Ebony and Ivory

“Don’t give me anything,” Jacob replied. “But if you will do this one thing for me, I will go on tending your flocks and watching over them:  Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages.  And my honesty will testify for me in the future, whenever you check on the wages you have paid me. Any goat in my possession that is not speckled or spotted, or any lamb that is not dark-colored, will be considered stolen.”


“Agreed,” said Laban. “Let it be as you have said.”  That same day he removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the speckled or spotted female goats (all that had white on them) and all the dark-colored lambs, and he placed them in the care of his sons.  Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob continued to tend the rest of Laban’s flocks.


Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches.  Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink,  they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.  Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves, but made the rest face the streaked and dark-colored animals that belonged to Laban. Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban’s animals.  Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches,  but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob.  In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and female and male servants, and camels and donkeys.
Genesis 30:31-43

Jacob is one of the most intriguing characters of the Bible to me.  Trying to balance the demands of two wives while working for his father-in-law must have been awkward to say the least.  And yet, as we have seen before, Jacob experienced God is an incredible way.

I'm not a geneticist, but I am nearly certain that this trick of using the striped branches to make the livestock turn out striped or streaked would not really work, and that the it was the Lord who was actually blessing Jacob's herds.  It seems that the fact that Jacob was trying to cheat Laban by ensuring that the strong animals would go to him says something about Jacob as a person.  Some might argue that Laban was trying to cheat Jacob, so that made it okay, but even children can understand that "Two wrongs don't make a right."  The fact that is actually highlighted here though, is that there is no one that the Lord cannot use to accomplish His purpose.  Doesn't that give hope to us?  However, there is a challenge inherent in this point.  We are living after the Cross, after Jesus has made a way for us to be reconciled to God.  The fact that we used to be evil people will not hinder the Lord's efforts to reach us or use us.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
2 Corinthians 5:17

We are a new creation, and we are called to leave our sinful lives behind us.  When Zacchaeus came to Jesus, he committed to pay back anyone he had cheated four times over.  Even though we have forgiveness for us, we must always strive to live lives that mirror the life of Jesus on Earth as closely as possible.  Even if you are a streaked or spotted sheep, God can use you to accomplish great things.