If you will allow me to say so is literally “If I have found favor in your eyes.” Laban speaks to Jacob as if Jacob were his superior. This polite form of address is part of Laban’s plan to keep Jacob so that Laban’s animals will continue to increase and make him still richer. King James Version actually makes the text say this: “If now I have found favor in thine eyes, tarry: for I have divined….”
I have learned by divination: divination translates a verb meaning to see omens. Divination or seeing omens is a method for discovering hidden knowledge. Ezek 21.21 mentions three ways in which the king of Babylon does this: he “shakes arrows,” “consults the terafim [family gods],” and “inspects the liver.” The word translated divination is found in 44.5, 15 in reference to Joseph’s silver cup in Egypt. Divination was forbidden to Israel in Lev 19.26 (“augury”) and Deut 18.10, 14.
It is possible in translation to use a term that expresses this process, or to say more generally “I have found out by use of magic.” Bible en français courant says “My gods have revealed to me”; Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch associates divination with astrology when it translates “As long as you were there, I stood under a favorable star.” Driver understands the expression to be used in the metaphorical sense of “perceive by careful observation.” Translators who do not have adequate terms for divination may wish to follow that model; for example, “I have discovered” or “I have found out by observing what you do.” Revised English Bible take the Hebrew verb in the sense of having good fortune, and therefore translate “I have become prosperous”; New International Version also notes this possibility in a footnote, “Or possibly ‘have become rich and.’ ”
Some examples of different translations of learned by divination are “I have come to understand that…” (very general), “I have been doing a ritual for finding out…,” “The signs I have been observing show me that….”
The LORD has blessed me because of you: Laban speaks in terms of Yahweh having blessed him. Yahweh is the name of Jacob’s God, which Jacob has learned from Abraham and Isaac. However, the ancient versions have ʾelohim, the general word for God, which we would expect from Laban. Translators should follow the Hebrew text, as in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. Because of you shows that Jacob is the agent of the blessing given to Laban. This sentence may need to be restructured to say, for instance, “The LORD has used you to bless me.” As a passive construction we may say “I have been blessed by the LORD through you” or “I have been blessed by the LORD because of what you have done.”
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 .