Back to Genesis 31

Genesis 31:16

For all the riches which God has taken away from our father are ours and our children’s. Now then, whatever God has said to you, do.”

World English Bible · Public Domain

Parallel Translations

  • WEB World English Bible

    For all the riches which God has taken away from our father are ours and our children’s. Now then, whatever God has said to you, do.”

  • KJV King James Version

    For all the riches which God hath taken from our father, that is ours, and our children’s: now then, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do.

  • JPS JPS Tanakh (1917)

    For all the riches which God hath taken away from our father, that is ours and our children's. Now then, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do.'

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Cross-references (3)

Passages linked to Genesis 31:16 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.

  • Genesis 30:35–31:1 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. He set three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks. 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. He set the rods which he had peeled opposite the flocks in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink. They conceived when they came to drink. The flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks produced streaked, speckled, and spotted. 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. Whenever the stronger of the flock conceived, Jacob laid the rods in front of the eyes of the flock in the watering troughs, that they might conceive among the rods; but when the flock were feeble, he didn’t put them in. So the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s. The man increased exceedingly, and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys. Jacob heard Laban’s sons’ words, saying, “Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s. He has obtained all this wealth from that which was our father’s.”
  • Genesis 31:9 Thus God has taken away your father’s livestock, and given them to me.
  • Psalms 45:10 Listen, daughter, consider, and turn your ear. Forget your own people, and also your father’s house.

Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)

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Explain this verse (5 sources)

Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.

John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 16. For all the riches which God has taken…

16. For all the riches which God has taken from our father. Rachel and Leah confirm the speech of Jacob; but yet in a profane and common manner, not with a lively and pure sense of religion. For they only make a passing allusion to the fact, that God, in pity to his servant, had deigned to honor him with peculiar favor; and in the meantime, insist upon a reason of little solidity, that what they were carrying away was justly their due, because a part of the inheritance pertained to them. They do not argue that the riches they possessed were theirs, because they had been justly acquired by the labor of their husband; but because they themselves ought not to have been defrauded of their dowry, and now deprived of their lawful inheritance. For this reason they mention also their children with themselves, as having sprung from the blood of Laban. By this method they not only obscure the blessing of God, but indulge themselves in greater license than is right. They also form a mean estimate of their husband’s labors, in boasting that the fruit of those labors proceeded from themselves. Wherefore we are, by no means, to seek hence a precedent for the way in which each is to defend his own right, or to attempt the recovery of it, when it has been unjustly wrested from him.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Gen 31:16 For all the riches which God hath…
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain That is ours; not only by God’s special gift,…
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Then Jacob rose up,.... And went with them to…
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Whereas Jacob looked upon the wealth which God had…

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