In the mating season of the flock: this serves as a time setting for the dream that Jacob reveals to his wives. In some languages it may be necessary to give more detail and say, as Biblia Dios Habla Hoy does, “One day when the animals were in heat….” Mating season refers to the time when the animals breed or mate. Since in many places this is at a fixed time of the year, some translations say “In the month when….”

I lifted up my eyes is an idiom meaning “I began to look.” What Jacob saw was the animals mating. It may be necessary to restructure this by saying, for example, “I had a dream and saw….” See Good News Translation. The word usually translated “behold” occurs in the Hebrew and marks this as a dream.

He-goats: that is, male goats or sheep. Leaped upon the flock is used here as a way of referring to the mating act, in which the male mounts on the back of the female. Good News Translation says “male goats that were mating.” In some languages it is expressed as “the male goats that were covering the females” or “… climbing on the females,” or as in Bible en français courant, “The males that coupled with the sheep or the goats.” Translators should make certain that the expression used for mating is both the correct expression in their language and acceptable for public reading.

For striped and spotted see 30.35. Mottled translates a word that has the same meaning as “spotted.” In English the terms “mottled,” “dappled,” or “piebald” are sometimes used. These terms refer to the skin or hide of an animal that has different colored spots or blotches.

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 .