Genesis 30:32

I will pass, &c. Jacob's proposal to Laban is that he should serve for a wage, to be given, not in money, but in animals. The sheep in Syria are nearly always white, and the goats black; cf. Song of Solomon 4:1. Jacob asks that his wage should consist of the sheep that were not white and the goats that were not black. Laban's flocks would be, according to this arrangement, the great mass of the animals. To Jacob's share would fall the exceptions, the spotted and black among the sheep, the spotted and speckled among the goats.