Comentario citado sobre Génesis 31:10

עתודים The old of the flock³¹A. V., He-goats. (comp. Gen. 31:10)

afterwards you shall build your house This is Talmud (Sotah 44a). Another explanation according to its apparent meaning: In the beginning, buy yourself fields and vineyards, and afterwards make it fit, ועתדה, an expression concerning goats (עתודים). Stock your field with livestock, and afterwards you shall build a house, meaning that you shall take a wife.

ויקח לו יעקב מקל לבנה לח, “Yaakov took for himself rods of fresh poplar;” if you were to ask how a righteous person such as Yaakov could play such a trick, the answer this that according to the agreement between him and Lavan the answer is that when the agreement was made Yaakov had told his father-in-law to remove all the sheep of his that had speckled and spotted skin patterns, etc., meaning the young animals, so that he could not be accused later on as these having been stolen by him. This did not include mature animals with those skin patters. Lavan removed all such animals regardless of their age, making it almost impossible for animals that had never shown such skin patterns to bear young ones that did. He was therefore perfectly fair in looking after his own interests, seeing Lavan had made it almost impossible for him to own flocks of his own without resorting to ingenuity; as a matter of fact he did so, with the help of advice from an angel in a dream, as we read in 31,10. In addition, the sage Rabbi Chayim added that careful reading of the text will show that Lavan changed unilaterally the terms of their contract, which had referred only to animals with the skin pattern known as נקודים, whereas he now had added those with skin patterns known as עקודים. This is why Yaakov on his part saw free to do what he did, fulfilling what is written in Samuel II 22,27: עם עקש תתפל, (David speaking) “and with the deceitful people You will find ways to make them cause their own downfall.”