Give me my wives and my children: it may strike translators as strange that Jacob should ask Laban for his own wives and children. This is apparently not just polite language. According to von Rad, Jacob, who is a stranger and without property, is not a free man to go as he wishes. On the contrary he is dependent upon Laban. As Laban will say in 31.43, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children.”

For whom I have served you: technically Jacob worked for Laban only for the wives. It is in this sense that Speiser translates “Give me my wives, for whom I have served you, and my children….” This is followed by several other translations and is a model that is recommended to translators.

As noted at the beginning of verse 25, the verb I have served must be understood in this context as meaning “I have [now] completed my service.” A model translation that expresses this, and which also changes the order of the two clauses, says “I have worked hard to finish paying for my two wives. Please give them to me, with my children, and we will go.”

For you know the service which I have given you: this statement alludes to the fact that Jacob’s work has been outstanding and has increased Laban’s wealth, as Laban admits in verse 27. We may translate, for example, “you know how much good you have got from my work” or “you know how much my work has helped you.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .