Genesis 32:15

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

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 lodged there that night, and took from that which he had with him, a present for Esav, his brother:

14 two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,

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

16 He delivered them into the hands of his servants, every herd by itself, and said to his servants, "Pass over before me, and put a space between herd and herd."

17 He commanded the foremost, saying, "When Esav, my brother, meets you, and asks you, saying, 'Whose are you? Where are you going? Whose are these before you?'