Genesis 32:15

15 thyrtye mylch camels with their coltes: xl kyne ad x bulles: xx she asses ad foles

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.

---

FOOTNOTES:

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

Genesis 32:15 In-Context

13 And he taried there that same nyghte and toke of that which came to hande a preasent vnto Esau his brother:

14 ij hundred she gootes ad xx he gootes: ij hundred shepe and xx rammes:

15 thyrtye mylch camels with their coltes: xl kyne ad x bulles: xx she asses ad foles

16 and delyuered them vnto his seruauntes euery drooue by them selues ad sayde vnto them: goo forth before me and put a space betwyxte euery drooue.

17 And he comaunded the formest sayngeWhe Esau my brother meteth the ad axeth the saynge: whose seruaute art thou and whither goost thou and whose ar these that goo before ye: