Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #25 of Genesis 30, and we are continuing to read Genesis 30:37-43:

And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted. And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle. And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's. And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and maidservants, and menservants, and camels, and asses.

We are going to continue looking at this very interesting historical account of how Jacob will end up with a great multitude of cattle and take them away from his father-in-law Laban.

We discussed in our last study the “pilling” of the rods from the hazel, green poplar and chesnut trees, and how each one of those trees identify with the corporate church.  As the rod was pilled or peeled, it made the “white appear,” and the word “white” that God used is the same word as “Laban.”  The “Laban” appeared, and we have seen that Laban is a figure of Satan, and this points to the revealing of Satan, the man of sin, at the time God brought judgment upon the house of God, the corporate church, during the Great Tribulation.  After the first  2,300 evening mornings, in September 1994 the Lord sent forth the Latter Rain outside of the world’s churches where He saved a great multitude of people from all the nations.  They are His sheep, and they became the “cattle” that are in view spiritually here.  The cattle are spiritually pointing to the great multitude.  In a very interesting way, the Lord is using these rods that are pilled to identify with the revelation of Satan, or the revealing of Satan as the man of sin that had taken his seat in the churches.  We know that during that time of the Great Tribulation, God commanded His people to come out (of the churches), and He began to send the Gospel outside of the churches, primarily using the electronic medium.  And, again, He saved the great multitude out of Great Tribulation.

I think we can see that.  I hope you are able to see that picture.  Keep in mind that if you do not see that picture, or if you think it is a “stretch,” then what is the spiritual meaning?  What is going on here?  What is the purpose of taking these rods from these particular trees, and why were they peeled in order for the white to appear?  You see, these are the questions that we must ask whenever we read the Bible because Christ spoke in parables, and without a parable He did not speak.  And that means we must be consistent in our approach to every verse in the Bible.  We read it.  We learn what we can, and we always ask, “What is the deeper spiritual meaning?  How does this apply to the Gospel?” 

And I think we have good evidence here that these things have to do with the Great Tribulation, the revealing of Satan, and with God saving His people outside of the churches.

Let us continue, and read Genesis 30:39:

And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.

The flocks conceived before the rods.  Again, Jacob took rods and he pilled them, and he put them before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs.  So they came up to drink, and we are told, “the flocks conceived before the rods.”  The word “conceived” is #3179, and it is not the typical word used to describe conceiving.  There is another word, “hârâh,” #2029.  That would be the usual word we find throughout the Old Testament.  But the word, Strong’s #3179 is the word “yâcham,” so you can definitely hear that it has no relationship to the word “hârâh.”  This word is only found 10 times, and six times it is translated as “conceive,” and five of these times is in regard to Jacob’s cattle.  One time it is used in Psalm 51:5, where the Lord moved David to write, “…in sin did my mother conceive me.”  So it is very curious that it is used of cattle and then used of David, and it is not the usual word for “conceive.” 

With the other four times it is used, I think you will see why this is not the usual word for “conceiving.”  If we go to 1Kings 1:1, we will find this word, Strong’s #3179.  It says in 1Kings 1:1:

Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.

The word “heat” is this word, so it is obvious it has nothing to do with conceiving.  He was unable to get warm (heat). 

It says in Ecclesiastes 4:11:

Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?

In this verse, the word “warm” is our word.

Let us go to Ezekiel 24:11:

Then set it empty upon the coals thereof, that the brass of it may be hot, and may burn, and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it, that the scum of it may be consumed.

It is the word “hot,” where it says, “the brass of it may be hot.” 

So we see a fairly consistent use of this word outside of Genesis 30 and Psalm 51:5.

Let us go to the fourth and last place this word is used in Deuteronomy 19:6:

Lest the avenger of the blood pursue the slayer, while his heart is hot, and overtake him, because the way is long, and slay him…

His heart is hot, and our word is “hot.”

So if we go back to Genesis 30, we see that the flocks conceived before the rods.  And, again, the word “conceive” is found five times in relationship to Jacob’s cattle conceiving, so we can understand they were “in heat,” historically.  I think that is the emphasis.  If it had to do with actual conception, God would have used the other Hebrew word, but here He is saying that the cattle were “in heat.” 

Then we wonder why He is telling us that?  What is the point of letting us know that these cattle were “in heat” before the rods?  And the rods can identify with the Word of God.  It is the same word translated as “staff” in some places.  I do not understand too much about these things, but I looked up the subject of animals “in heat,” and I found out that the period of time that an animal is “in heat” is known as an estrous cycle, and during that cycle the animal is in a fertile stage to mate.  In other words, they are prepared, and all they are waiting for is to mate with a male, and then they will conceive and bear offspring. 

So I think we can understand it this way: as God has a program of “times and seasons,” and nothing happens without a “schedule.”  God is a God of order and time, and He has determined when to bring forth the rain and fruitful seasons.  And God designed animals and built into them these estrous cycles in which they would be fertile for bringing forth their offspring at a certain time.  It is pointing to the second part of the Great Tribulation, the Latter Rain period, wherein God had a program and plan to save the great multitude, and it was all dependent on the “season.”  God even waited as we entered into the Great Tribulation, and (virtually) no one was saved during the first 2,300 evening mornings, until we reached September 7, 1994.  That signaled the Jubilee Year and the beginning of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit during the Latter Rain.  The Word of God went forth into the nations of the world through the electronic medium, and God saved His people.  And He brought the people “before the rods,” as we understand the rods to identify with the Word of God.  (And remember the relationship between the rods and those trees, and how the churches had the Word of God.)  God brought the “rod” before the people.  He brought His Word, and that Word of God blanketed the earth as the waters cover the sea.  The Lord raised up the ministry of Family Radio, and they were able to broadcast for hours on a daily basis for years into mainland China, India, South America, Africa, and all the continents were being reached.  They were being reached in their own languages.  So all necessary preparation had been made.  It was the proper cycle for fruitfulness that would bring forth the final harvest, and I think that is what is in view here.

But let us go on and see if we can learn anything about these markings.  It says in Genesis 30:39-40:

And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted. And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle.

Remember what we read in 2Thessalonians 2:1: “…and by our gathering together unto him.”  Jacob put his own flock by themselves, and Jacob is a type of Christ.  They were gathered together unto him out of Laban’s flocks.  Also remember that Laban is a type of Satan who took over Jacob’s original flock that had these characteristics.  He gave them to his sons, and that was a spiritual picture of Satan overcoming the camp of the saints, and his sons are as emissaries of Satan who are of their father the devil, and they were shepherds over those sheep.  This is another flock of Laban, and it would point to the fact that Satan has rule over all unsaved people outside of the churches.  He began to rule over those within the churches as the man of sin seated in the temple, but outside the churches he had these people, and that is what this is focused on, the nations of the world.  And out of the nations of the world, there would be certain ones that had these characteristics or specific “markings” that had been laid out in that arrangement that was previously made.  Jacob specified that if cattle came forth with these markings, they were his.  And now the cattle are arriving, and many were showing those kinds of markings. 

So what do these markings represent?  We know that they are markings that indicate Jacob’s ownership.  If one of the cattle were ringstraked, specked, or spotted, it belonged to Jacob, and not to Laban.  That fits in with what we read in John 17:8-11:

For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

Then it says in John 17:15:

I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

You see, these cattle with markings are not Laban’s cattle.  They are Jacob’s cattle because God had determined it.  It was the Lord who formed these cattle and made and designed them exactly in that way in order to match the prescribed characteristics that indicated Jacob’s ownership, just as God predetermined and predestinated before the foundation of the world that there certain ones would be saved.  The arrangement was made before the word existed.  Then when the world was created and time began to unfold, these people were born into their generations, and God came to them.  He put the “rod” before them, and they began to show those characteristics that would identify them with the flock of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd.

So, again, let us go back and look at each one of these words: ringstraked, speckled and spotted.  These are what identify the sheep or cattle as belonging to Jacob.

The word “ringstraked” is found seven times, all in Genesis 30 and 31.  It is Strong’s #6124, and it is the Hebrew word “‛âqôd,” and it is from #6123.  And #6123 has the same consonants, but different vowel point, so it is the word “‛âqad.” But it is basically the same Hebrew word with different vowel pointing, and we know that in the original Hebrew, there were no vowel points, so it is the same word.  And this word, Strong’s #6123, is only used once, and that is in Genesis 22:9:

And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

The word “‛âqad” is the word translated as “bound.”  The father Abraham bound his only begotten son, Isaac.  He more than likely tied him with rope.  How would you tie someone on an altar?  You would wrap it around their body in rings, wrapping it around their arms and legs, and tying down securely.  So that is the relationship to being “ringstraked,” as if a rope were wrapped about you.

And yet, we can see the spiritual connection even more readily.  Being “ringstraked” points not to the sacrifice of father Abraham, but to the Father God sacrificing his own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  The ringstraked cattle had the markings of Christ’s sacrificial binding on them.  So these cattle basically have the “mark of Christ,” or the mark of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ upon them, because they are ringstraked.

The next word is “speckled,” and this word is #5348, and it is the word “nâqôd,” and it is found nine times.  It is related to #5349, “nôqêd.”  Again, it is the same consonants, but different vowel pointing.  Instead of an “o” near the end, there is an “e,” and that is the only difference.  It is translated as “herdmen” in Amos 1:1:

The words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa…

The word translated as “herdmen” is the word “nôqêd,” and it is closely related to  “nâqôd.”   It is also the word found in one other place translated as “sheepmaster,” regarding the king of Moab, but it is the same idea.  A sheepmaster or a herdmen are shepherds, so the speckled sheep have the mark of the shepherd, and of course the Lord Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd. 

So both “ringstraked” and “speckled” lead us back to Christ Himself, but what about “spotted”?  The word “spotted” is Strong’s #2921, the word “ṭâlâ',” and it is found eight times.  Six of those times it is translated as “spotted” in regard to Jacob’s cattle; and one time it is translated as “divers colours” in Ezekiel 16:16; and once it is translated as “clouted,” concerning the Gibeonites, in Joshua 9:5.  But there is a related word, #2922, which is the word “ṭ^elâ',” and, once again, it just has different vowel pointing, but the same consonants.  And this word “ṭ^elâ',” #2922, is only used one time in the Bible, in Isaiah 40:10-11:

Behold, the Lord JEHOVAH will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.

The word “lambs” is this word “ṭ^elâ',” which is related to the word “ṭâlâ',” which is the word for “spotted.”  So it would identify these cattle as being part of Christ’s flock.  They are His “lambs.”  They belong to Him.

So each of these markings or particular characteristics identify these animals as having one Lord and one Master, and they do not belong to Laban – they do not belong to Satan.