Genesis31chapter 31

The classical readers treat the flight from Haran as a lawful departure rather than a theft, and they spend their effort on showing that Jacob is owed what he takes. Rashi reads the command to return as a condition of God's presence, that Jacob may have it in the land of his fathers, "but as long as you are associated with the unclean Laban it is impossible to make my Divine Presence (Shechina) rest upon you", on Midrash Tanchuma, Vayetzei 10 (Rashi on Genesis 31:3:1, the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain). He notes the order in which Jacob calls his wives, "First Rachel and afterwards Leah for she was the chief wife of the house", and adds that even Leah's descendants conceded it (Rashi on Genesis 31:4:1). The rams of the dream he explains by angels moving the marked animals from the flock in the charge of Laban's sons to the flock in Jacob's, on Genesis Rabbah 73:10 (Rashi on Genesis 31:10:1). The daughters' complaint he reads as a legal one, that a father who sold them for fourteen years of labour and gave no dowry had treated them as strangers, and that what God took from their father is theirs rather than his (Rashi on Genesis 31:14:1, 31:15:1 and 31:16:1). On the warning given to Laban in the night he hands on the ruling of Yevamot 103b, that God forbade Laban even a kind word, "Because all the good that the wicked do to the righteous is evil in the opinion of the righteous" (Rashi on Genesis 31:24:1). Radak keeps to the plain reading. He says Laban's change of face was plain to see, "he could see it in his face, for he was not hiding his feelings", and that the dream came while Jacob was still turning the matter over (Radak on Genesis 31:2:1, translated by Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash, CC-BY). He puts Jacob's case in one line, "I have served him faithfully whereas he related to me with deceit" (Radak on Genesis 31:6:1), and identifies the river of the flight as the Euphrates (Radak on Genesis 31:21:1). Ibn Ezra comments here at five places and Malbim at 31:12:1, and the corpus holds no English of either under a licence permitting quotation, so they stand as citations: Ibn Ezra on Genesis 31:5:1, 31:8:1, 31:9:1, 31:20:1 and 31:25:1, Malbim on Genesis 31:12:1.