Are we not regarded by him as foreigners?: this question expects a positive answer. Note that Good News Translation renders the question as a statement. Foreigners here means “foreign women,” “outsiders,” “aliens.” The reason they may be looked upon as foreigners is possibly that they have married Jacob, who comes from a foreign land and worships a foreign God, even though he is Laban’s nephew. Another way of understanding the expression regarded … as foreigners is “he treats us as if we were outsiders, not members of his family.” New Jerusalem Bible and Speiser translate the keyword as “outsiders,” while Revised English Bible has “strangers.” One translation expresses this as “women of another tribe”; another says “He now treats us as if we-two were not his children, we-two are just strangers.”

For he has sold us: Speiser says that “sell” used in regard to marriage was the term used in documents from that period and area. Part of the bride price was kept for the woman as her dowry. However, the text does not say that Jacob gave property or money as a bride payment. He gave fourteen years of service in exchange for his two wives. It is probably the case that Rachel and Leah considered the profit Laban made through Jacob’s service as their true bride payment. Instead of giving them some of the money earned from Jacob’s long years of service, Laban used it for himself.

He has been using up the money given for us: using up is literally “he has eaten up our silver.” This money would represent the income produced by Jacob’s ability to increase the flocks. In some languages this thought is expressed very much as in the literal Hebrew; for example, “Our father has eaten the money paid for us” or “Our father has eaten the wealth Jacob paid him to marry us.” In other cases everyday expressions are used, such as “the money he got as a price for us, he has spent it all.”

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 .