Bible quotes from the WEB (World English Bible), comments from the Cambridge Bible Notes (emboldening by me):
(32) I will pass through all your flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted one, and every black one among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats. This will be my hire.
I will pass, etc.] Jacob’s proposal to Laban is that he should serve for a wage, to be given, not in money, but in animals. The sheep in Syria are nearly always white, and the goats black; cf. Song of Solomon 4:1. Jacob asks that his wage should consist of the sheep that were not white and the goats that were not black. Laban’s flocks would be, according to this arrangement, the great mass of the animals. To Jacob’s share would fall the exceptions, the spotted and black among the sheep, the spotted and speckled among the goats.
(35) That day, he removed the male goats that were streaked and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white in it, and all the black ones among the sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons.
into the hand of his sons] Laban in accepting Jacob’s offer determines to make the very best of the new arrangement. Any parti-coloured goats, and any black sheep in his flock, “he removed that day,” and put into the keeping of his own sons, so that they might not afterwards be claimed by Jacob. Jacob will begin the new term of service with nothing in his favour. All the sheep that he will tend will be white, and all the goats black.
(36) He set three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.
three days’ journey] In order to prevent the least possibility of confusion or of intermingling, Laban separates his sons’ flocks by a great distance from those which Jacob is to tend.
(37) Jacob took to himself rods of fresh poplar, almond, and plane tree, peeled white streaks in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.
poplar] R.V. marg.
storax tree. The Hebrew name is
libneh, and is probably connected with the word
laban, meaning “white.” By some it is identified with the
styrax officinalis.
plane tree] In the Hebrew ‘
armon, i.e. “naked,” a name derived from the annual scaling of the bark of the tree. The
platanus orientalis was held in high veneration in the East. Cf. Ezekiel 31:8.
white strakes] Jacob’s trick turns upon the
whiteness of the rods; and this supplies a play upon the name “Laban” (= “white”), who is outwitted by Jacob. The device is said to be well known to shepherds. “Strake” is Old English for “streak”; cf. Leviticus 14:37.
(38) He set the rods which he had peeled opposite the flocks in the gutters in the watering-troughs where the flocks came to drink. They conceived when they came to drink.
over against] Jacob places the white peeled rods in front of the flocks, when they come to drink at the breeding season.
It was the popular belief that such objects, being presented to the eye at such a season, would be likely to affect the colouring of the progeny.
gutters] This word is explained by the phrase following, “watering troughs”; cf. Exodus 2:16.
(39) The flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks produced streaked, speckled, and spotted.
(40) Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the streaked and all the black in Laban’s flock. He put his own droves apart, and didn’t put them into Laban’s flock.
set the faces … Laban] This is a very obscure sentence in the original. It probably describes a second device practised by Jacob. At the breeding time he caused the ewes which belonged to Laban to pasture within view of his own parti-coloured and black animals, in order to increase the tendency of Laban’s flock to produce spotted and parti-coloured lambs. The difficulty, however, of the language has made some scholars suppose that the words “and set … of Laban” are a gloss. As they stand, they seem to contradict Genesis 30:33; Genesis 30:36, according to which Laban had already removed to a distance the parti-coloured animals.
[
My comment: only the orginal animals were separated, so "the streaked and all the black in Laban’s flock" is presumably the new offspring from Laban's flock which Jacob had separated out.]
(41) Whenever the stronger of the flock conceived, Jacob laid the rods in front of the eyes of the flock in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods;
the stronger] A third device on Jacob’s part. He is careful, at the breeding season, to pick out only the finer animals before which to place the peeled rods. Hence he obtained for his own share the young of the better animals.
(42) but when the flock were feeble, he didn’t put them in. So the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s.
(43) The man increased exceedingly, and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.
increased exceedingly] Cf. the description of the wealth of Abraham and Isaac, Genesis 13:2, Genesis 24:35, Genesis 26:13-14.
