Genesis 32:15

15 thirty nursing camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.

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 Jacob spent that night there. From what he had acquired, he set aside a gift for his brother Esau:

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

15 thirty nursing camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.

16 He separated these herds and gave them to his servants. He said to them, "Go ahead of me and put some distance between each of the herds."

17 He ordered the first group, "When my brother Esau meets you and asks you, ‘Who are you with? Where are you going? And whose herds are these in front of you?'