Genesis 32:15

15 thirty milk-camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten colts.

Genesis 32:15 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 32:15

Thirty milch camels with their colts
Milch camels were in great esteem in the eastern countries; their milk being, as Aristotle ^F25 and Pliny ^F26 say, the sweetest of all milk: forty kine and ten bulls;
one bull to ten cows; the same proportion as in the goats and rams: twenty she asses and ten foals;
and supposing thirty colts belonging to the camels; the present consisted of five hundred and eighty head of cattle: a large number to spare out of his flocks and herds, that he had acquired in six years' time; and showed a generous disposition as well as prudence, to part with so much in order to secure the rest.

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FOOTNOTES:

F25 Hist. Animal. l. 6. c. 26.
F26 Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 41. & 28. 9.

Genesis 32:15 In-Context

13 He stayed there that night; then he chose from among his possessions the following as a present for 'Esav his brother:

14 two hundred female goats and twenty males, two hundred female sheep and twenty males,

15 thirty milk-camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten colts.

16 He turned them over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, "Cross over in front of me, and keep a space between each drove and the next

17 He instructed the servant in front, "When 'Esav my brother meets you and asks you, 'Whose servant are you? Where are you going? And whose animals are these?'