Genesis 31:8

Summary

Genesis 31:8 reports Jacob's speech to his wives, describing a repeated pattern with Laban: whenever Laban specified that speckled or striped animals would be Jacob's wages, the flock would bear offspring matching that description. The verse uses a two-part parallel construction to convey this repeated outcome.

Key words

• 'im ("if", H0518A) — conditional particle introducing each hypothetical statement, repeated twice to structure the two parallel scenarios.
• yo.Mar ("he said", H0559) — qal imperfect, used here to express repeated or customary past action ("whenever he said/would say"), not a single one-time utterance.
• ne.ku.Dim ("speckled [ones]", H5348) — masculine plural adjective, functioning as a substantive naming the type of markings Laban designates as wages.
• yal.Du ("they bore", H3205) — qal sequential perfect (vav-consecutive), continuing the narrative sequence and marking the result that follows automatically from Laban's statement.
• se.kha.Re-kha ("your wages", H7939 + H9021) — construct noun with 2nd person masculine singular suffix, "your wage/hire," referring to Jacob's payment agreed upon with Laban.

What the text says

The verse is built as two structurally identical clauses joined by ve ("and", H9002), each following the pattern: 'im ("if") + koh ("thus", H3541) + yo.Mar ("he said") + [animal type] + yihyeh ("it will be", H1961) + sekharekha ("your wages") + ve-yaldu ("and they bore") + kol ha-tzon ("all the flock") + [matching animal type]. The repetition of this exact syntactic frame with only the adjectives nekuddim ("speckled") and 'aqudim ("striped", H6124) swapped creates a mirrored parallelism that emphasizes the consistency of the outcome regardless of which term Laban used.

The verb yo.Mar is qal imperfect, a form that in this narrative context (paired with the conditional 'im and repeated twice) conveys habitual or iterative past action — "whenever he would say" — rather than a single completed statement. This grammatical nuance, common in Biblical Hebrew narrative for describing repeated past events, is not always visible in translations that render it simply as "he said" or "if he said," which could suggest a single instance rather than a recurring practice.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'aqudim ("striped ones", H6124) as λευκά ("white") in the second clause, whereas the Hebrew specifies "striped/streaked," not "white." The Vulgate follows a similar divergence, using "alba" ("white") for the same term. The BSB and SBLIBRE translations instead render 'aqudim as "streaked" or "rayados" ("striped"), aligning more closely with the Hebrew adjective's root sense of banding or binding marks rather than solid coloration.