Jacob's Shepherd Toil by Day-Heat and Night-Frost

Midrash Aggadah, Genesis 31:40

Curated by Arthur·Told by Maggid·

"By day the heat consumed me, and the frost by night" (Genesis 31:40). When I was keeping watch in the summer, and also when I was keeping watch on a cloudy day — which resembles night, for there were cloudy days, as they said in tractate Yoma, "It was a cloudy day," which they call scotinus — the heat consumed me. "And my sleep fled from my eyes" (Genesis 31:40): the sleep of dawn.

Themes

PatriarchsJacobChanukahAdam EveTribes

Biblical References

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Book of JubileesSimeon and the PatriarchsThe birthright, the trickery, the stolen blessing... But what about the aftermath, the settling of scores, the final chapter of their fraught relationship? WellBook of JubileesHidden Wisdom of JacobGenealogies stretching back to… well, seemingly forever! A reader can skim over them, but sometimes, buried within those lists, are little gems of insight. The Legends of the JewsThe War With The AmoritesThe familiar telling remembers the immediate aftermath – the vengeance of Simeon and Levi. But what about Jacob and his family? Did they just pack up and leave?Legends of the JewsLevi Died at 137 the Oldest of All Jacob's SonsWe'll start with Levi. We read that he finished giving his sons his final instructions, and then, at the ripe old age of one hundred and thirty-seven – older thPirkei DeRabbi EliezerJacob Among the Heavenly HostOur ancestor Jacob had that experience, big time, at the ford of the Jabbok (יַבֹּק), a river mentioned in Genesis. The story, as told in Pirkei DeRabbi EliezerEsther RabbahMordekhai Knew Everything That Had Been Done“Mordekhai knew everything that had been done, and Mordekhai rent his garments and donned sackcloth and ashes. He went out in the midst of the city and cried a