(25) After Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Give me leave to go back to my own homeland. (26) Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, that I may go; for well you know what services I have rendered you.” (27) But Laban said to him, “If you will indulge me, I have learned by divination that God has blessed me on your account.” (28) And he continued, “Name the wages due from me, and I will pay you.” (29) But he said, “You know well how I have served you and how your livestock has fared with me. (30) For the little you had before I came has grown to much, since God has blessed you wherever I turned. And now, when shall I make provision for my own household?” (31) He said, “What shall I pay you?” And Jacob said, “Pay me nothing! If you will do this thing for me, I will again pasture and keep your flocks: (32) let me pass through your whole flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted animal—every dark-colored sheep and every spotted and speckled goat. Such shall be my wages. (33) In the future when you go over my wages, let my honesty toward you testify for me: if there are among my goats any that are not speckled or spotted or any sheep that are not dark-colored, they got there by theft.” (34) And Laban said, “Very well, let it be as you say.”
ויצל אלקים. ... וזה שאמר יעקב לנשיו גם הוא אמת שראה זה בחלום כי השם יעזרהו לחזק הצאן ולהוליד גם בלא מקלות
God has taken away...this is what Jacob said to his wives. Also it was true what he saw in his dream, that God had helped him to strengthen the flock and to help them give birth, even without the sticks.
... ודע כי מה שלקח לו יעקב מקל לבנה לא עשה זה מעצמו רק ע"פ המלאך, כי כן אמר יעקב לרחל וללאה שאמר לו המלאך שא נא עיניך וראה כל העתודים וגו'. ואחרי כן ויקח לו יעקב מקל לבנה. ואין מוקדם ומאוחר בתורה. והנה יעקב כשראה המראה הזאת בחלום ידע שהקב"ה עושה לו נס כדי שלא ירמה אותו לבן כמו שאמר ואלקי אבי היה עמדי, ואמר לולי אלקי אבי אלקי אברהם ופחד יצחק היה לי. ואחר שראה כי מן השמים עוזרים אותו הציג המקלות ההם לשני ענינים. האחד להעלים הנס ולהסתירו כדי שלא תשלוט בו עין הרע...
השני כדי שיתקיים הנס ע"י מעשה הטבע ...
...Know that when Yaakov resorted to the stratagem of peeling different kinds of rods to expose different kinds of colour patterns he did not do so on his own initiative but an angel had instructed him to do so. This is what he himself told his wives in 31,12, quoting what the angel had told him: “it once happened at the mating time that I raised my eyes and saw in a dream ‘and behold the he-goats mounting the flocks were ringed, speckled and checkered, and an angel of God said to me in a dream Yaakov! etc.’...for I have seen all that Lavan is doing to you.”
Once Yaakov had seen that he enjoyed heavenly support, he proceeded with his own ingenuity knowing that God would assist him so as to neutralise Lavan’s constant attempts to swindle him and to do him out of what was rightfully his. Yaakov might have relied on God’s help exclusively; he did not do so and resorted to the stratagem with the rods for two reasons: One reason was in order to conceal the fact that he enjoyed heavenly assists. He did not want the evil eye to interfere with his success...
The second reason was so that the miracle could happen by means of the natural world...