“And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.”
Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond, and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. The description of Jacob's selective breeding method has generated centuries of interpretive debate: does the visual stimulus of the striped branches actually affect the coloring of the offspring? Modern genetics says no. But Genesis 31:10-12 will reveal that God showed Jacob in a dream the genetic reality behind the visible practice. The application: Jacob's method may be naive folk biology combined with divine revelation about the actual genetics. God directed the outcome; Jacob's practice was the means of his obedience to that direction.
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