striped, speckled, and mottled, and telling him, "I have seen all that Laban is doing to you" (Genesis 31:12). God was on Jacob's side. God was the one producing the unusually colored animals. God was the one ensuring that Jacob's wages would multiply.
So what are the sticks for? The sticks are an act of faith. They are an instrument of obedience. They are Jacob's way of putting his trust in God's promise into concrete, physical action. It is a form of what we might call sanctified creativity. God did not command him to use the sticks, but Jacob, a man of the earth, a shepherd, uses the materials at hand to act on the promise God had given him. It is a physical manifestation of his reliance on God's supernatural intervention in the natural world. This is not magic; it is faith using means. God is pleased to honor the faith of His people, even when the means they employ are, to our sophisticated eyes, a bit strange. He meets us where we are. For Jacob the shepherd, He met him at the watering trough with some peeled sticks.
This is a profound lesson for us. We believe in a sovereign God who can do anything. But He has ordained to work in this world through means. He uses the preaching of the Word to save sinners. He uses water, bread, and wine to confirm His promises. And He uses the daily, faithful, and sometimes creative work of His people to build His kingdom. Jacob's work with the sticks was his business plan, his investment strategy, and his prayer, all rolled into one.
Sanctified Strategy (v. 40-42)
Next, we see that Jacob's faith is not a passive, sit-and-wait kind of faith. It is an active, strategic faith.
"And Jacob separated the lambs, and he made the flocks face toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban; and he set his own herds apart... whenever the stronger of the flock were mating, Jacob would place the rods in the sight of the flock... but when the flock was feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s." (Genesis 30:40-42)
Notice the combination of supernatural trust and shrewd practice. On the one hand, Jacob is relying on God to produce the spotted and speckled animals from a flock that Laban had already stripped of all such specimens. That is the miracle. But on the other hand, Jacob is not being foolish. He practices careful animal husbandry. He separates his flocks to avoid confusion. He ensures that the strongest animals are the ones breeding under his "rod program," while the weaker ones are left to breed without them, thus becoming Laban's portion.
This is not a contradiction. Faith and wisdom are not enemies; they are partners. Jacob is not "hedging his bets." He is using all the skill and intelligence God has given him in the service of the promise God has made. He trusts God to do what only God can do, produce the coloring, while he does what a good shepherd ought to do, manage the flock well. He is a good steward of the miracle God is giving him.
This demolishes the false piety that separates the "spiritual" from the "practical." Some Christians act as though being spiritual means being incompetent in the real world. They pray for financial provision but never create a budget. They pray for their children's salvation but never open the Bible with them. Jacob shows us a better way. He prays with peeled sticks and works with a shepherd's crook. He trusts God's providence and practices selective breeding. His faith is not an excuse for laziness; it is the engine for his diligence. He is working out his salvation, and his fortune, with fear and trembling, and with peeled poplar rods.
The Blessing of Dominion (v. 43)
The result of this partnership between divine promise and human diligence is made plain in the final verse.
"So the man spread out exceedingly and had large flocks and female and male servants and camels and donkeys." (Genesis 30:43)
The Hebrew here is emphatic. The man "broke out" or "burst forth" exceedingly. This is the language of covenant blessing. This is the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and now Jacob beginning to take tangible, material form. God had promised to bless him, and here is the blessing, counted in sheep, goats, servants, camels, and donkeys. God's blessings are not just spiritual sentiments. They have weight. They take up space. They are real.
This prosperity was a direct result of God's faithfulness in the face of Laban's treachery. For twenty years, Laban had tried to suppress and exploit Jacob. But you cannot curse what God has blessed. Laban's schemes ultimately backfired, serving only to become the backdrop against which God's favor to Jacob shone all the more brightly. God used the injustice of Laban to display His own perfect justice.
This is a picture of the cultural mandate in action. Jacob is exercising dominion. He is being fruitful and multiplying, not just in children, but in livestock and wealth. He is turning the tables on a deceitful pagan through Spirit-empowered wisdom and work. This is not the prosperity gospel of health-and-wealth preachers who seek luxury for its own sake. This is covenantal wealth, wealth for the purpose of building a household, establishing a people, and carrying forth the promise of God in the world. Jacob got rich, and his getting rich was an act of piety.
The Gospel According to Jacob's Sheep
So how are we to read this strange story as Christians? We must read it, as we read all of the Old Testament, with Christ-tinted glasses. Jacob, the cunning shepherd who works to build a flock for himself out of a foreign land, is a type of Christ.
Jesus is the great Shepherd who has come to gather a flock for Himself. He enters the domain of the great deceiver, Satan, who holds the world in bondage. And against all odds, by a means that looks foolish to the world, the cross, He begins to call out a people for His own name. His people are the speckled and spotted sheep. We are the unusual ones, the ones who do not fit the world's mold. We are marked not by peeled sticks, but by the blood of the Lamb.
Just as Jacob's flock was born at the watering trough, we are born again by water and the Spirit (John 3:5). The watering trough is where the flock finds life, and it is in the waters of baptism that we are visibly marked as members of Christ's flock. And just as Jacob separated his flock from Laban's, so Christ separates us. "He will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left" (Matthew 25:33). He calls us out of the world, sets us apart, and makes us His own holy possession.
And the result? The man Christ Jesus spreads out exceedingly. His flock grows. His kingdom expands. All the wealth of the nations will one day be brought into His city. He is exercising dominion, and He does so through us, His people. He calls us to be like Jacob, men and women of robust and cunning faith. We are to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. We are to use all the skill, creativity, and diligence at our disposal, not trusting in our own efforts, but using them as the instruments of our faith in His promises.
Whether you are working with spreadsheets or with sheep, with code or with lumber, your work is your watering trough. It is the place where you are called to peel your sticks, to act in tangible, creative faith that God will be faithful to His promises. He has promised to bless us. He has promised to build His church. And He will do it, right through the middle of our gritty, earthy, faithful, and sometimes peculiar work.