I can understand your feeling that you must go, and your intense longing for your father’s home. But why have you stolen my gods?”
Parallel translations
- WEB Now, you want to be gone, because you greatly longed for your father’s house, but why have you stolen my gods?”
- KJV And now, though thou wouldest needs be gone, because thou sore longedst after thy father’s house, yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods?
- BSB Now you have gone off because you long for your father’s house. But why have you stolen my gods?”
- NKJV And now you have surely gone because you greatly long for your father’s house, but why did you steal my gods?”
- NASB Now you have indeed gone away because you longed greatly for your father’s house; but why did you steal my gods?”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Laban concedes Jacob's longing for home but demands to know why his gods were stolen. The missing teraphim become the new accusation.
Overview
Laban shifts from the matter of departure to the theft of his household gods, which he values highly. His attachment to the teraphim reveals the idolatry of Laban's household, contrasting with the call to serve the living God. Unknown to Jacob, Rachel has taken them, setting up the tense search that follows.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Jer 10:11“You shall say this to them: ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.’”
- Gen 31:19Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep: and Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father’s.
- Judg 18:24He said, “You have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and have gone away! What more do I have? How can you ask me, ‘What ails you?’”
- Isa 37:19and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them.
- Judg 6:31Joash said to all who stood against him, “Will you contend for Baal? Or will you save him? He who will contend for him, let him be put to death by morning! If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because someone has broken down his altar!”
- Jer 43:12I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he shall burn them, and carry them away captive: and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd puts on his garment; and he shall go out from there in peace.
- Exod 12:12For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and animal. Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Yahweh.
- 2 Sam 5:21They left their images there; and David and his men took them away.
- Num 33:4while the Egyptians were burying all their firstborn, whom Yahweh had struck among them. Yahweh also executed judgments on their gods.
- Isa 46:1–2Bel bows down. Nebo stoops. Their idols are carried by animals, and on the livestock. The things that you carried around are heavy loads, a burden for the weary.
- 1 Sam 5:2–6The Philistines took God’s ark, and brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon.
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Christ at the center
From the first promise that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent (3:15), through Abraham's blessing to all nations and Judah's coming ruler, Genesis sows every seed that flowers in Christ — the true offspring, the better Adam, the ram caught for Isaac.
How Genesis 31:30 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.