Yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times yet, used in both Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, expresses something unexpected in view of what was just said. Three Hebrew words are translated cheat by Revised Standard Version in verses 7, 26, and 27. Here the word refers to being deceitful by giving Jacob less than he was promised. Changed … wages can mean to change by increasing or by decreasing: it is the latter that Jacob refers to. We may say “he reduced my wages.” It is also possible to link this clause to the one before it as expressing the manner in which Laban cheated him: “Your father has cheated me by changing my wages.” Ten times does not indicate the exact number of times but is a general way of saying “many times,” “over and over,” “again and again.” In many languages this is best expressed by using a form of the verb that has the sense of continuous action; for example, “all the time he was deceiving me and changing my pay” or “he deceived me and he was always changing my wages.”

But God did not permit him to harm me: God is ʾelohim. Harm is probably to be taken as physical harm or hurt. “God did not let him cause me any harm.” This is commonly expressed as “God did not allow him to do bad to me.”

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 .