Genesis 32

Jabbok River

Mahamaim

Penuel

⁽¹⁾ Jacob also went on his way*, and the angels** of God met*** him.

way: This way or road led away from Laban, his paganism, and the place where he had acquired his wealth, and toward the land promised him by God.

**angels of God: "angels" is sometimes translated "messengers", its real meaning. The phrase "angels of God" occurs twice in Genesis: here and 28:12 where Jacob had the dream of "the angels" going up and down on the ladder to heaven. Just as Joshua saw angels before entering the promised land (Joshua 5:13-15), angels greet Jacob upon his return to the land.

***met: It is not that the angels "appeared" to him, but they "met" him. Jacob is returning from his long exile, returning to the land given to his fathers by Jehovah. God sent these messengers of His in advance to welcome his servant home, and to express to him His goodwill. On his journey out from Canaan to Padan-Aram the Lord Himself met Jacob and gave him a vision of the angels; and here, now that he is on his way back from Padan-Aram to Canaan, the angels met him, followed immediately afterwards by the Lord appearing to him.

⁽²⁾ When Jacob saw them, he said, "This is the camp* of God!" So he named that place Mahanaim**.

*camp: "host" or "army".

**Mahanaim means two camps or a double camp.

   Jacob had just escaped from one "camp" of his enemies (Laban and his brethren—Genesis 31:22, 23), and another was now advancing to meet him, namely, Esau with his four hundred men. It would seem, then, there was one host of these "angels" of God, but divided into two companies, probably encompassing him both before and behind much like when the Pillar of Cloud went before Israel by day and the Pillar of Fire protected their rear by night.

⁽³⁾ Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau
in the land of Seir*, the country of Edom**.

*Seir means "the hairy one".

**Edom is southeast of the Dead Sea, the area settled by the
descendants of Esau. On the way from Gilead to Hebron, where he had left his
father, Jacob would not have to pass through Seir. The messengers must have
told him that his brother was there, and though he had been able to put his
fears of Esau out of his mind for twenty years, he now knew he had to again
face what he had done to him.

   Jacob had heard nothing of his brother Esau, except where he was now settled. Remembering Esau's angry threat, Jacob was apprehensive about meeting him again. So, he sent messengers ahead to sound find out whether Esau was still wanting to kill him.

⁽⁴⁾ He instructed them: "This is what you are to say to my master Esau: 'Your servant Jacob says, I have been staying* with Laban and have remained there till now.

*staying - Lived as a stranger as Abraham had lived as a stranger in the promised land. Nothing is said of the reason why he had fled to Padan-Aram—all reference to his outwitting of Esau is carefully passed over. Rebecca, Jacob's mother (and Esau's) ahd told Jacob she'd send for him when Esau's anger had cooled and he was no longer threatening to kill Jacob. But, Jacob never received
a message from Rebecca so either she had died or Esau was still angry and threatening to kill Jacob.

⁽⁵⁾ I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, menservants and maidservants. Now I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favor in your eyes.'"

   He thought Esau would respect him more if he mentioned his possessions, since Esau was that kind of man. Yet he is also making it clear to Esau that he has plenty, and is not out to get anything more from him.

   Jacob wants Esau to understand that he had not come to claim the double portion, nor even to seek a division of their father’s inheritance because God had given him plenty of this world’s goods.

⁽⁶⁾ When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, "We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet* you, and **four hundred men are with him."

*meet: a different word from that in verse 1. Here it has more of the sense of a surprise, and running up against a wall.

**400 men: When Jacob heard that Esau was coming with 400 men, what else could he expect but that he wanted to kill him?

   It must have come upon Jacob as a terrible shock to learn that his brother was already acquainted with his movements. It could only be about two weeks at most since Jacob had secretly left his Laban. How could Esau have learned of it at all? Was his thirst for revenge upon his brother so great that he had had him watched all these years? Was there some spy of his in the employ of Laban, who had now secretly communicated with Esau? Someone must have informed him, and the fact that Esau was now advancing upon him was disquieting news indeed.

⁽⁷⁾ In great fear* and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups**, and the flocks and herds and camels as well.

*In great fear and distress: a guilty conscience needs no accusing

**groups - camps, from the same root as Mahanaim (the "double
camp" in verse 2). It has a military nuance to it in Hebrew as in English.

   There seemed no time to be lost, so Jacob quickly divided his people and his flocks into two bands, so that if Esau came up with one and smote it, the other at least might escape. Then, he went to prayer.

⁽⁸⁾ He thought, "If Esau comes and attacks one group*, the group* that is left may escape."

*group - camp

⁽⁹⁾ Then Jacob prayed, "O God* of my father Abraham, God* of my father Isaac, O LORD**, who said to me, 'Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,'

*God: Elohim

** LORD: Jehovah

   What did Jacob do to prepare for his meeting? He prayed and he prepared gifts for Esau. This prayer is significant because it is only the second recorded prayer in the Bible. The first was Abraham's intercessory prayer for Sodom and Gomorrah. So this is the first recorded prayer for personal needs. Let's look at the parts of the prayer more closely:

(1) He acknowledges God (verse 9).

(2) He reminds God of His promise to him. The Scriptures contain many promises given to believers in general, and it is our individual privilege to plead them before God in particular, the more so when we encounter difficulties. Jacob pleaded a definite promise; so must we. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 we read, "My gracious favor is all you need.." Again, we read in Philippians 4:19, "And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs..."

(3) He states his unworthiness for all the previous blessings God showered on him (verse 10).

(4) He admits to God his fear and distress (verse 11). There's
no point pretending to be strong in front of God, He knows anyway!

(5) He presents his request, "Save me".

(6) Finally, he ends off his prayer by referring the situation back to God and claiming on His promises, showing his trust in Him (verse 12). God had promised to make Jacob’s seed as the sand of the sea, but if his wife and children were slain how then could God’s promise be fulfilled!

As the first recorded prayer for personal needs, this makes a good model for what our prayers for ourselves should sound like. Besides praying, Jacob also prepared gifts in an attempt to pacify Esau. Taking Jacob's example, we see that prayer is accompanied by action.

"God helps those who help themselves" is not biblical, but the concept is reiterated that after one prays, acknowledging the need for His intervention, we take whatever steps we can to show that we trust Him to act. God would not divide the Red Sea until Moses set foot in, nor did Jericho's walls fall down until Joshua and the nation marched around it. While careful not to rush ahead of God, once He says to move, start the process, however inadequate our resources, and He will ensure our success. How can we expect Him to fight for us if we are not serious about moving forward toward the goal? Here Jacob finally recognizes Him as Jehovah; invoking him as the Elohim of another is no longer adequate, as He is in a true crisis.

⁽¹⁰⁾ I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups*.

*groups - camps

⁽¹¹⁾ Save me*, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers** with their children.

*Save me: Now he states the purpose of his prayer - he's scared to death of Esau and has nowhere else to turn but to God.

**mothers is singular, yet he had four mothers with him. His heart was inclined only to one wife.

⁽¹²⁾ But you have said, 'I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.'"

   If the mother and children are killed, where will these descendants come from?

⁽¹³⁾ He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau:

⁽¹⁴⁾ two hundred female goats, twenty male goats, two hundred ewes, twenty rams,

⁽¹⁵⁾ thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.

⁽¹⁶⁾ He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, "Go ahead of me, and keep some space* between the herds."

*space: So that they would arrive in wave after wave of gifts and soften Esau’s heart, if possible.

⁽¹⁷⁾ He instructed the one in the lead: "When my brother Esau meets you and asks, 'To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and who owns all these animals in front* of you?'

⁽¹⁸⁾ then you are to say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.' "

⁽¹⁹⁾ He also instructed the second, the third and all the others who followed the herds: "You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him.

⁽²⁰⁾ And be sure to say, 'Your servant Jacob is coming behind us.' "For he thought, "I will pacify* him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me."

*pacify: literally, "cover", the same word used for atonement offerings in the Temple. Jacob was always expecting to be punished for what he did, and now he expects that judgment to fall on his family as well. His thought was that maybe he just deserved whatever might happen to him, not recognizing that it was God’s choice that removed the birthright from Esau. The text reads literally, "I will see his face, and perhaps he will lift up my face" (nasa' panim).

⁽²¹⁾ So Jacob's gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp.

⁽²²⁾ That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok*.

*Jabbok signifies “emptying out” - appropriate name, for it emphasizes the fact that Jacob was “left alone.” The Jabbok flows westward through Gilead into the Jordan halfway between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. Later it would be the northern border of the lands of Moab and then of Ammon. Here, he left his old self behind and gained a new identity (verse 28).

Jabbok River

⁽²³⁾ After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.

   He removed from himself everything that mattered to him, and spent one final night in a foreign land. Now, Jacob is all alone with his thoughts and fears.

   This passage introduces us to the most important crisis in the life of Jacob. The book of Genesis presents Jacob in two characters, as he is exhibited to us as Jacob and as Israel; the one looking at the natural man, and the other at the spiritual man, the one telling of how Divine grace him and the other of what Divine grace made him.

⁽²⁴⁾ So Jacob was left alone, and a man* wrestled with him till daybreak.

*man: He refers to this "man" as God in verse 30.

   Anyone else find this part strange? A man wrestling with God? Well, after investigating several commentaries, I found that the interpretation that made the most sense argued that this is a metaphor for our struggles. God(in the form of a man in this passage) tests us.

   He was alone, yet he wrestled with someone. How could this be? The numerical value of "alone" in Hebrew is 613 - the number of commandments in the Torah, God’s word. So he was wrestling with Christ, the living Word that would later become flesh, but often appeared in the form of a man prior to this. n 48:16, this “man” is called an angel, and Jesus was often called the “Angel of God”. He was also wrestling with himself. In God's judgment, Jacob's struggle was with his own decptive, cunning, self-serving ways rather than with Esau. He had to come to terms with what he truly believed: what kind of man was he, now that he was all alone against the world unless he would have faith that this God was really who He said He was? Was he really the right one to receive the birthright? Was he really ready to be the leader of a nation? He was wrestling with the spirit of his twin Esau, the philosophy of caring only for one's belly, which now threatened him in a very real way as everything hung in the balance. Would he become like him? Or would he remain Jacob? Neither. He would become a third option. All of this took place in the spirit realm, whether or not anyone else was physically present. And all of these aspects of his wrestling are really one and the same.

   "And there wrestled a man with him." In Hosea 12:4, this "man" is termed "the angel"; that is, we take it; "the Angel of the Covenant," or, in other words, the Lord Jesus Himself. It was the same One who appeared unto Abraham just before the destruction of Sodom. In Genesis 18:2 we read of "three men," but later in the chapter one of them is spoken of as" the Lord." (Genesis 5:13). So here in Genesis 32, at the close of the conflict between this "Man" and Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face." (Genesis 32:30).

   "And there wrestled a Man with him." Jacob was not wrestling with this Man to obtain a blessing; instead, the Man was wrestling with Jacob to gain some object from him. As to what this object is the best of the commentators are agreed—it was to reduce Jacob to a sense of his nothingness, to cause him to see what a poor, helpless and worthless creature he was; it was to teach us through him the all important lesson that in recognized weakness lies our strength.

   Hosea 12:3-4: "Before Jacob was born, he struggled with his brother; when he became a man, he even fought with God. Yes, he wrestled with the angel and won. He wept and pleaded for a blessing from him. There at Bethel he met God face to face, and God spoke to him."

⁽²⁵⁾ When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched* the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.

*touched: struck, violently gripped, wrenched.

   Why do you think "the man" allowed Jacob to prevail? Why did he merely wound Jacob? This wounding is a reminder of the damage that he could have done. He merely touched Jacob's hip and it was "wrenched", so he certainly could have done more. The wound allowed Jacob to remember this encounter with humility. Although he overcame the man, it was the man who allowed him to and not by his own doing. Likewise, when we've gone through our trials, we often become prideful because we have overcome. But let us not get proud but remember that we have overcome because the Lord allowed us to. Jacob was now brought to the end of his own resources. One swift stroke from the Divine hand and he was rendered utterly powerless. And this is the purpose God has before Him in His dealings with us. One of the principal designs of our gracious heavenly Father in the ordering of our path, in the appointing of our testings and trials, in the discipline of His love, is to bring us to the end of ourselves, to show us our own powerlessness, to teach us to have no confidence in the flesh, that His strength may be perfected in our conscious and realized weakness.

⁽²⁶⁾ Then the man said, "Let me go*, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless** me."

*Let Me go: literally, "send Me away". Jacob knew he could not see His face and live. Yet He wanted to receive the blessing the legitimate way this time.

**Bless: means to bend the knee to, so until Jacob “knuckled under” and confessed what he was really like, he could not be sent into the Land. But the angel also blessed him.

   Here we see the object of the Heavenly Wrestler accomplished. No longer could Jacob wrestle; all he could do was cling. The mysterious Stranger brought Jacob to the point where he had to lean his entire weight on Him! Up to this point, Jacob had sought to order his own life, planning, scheming and devising; but now he was "left alone" he is shown what a perfectly helpless creature he was in himself. This was a new era in the history of the supplanting, planning, Jacob. Up to this point he had held fast by his own ways and means, But, it was not until "his hip was wrenched" that Jacob said this; and, it is not until we fully realize our own helplessness and nothingness that we are brought to cling to God and really seek His blessing, for note, not only did Jacob say "I will not let you go," but he added "unless you bless me."

⁽²⁷⁾ The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered.

   Did God not know his name - of course he did! He was reminding Jacob of his name and its meaning. This is the first time he is recorded as ever using his own name (of which he may have been ashamed). Even his mother never used it in the recorded text.

⁽²⁸⁾ Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel*, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

*Israel means "He who struggles with God" or "God fights", "Striving (persistently exerting oneself) with God" or "One who has overcome and become a prince with God". The name "Jacob" is used the rest of the Bible with few exceptions - because Jacob is his name in the flesh and Israel is his name in the spirit. He continues to primarily live "in the flesh".

   Out of some forty Hebrew names compounded with ‘El’ or ‘Jah,’ God is always the Doer of what the verb means. Thus, Hiel=God liveth; Daniel=God judgeth; Gabriel=God is my strength." Israel would, therefore, be "God commandeth."

   It is after this that Jacob is given the name Israel. Name changes are very significant in their culture - it accords a new phase in one's life. It is from the trial of wrestling with God that Jacob (which means the deceiver) becomes Israel, God's chosen. Hence, we must persevere in our trials because through them we will be transformed. We are already "more than conquerers".

   It is interesting to see that God gives people new names at times in the Bible, and the names are reflective of their new lives with God. Abram becomes Abraham. Sarai becomes Sarah. Jacob becomes Israel. Simon becomes Peter.

   Revelation 2:17: "Anyone who is willing to hear should listen to the Spirit and understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Everyone who is victorious will eat of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven. And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it. We will be given new names too!

⁽²⁹⁾ Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.

⁽³⁰⁾ So Jacob called the place Peniel*, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."

*Peniel means "the face of God".

⁽³¹⁾ The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel*, and he was limping** because of his hip.

*Peniel - Hebrew Penuel, a variant of Peniel.

**limping - Every day, his limping would remind him that he was to depend upon God rather than himself.

⁽³²⁾ Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon* attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon.

*tendon: This is the sciatic muscle. Orthodox Jews still refuse to eat the tnedon of the hindquarter of animals, as a reminder of what God did to Jacob. This is a vivid reminder that our walk, too, has been changed.

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