Kommentar zu Bereschit 31:36

דלקת means THOU HAST PURSUED — as in (Lamentations 4:19) “They chased us (דלקנו) upon the mountains”, and (1 Samuel 17:53) ‘‘from chasing (מדלק) after the Philistines”.

AND JACOB WAS WROTH, AND QUARRELLED WITH LABAN. Jacob had originally given him permission to search the tents, for he said, With whomsoever thou findest thy gods,²²⁶Verse 26 here. and he further said, before our brethren recognize what is thine with me,²²⁶Verse 26 here. and how could Laban find it if not by searching and handling? At first, however, Jacob feared lest one of the wives or servants had stolen Laban’s gods, and now that he saw that they were not with them his anger was aroused, for he said, “He did not lose his gods, only he is seeking a quarrel with me.”²²⁷Judges 14:4. So he said, “Why have you hotly pursued after me as one pursues a thief? You have not found in my possession anything of all thy household stuff²²⁸Verse 37 here. though I was entitled to take from you all I could for you have changed my hire ten times,²²⁹Verse 41 here. and you demanded of me recompense for the animals that were torn by beasts,²³⁰Verse 39 here. and I paid you, though not legally by law required to do so.”

ויחר ליעקב וירב בלבן, after Lavan did not find anything, Yaakov thought that his teraphim had never been stolen at all, but that Lavan had used the accusation as a pretext to search Yaakov’s belongings and to make him appear as a suspected thief.

ויחר ליעקב וירב, Jacob then grew angry and argued, etc. The Torah stresses that Jacob's quarrelling was the direct result of his becoming angry. Otherwise he would not have started a quarrel.

ויחר ליעקב, Yaakov was angry at the fact that Lavan did not believe him and personally searched all his belongings, even though he himself had challenged him to do so by saying הכר נא, “please try and find!” If Lavan had possessed the slightest bit of common courtesy that should have been enough for him to desist from an insulting and degrading search.

ויחר ליעקב,”Yaakov became angry.” Even though, originally, Yaakov had given Lavan permission to search, seeing that he had said that the person with whom the teraphim would be found should not live, and he had said in front of everybody “please identify anything in my entourage as yours if you are able to,” how would Lavan be able to find anything unless he searched all of Yaakov’s belongings? Originally, Yaakov had thought that Lavan suspects one of his servants to have stolen the teraphim; he therefore permitted the search. It had not occurred to him that Lavan would suspect even him or his wives of being thieves. When Lavan had not found anything in his camp, he concluded that he had come with a trumped up charge. This is why he accused Lavan of having staged a pursuit for nefarious reasons, other than that he wanted to retrieve his property. He now told him that if anyone had been robbed it was him, whose wages Lavan had changed so many times, that he, Yaakov, would have been in his rights to search among Lavan’s belongings what he had robbed Yaakov of.

?מה פשעי מה חטאתי, What wrong have I ever committed that entitles you to treat me now as suspect of stealing?

וירב בלבן. He quarrelled with Laban. The meaning of the word בלבן is to show that this argument was considered as a quarrel only in the eyes of Laban. Anyone else would not have considered Jacob's justified argument a quarrel. In Bereshit Rabbah 74,10 Rabbi Azaryah describes this irritability of the patriarchs as preferable to the humility of subsequent generations of their descendants. He describes Jacob's conduct as conciliatory. Jacob pointed out that it was no more than fair that a son-in-law makes use of his father-in-law's utensils once in a while, etc. The approach by Rabbi Azaryah closely reflects what we have said. Perhaps the Torah also had in mind to tell us that Jacob quarrelled "with Laban," i.e. when the two were not overheard, were in the privacy of his tent. He did not humiliate Laban by complaining to him in public.

מה פשעי, מה חטאתי, "what intentional or even unintentional sin against you am I guilty of?" Jacob meant that if during the last twenty years Laban ever had occasion to fault him for an intentional or even an unintentional trespass against him, he could understand why Laban was suspicious of him now. Seeing that he had never given Laban any reason to suspect him of wrong-doing why would he do so now? Jacob also alluded to Laban's manner of searching his belongings. The way Laban had examined every last one of Jacob's belongings clearly indicated that he hoped to find not only his Teraphim but other triviae that Jacob might have stolen from him. Laban had used the disappearance of his Teraphim only as a pretext to conduct a thorough search of all of Jacob's belongings. Jacob challenged Laban's right to have done so.