Verse 7
Changed my wages ten times - There is a strange diversity among the ancient versions, and ancient and modern interpreters, on the meaning of these words. The Hebrew is מנים עשרת asereth monim , which Aquila translates δεκα αριθμους ten numbers; Symmachus, δεκακις αριτμῳ , ten times in number; the Septuagint δεκα αμνων , ten lambs, with which Origen appears to agree. St. Augustine thinks that by ten lambs five years' wages is meant: that Laban had withheld from him all the party-coloured lambs which had been brought forth for five years, and because the ewes brought forth lambs twice in the year, bis gravidae pecudes , therefore the number ten is used, Jacob having been defrauded of his part of the produce of ten births. It is supposed that the Septuagint use lambs for years, as Virgil does aristas .
En unquam patrios longo post tempore fines,
Pauperis et tuguri congestum cespite culmen,
Post aliquot mea regna videns mirabor aristas?
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