36 Then Jacob became angry and contended with Laban ; and Jacob said to Laban , "What is my transgression ? What is my sin that you have hotly pursued me? 37 "Though you have felt through all my goods , what have you found of all your household goods ? Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen , that they may decide between us two . 38 "These twenty years I have been with you; your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried , nor have I eaten the rams of your flocks . 39 "That which was torn of beasts I did not bring to you; I bore the loss of it myself . You required it of my hand whether stolen by day or stolen by night . 40 "Thus I was: by day the heat consumed me and the frost by night , and my sleep fled from my eyes . 41 "These twenty years I have been in your house ; I served you fourteen e years for your two daughters and six years for your flock , and you changed my wages ten times . 42 "If the God of my father , the God of Abraham , and the fear of Isaac , had not been for me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed . God has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands , so He rendered judgment last night ."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Genesis 31:36-42
Commentary on Genesis 31:36-42
(Read Genesis 31:36-42)
If Jacob were willingly consumed with heat in the day, and frost by night, to become the son-in-law of Laban, what should we refuse to endure, to become the sons of God? Jacob speaks of God as the God of his father; he thought himself unworthy to be regarded, but was beloved for his father's sake. He calls him the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac; for Abraham was dead, and gone to that world where perfect love casts out fear; but Isaac was yet alive, sanctifying the Lord in his heart, as his fear and his dread.