Genesis 31:7
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
And your father has deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God suffered him not to hurt me.
American King James Version (AKJV)
And your father has deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God suffered him not to hurt me.
American Standard Version (ASV)
And your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God suffered him not to hurt me.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
But your father has not kept faith with me, and ten times he has made changes in my payment; but God has kept him from doing me damage.
Webster's Revision
And your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times: but God suffered him not to hurt me.
World English Bible
Your father has deceived me, and changed my wages ten times, but God didn't allow him to hurt me.
English Revised Version (ERV)
And your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God suffered him not to hurt me.
Clarke's Genesis 31:7 Bible Commentary
Changed my wages ten times - There is a strange diversity among the ancient versions, and ancient and modern interpreters, on the meaning of these words. The Hebrew is עשרת מנים asereth monim, which Aquila translates δεκα αριθμους ten numbers; Symmachus, δεκακις αριτμῳ, ten times in number; the Septuagint δεκα αμνων, ten lambs, with which Origen appears to agree. St. Augustine thinks that by ten lambs five years' wages is meant: that Laban had withheld from him all the party-coloured lambs which had been brought forth for five years, and because the ewes brought forth lambs twice in the year, bis gravidae pecudes, therefore the number ten is used, Jacob having been defrauded of his part of the produce of ten births. It is supposed that the Septuagint use lambs for years, as Virgil does aristas.
En unquam patrios longo post tempore fines,
Pauperis et tuguri congestum cespite culmen,
Post aliquot mea regna videns mirabor aristas?
Virg. Ec. i., ver. 68.
Thus inadequately translated by Dryden:
O must the wretched exiles ever mourn;
Nor, after length of rolling years, return?
Are we condemn'd by Fate's unjust decree,
No more our harvests and our homes to see?
Or shall we mount again the rural throng,
And rule the country, kingdoms once our own?
Here aristas, which signifies ears of corn, is put for harvest, harvest for autumn, and autumn for years. After all, it is most natural to suppose that Jacob uses the word ten times for an indefinite number, which we might safely translate frequently; and that it means an indefinite number in other parts of the sacred writings, is evident from Leviticus 26:26 : Ten women shall bake your bread in one oven. Ecclesiastes 7:19 : Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than Ten mighty men the city. Numbers 14:22 : Because all these men have tempted me now these Ten times. Job 19:3 : These Ten times have ye reproached me. Zechariah 8:23 : In those days - Ten men shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew. Revelation 2:10 : Ye shall have tribulation Ten days.