Genesis 30:40

40 Jacob sorted out the lambs, turning the flock to face the striped and black ones in Laban's flock but keeping his flock separate, setting them apart from Laban's flock.

Genesis 30:40 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 30:40

And Jacob did separate the lambs
The ringstraked, speckled, and spotted; and set the faces of the flocks,
that were all white, towards the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban;
either to go before those that were all white, that they by looking at them might conceive and bring forth such, which was another artifice of Jacob's to increase his own sheep; or else he set at the water troughs the white sheep on one side of them, and on the opposite side the speckled ones that the same effect might also be produced the more successfully both by the rods and by the speckled lambs: and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's
cattle;
partly that they might not be mixed together, but kept distinct, that what was his property might be discerned from Laban's; and partly, lest his spotted ones, being mixed with Laban's white sheep, by continual looking at them, should conceive and bring forth such likewise, and so his flocks be lessened.

Genesis 30:40 In-Context

38 He set the branches that he had peeled near the watering troughs so that they were in front of the flock when they drank, because they often mated when they came to drink.

39 When the flock mated in front of the branches, they gave birth to striped, speckled, and spotted young.

40 Jacob sorted out the lambs, turning the flock to face the striped and black ones in Laban's flock but keeping his flock separate, setting them apart from Laban's flock.

41 Whenever the strongest of the flock mated, Jacob put the branches in front of them near the watering troughs so that they mated near the branches.

42 But he didn't put branches up for the weakest of the flock. So the weakest became Laban's and the strongest Jacob's.