Genesis 32:15

15 thirty milch camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty she-asses and ten he-asses.

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 So he lodged there that night, and took from what he had with him a present for his brother Esau,

14 two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,

15 thirty milch camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty she-asses and ten he-asses.

16 These he delivered into the hand of his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, "Pass on before me, and put a space between drove and drove."

17 He instructed the foremost, "When Esau my brother meets you, and asks you, 'To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these before you?'