Jacob to Laban:
These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, and I have not eaten the rams of your flocks. What was torn by wild beasts I did not bring to you. I bore the loss of it myself. From my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. There I was: by day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. (Gen 31:28-30)
Derek Kidner comments: The tale of hardships is an astringent corrective to romantic ideas of the biblical shepherd. This, and nothing idyllic, is the pastor's calling, reminiscent of the adversaries of Paul in 2 Cor 11:26ff., or indeed of David, Amos or Jesus (Ps 23:4-5; Amos 3:12; Jn 10:11ff). (Genesis, TOTC, 166)
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