Name your wages, and I will give it.” Jacob said to him, “You yourself know how I have served you, and how your livestock has fared with me. For you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly, and the LORD has blessed you wherever I turned. But now when shall I provide for my own household also?” He said, “What shall I give you?” Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it: let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and they shall be my wages. So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.” Laban said, “Good! Let it be as you have said.” But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in the charge of his sons. And he set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban’s flock.
Comment: “Name your wages, and I will give it” must have sounded pretty good to Jacob when Laban responded to his request for wages. Jacob says in future I’m taking the multicoloured (speckled) animals and the others are yours. If I get any clean skinned ones in my flock, in future generations, when the numbers are counted up you can consider them yours – as if I had stolen them. So planning ahead and to keep his flock huge Laban put all the speckled ones marked for productivity three days journey away and under his shepherd sons to care for them. I can imagine Laban wringing his hands together in delight as he in imagination sees the speckled rams and billy goats hopping onto his speckled ewes and nannies under his sons’ care kilometres away! – producing few if any speckled amongst Jacob’s flock! Well we shall follow this with interest!
Prayer: Help me to love my neighbour as myself and be fair, O Lord!
As I read it! 