Genesis 32

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:31:41utc

"Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him." (vs.1) The NIV adds "also" to the text, which the KJV and RSV do not. This contrasts Jacob's departure from Mizpah with Laban's. When Jacob leaves God's angels meet him, which they do not with Laban. The angels are messengers of God. Both the Greek word "anggelos" and the Hebrew "malach" mean messenger. Adam Clarke quotes St. Augustine, who said: "It is a name, not of nature, but of office." The same word is used in the third verse, where "Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom."

However, if the angels convey any message to Jacob, we do not hear what it is. Jacob sees them, but does not hear them, as far as we know. The message was probably in the seeing. "The medium was the message," as McLuhan would say. Jacob enters the land that was promised to him and a divine

welcoming committee receives him to make him understand that he is home.

Of all the patriarchs Jacob has seem the most angels. Abraham has had divine encounters. Isaac's life was curiously devoid of revelations. We can discern only one or two, but we can count at least four or five meetings with supernatural beings in Jacob's life. We can almost say that God pampered him. Yet there are very few incidents in his life that we can describe as outstanding feats of faith. In the gallery in Hebrews 11 Jacob is only mentioned once, when he blesses his sons. Heb. 11:21 says: "By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff."

What counts in our lives is not the supernatural revelations, but obedience to the Word God has revealed to us. This seems to be the message Jesus gives in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Abraham says to the rich man who suffers in hell: "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them...... "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead." (Luke 16:29,31).

Actually the appearance of the angels was not a divine intervention in Jacob's life, it was the revelation of his true condition. The angels had been there for twenty years, ever since Jacob had seen them the first time at Bethel. God had promised Jacob to be with him and to bring him back. Jacob could not see his bodyguard with the naked eye, but that did not means that they were not there. What God does to him, in all these instances of divine revelation, is lift Jacob up above himself and show him the reality in which he lives. In Psalm 34:7 David states clearly: "The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them." If our eyes would be more tuned in to reality, we would see more. Elisha prayed for his servant that he would see what the prophet himself saw. We read in II Kings 6:17 "And Elisha prayed, 'O LORD, open his eyes so he may see.' Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha." A lot of our dejection and despair is on account of our poor eyesight.

Jacob called the place where he saw the angels "Mahanaim," which means "two armies." The NIV states that Jacob says: "This is the camp of God!" The KJV translates it with: "This is God's host!" and the RSV says: "This is God's army!" The latter translation seems the most appropriate in the context.

Commentators have discussed the intent of the giving of the name Mahanaim. Why is Jacob talking about two armies? Did he see two hosts of angels, or was he talking about his own camp and the camp of God? Jacob must have realized that the angels were there for the protection of his family and himself. His reaction is quite different from the first time, when he saw the angels at Bethel and heard the voice of God from heaven. That time it was a first experience. He encountered the God with whom he had never had anything to do. But at Mahanaim he recognizes the angels. The vision brings back to him what he knew already, although it reality of the first dream may have faded over the years.

We tend to forget. Even if our meeting with God may have had a life changing effect upon us, there comes a time when even the sharpness of that picture fades. We have to be reminded over and over again that the ultimate reality is invisible to us and that what we see is not the real thing. Even the apostles, who were filled with the Holy Spirit at the day of Pentecost, had to be filled again at a later date, so that their confidence in giving testimony of Christ's resurrection would not diminish. In Acts 4:29 and 31 we read: "'Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.' After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly."

In vs. 3-23 we read of the preparations Jacob makes to meet with his brother Esau. The rest of the chapter, from vs. 24-32 pictures his encounter with God at Peniel.

It is an act of courage that Jacob takes the initiative in meeting Esau. He sends messengers to his brother in a clear effort to bring about reconciliation. We read in vs. 3 - "Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom." The word for messengers here is the same as the word angels in the previous verses. The Pulpit Commentary sees this use of the same word as a means to indicate the contrast between the two armies. Adam Clarke suggests that Jacob sent these messengers before he had the vision of the angels, since they returned to him at the Jabbok. Seir was at the South of the Dead Sea, which was a good distance from the place where Jacob was entering Canaan at the North. I do not think, though, that the chronology of this chapter is necessarily reversed. There is no inconsistency between Jacob's meeting of the angels and the sending of his messengers. And Jacob could very well have spent considerable time at the Jabbok, realizing how crucial the next few weeks would be.

Jacob instructs his messengers to call him Esau's servant, indicating that he does not claim his right as first-born son, bestowed upon him by Isaac's blessing. He also tells them to give an account of Jacob's wealth, so that Esau may understand that Jacob does not need any of his father's possessions. And finally he clearly asks for Esau's favor, that is for reconciliation between him and his brother.

The answer he receives scares him out of his wits. Gen 32:6 says: "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.'" Jacob interprets this as hostile. He believes that Esau comes to get his revenge and to kill Jacob and wipe out his family. He cannot imagine that Esau would come with four hundred men to embrace his brother. Evidently Jacob never knew his brother's character. Esau was impetuous. It would have been impossible for him to keep a grudge for twenty years. The cunning Jacob could, but not Esau. Jacob's cunning comes to his rescue at this point. Not that he needed to be cunning under the protection of God's angels, but Jacob evidently did not rely too heavily upon this divine protection. He acts strategically, by dividing his family and herd in two groups, so that one would be attacked and destroyed, the other would have a chance to escape.

Then Jacob prays. His prayer is recorded in the verses 9 - 12. "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,' 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. 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. 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.'"

In the face of death Jacob grapples with God's promises and tries to reconcile them with the circumstances in which he finds himself and with his fears. Jacob is afraid to die and he fears what will happen to his family. Thus far God had sought Jacob. Here, for the first time, Jacob seeks God. This is tremendous progress.

His prayer is sincere and his humility is genuine. He realizes what God has done for him. When he crossed the Jordan the first time he only had his staff, now, crossing it again, he has a large family and a huge herd of cattle. He had divided the whole in two groups. Evidently the groups are large enough that Esau might take one of them as the whole. Jacob's conclusion is "I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant." Yet, Jacob is not at the point where he can look at himself and see his life and character as God sees it. That he will do a few hours later, when the night falls and darkness closes in around him. He prays that God will save him from the hand of Esau, but he has to be saved from himself first.

Jacob admits that he goes back because God had told him to. That fact should have been enough for him to put his faith in God's protection. But evidently it isn't. Again, he believes that he has to help the Lord to mellow Esau's heart and he decides to send a large gift of cattle ahead to meet his brother. The gift consists of goats, sheep, cows, camels and donkeys, all divided in three groups. The shepherds are given specific instructions as to what to say when they meet Esau and present him with the animals.

We get the impression that Jacob had retired for the night, but then got up and decided upon the gift. After that he tries to sleep again, but gets up again and sends his wife and children across the Jabbok. When he tries to go to sleep for the third time he enters upon the decisive battle, that will change his life and make him a new creature.

Ch. 32:24-32 is one of the great portions of the Bible. Jacob must have crossed the Jabbok again, because verse 24 tells us that he was alone. Alone that is, as far as other human beings is concerned; he is alone with God. He was used to being in a crowd. Four wives and twelve children provided enough noise that he could easily drown himself in company. Now, as death stares him in the face, he realizes that he has to come to terms with himself and with God.

Although death is God's enemy and ours, it can also be our friend. There is nothing that makes us more easily realistic people than the presence of death. That is why Ecclesiastes says: "It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure." (Ecc. 7:2-4). We will not be able to live as we should until we have come to grips with death.

"So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak." (vs. 24). We are not told directly who this man was. In these verses he is consistently called "the man." Yet, he is not anonymous. Jacob recognizes Him as God Himself, as Elohim. Hosea calls him "an angel" in Hosea 12:4 - "He struggled with the angel and overcame him; he wept and begged for his favor." This commentary by Hosea also gives us an interesting insight into the nature of the wrestling and of Jacob's victory.

It is obvious that, what is pictured as a physical wrestling match, is primarily a spiritual battle. In a certain sense is the man Jacob wrestles with Jacob himself. So is the victory Jacob gains a victory over himself. We read in Prov. 16:32 - "Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls

his temper than one who takes a city." Self-control is the fruit of victory over self. Yet, there is a physical element in the struggle, for Jacob suffers damage to his hip in the experience. Verse 25 says: "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." And the end of the chapter confirms that "he (Jacob) was limping because of his hip." The Israelites turned this spiritual experience into a ritual, as we read in verse 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." This observance both preserved Jacob's crisis and it robbed it of its meaning.

We are told that the angel could not overpower Jacob. Obviously this

does not mean that Jacob was physically stronger than the angel. The slight touch upon Jacob's hip cripples him for life. So it would have been no problem at all for this heavenly being to crush his opponent. The idea that angels would be weaker than humans is preposterous. The question as to how Jacob could gain a spiritual victory seems to be answered in the quote from Hosea, which we mentioned before. Hosea 12:4 states: "He wept and begged for his favor." The word "favor" means "grace," which is forgiveness or pardon. In plain language, Jacob gained spiritual immunity because he said: "I am sorry!"

Dr. Culbertson, who was at that time president of Moody Bible Institute, first drew my attention to Hosea's verse. He preached a sermon about this verse in Brussels, while I was at the Brussels Bible Institute. I had to interpret for him.

Jacob prevailed with God because he asked forgiveness for his sins. We do not read a detailed confession but we are probably much more aware of Jacob's sins than Jacob ever was himself. It is a common problem that the sinner himself is least conscious of his problem. Once he is, the battle is won. Jacob had tripped people all his life. He had grabbed Esau's heel at birth and he had gone for people's heels ever since. Here the angel grabs Jacob's heel and dislocates his hip. Jacob's lameness became for him a life long reminder of what he had done to others. As far as we know he never did it again from this point on.

In verse 25 we read: "When the man saw that he could not overpower him ...." This probably means that the angel concedes, declaring Jacob the victor. God imputes faith to man as righteousness and confession of sin as victory. That is the essence of grace. Jacob is declared the winner because of his plea for forgiveness. This was the turning point in his life. From the human point of view it seems that when we declare that we were wrong, we would be considered to be the loser. We tend to think that when we lose everything is lost. The devil wants us to believe that when we go to God and say: "I am wrong, I am sorry," that God will tell us to go away, because He can't stand

losers. Anyone who ever came to God confessing his sin, has found out that the opposite is true. In John 6:37 Jesus says: "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away."

The turning point in Job's life was when he confessed his sin. When Job says: "Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes," (Job 42:6) his suffering ends. When Peter says to Jesus in Luke 5:8 "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" Jesus makes him a fisher of men. We acquire knowledge of salvation in the forgiveness of our sins. This term was coined by Zacharias in Luke 1:77 "To give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins."

One of the most startling verses in this chapter, if not in the whole Bible, is verse 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.'" Here is God talking to one of His creatures. He says: "Let me go!" and the creature answers "No!" How God must have loved this! He had wanted to bless Jacob all his life, but Jacob never paid any attention. God did not want to go because of daybreak. He created the sun with all its splendor of dawn and dusk. God was drawing Jacob out and Jacob let himself be drawn. We should pause here and let the beauty of this penetrate in our souls. God wants us to hold on to him until He blesses us.

Jacob had received the blessing of his blind father by deceiving him, posing as Esau. Now he wants the real thing and God gives it to him. Jacob's deception of Isaac was probably his greatest guilt. In God's grace this darkest spot becomes the brightest. He receives the blessing, he who had tripped people all his life, by being tripped by the angel. Jacob, who will limp the rest of his life, is blessed. It would have been impossible for Jacob to ask for a blessing if he had not realized that God had forgiven him.

I remember the testimony of Jacob Schreuder at the Hezenberg in Holland. Mr. Schreuder was the director of a high school for girls in Amsterdam. I hear him speak at one of the first Youth Retreats I attended. He went to Mottlingen as a typical Dutch churchgoer, who did not know the Lord. When he arrived, one of the brothers asked him his name. He said: "Jacob." The brother answered: "Do not let Him go until He blesses you." That word changed his life.

It is hard for us, Westerners, to grasp the importance of the change of a name. Names do not have the significance in our culture that they had in Biblical times. For us names have lost their meaning. They are better sounding than numbers, but that is about all. For Jacob, the name he received when he was born did not only describe the unusual circumstance of his grasping his brother's leg at birth but it stuck to him as the description of a man who tripped people up. A change of name meant a change of character; it meant a new birth. Jacob's experience at the Jabbok was the equivalent of the New Testament experience of "being born again."

Obviously the angel knew Jacob's name. His question "What is your name?" was put for Jacob's benefit, not for the benefit of the omniscient God. Then his name is changed to Israel, which has become the name of the nation we still know now. Adam Clarke says about the meaning of this name: "Yisrael, from sar, 'a prince,' or sarah, 'he ruled as a prince,' and el, 'God'; or rather from ish, 'a man,' and raah, 'he saw,' el, 'God'."

Although The Pulpit Commentary arrives at the same conclusion, it gets there by a different way. "Israel, from .... to be chief, to fight, though, after the example if Ismael, God hears, it might be rendered 'God governs,' yet seems in this place to signify either Prince of El, or wrestler with God, rather than warrior of God, if indeed both ideas may not be combined in the name as the princely wrestler with God, an interpretation adopted by the A.V." The KJV reads indeed: "Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed."

When Jacob asked for forgiveness God raised him to the rank of nobility. It seems that the name Israel has more to do with status than with action. We read in verse 24 that the angel wrestled with Jacob, not that Jacob wrestled with the angel. Jacob's struggle seemed more an act of resistance than of aggression. The victory consisted in Jacob's surrender. When Jacob said: "I give up," God said: "You won!" The essence of grace is what the French call: "Qui perd gagne." (The one who loses wins.)

That is why there is no such thing as boasting, as the Apostle Paul calls it. In I Cor. 1:31 he says: "Therefore, as it is written: 'Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.'" Christians are the only people who boast in the losses.

In that sense Israel has never lived up to its name. The general character of the believing Jew seems to be spiritual pride. Real Jews should be always chuckling about the irony of the fact that their ancestor, Jacob, got promoted to Israel because he lost. This is the loss Jesus speaks about in Matt. 16:25 - "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." It is not just a matter of losing a battle, but of losing the war, losing life.

In verse 29 Jacob asks the angel's name. The context seems to say that the question was redundant. Jacob did not have to ask because he knew. Looking back he will have admitted that he knew all his life who would win. The question we should ask is, did God answer or did not He? God had told Jacob who he was and who He was. The name Israel implies the "El," which is God. But also God blesses Jacob, which means that God puts His Name upon Jacob. Blessing consists in the fact that we bear God's Name and His nature. Peter says that we become participants in the divine nature (II Peter 1:4) and the book of Revelation mentions several times that victory consists in that God will write His Name upon us. In Rev. 3:12 we read: "Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name." Rev. 14:1 says: "Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads." And one of the final promises of the Bible: "They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads." (Rev. 22:4)

Jacob calls the place Peniel, which means "face of God." Giving names to places seems to have been one of Jacob's strong points in life. We have Bethel, Mizpah, Mahanaim and now Peniel. The KJV and RSV give two different spellings for the same place within two verses, one Peniel and the other Penuel. According to The Pulpit Commentary , some expositors suppose that the original name of the place was Penuel and that Jacob changed this by the changing one vowel, thus giving it a new meaning. The NIV says Peniel in both places.

Obviously, Jacob did not see the face of God in a physical sense. God ruled this out in Ex. 33:20 where He says to Moses: "You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." Mortal man can not endure the confrontation with God's glory; it would overwhelm him so much that it would cause death. That is why Paul calls God "invisible." In I Tim. 1:17 he says: "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and

glory for ever and ever. Amen." There were physical aspects in this encounter of Jacob with God; his body would bear the marks of it for the rest of his life, but the actual content of the experience was spiritual.

Jacob is amazed himself about the fact that he survived the experience physically. He says in verse 30 - "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared." Probably Jacob did not only marvel about the fact that he was still alive, but also that this experience happened to him, of all people. There must have been something of what John Newton calls: "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!"

The sunrise at Peniel, as is mentioned in verse 31, is more than just the regular appearance of the sun above the horizon. Some sunrises and sunsets acquire a spiritual meaning. The Ecclesiastes complains about the monotony of the rising of the sun and other daily routines of nature. We read in Ecc. 1:5-9 - "The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again. All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." But for Jacob there was nothing wearisome in the rising of the sun that morning. It was because "God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our [his] heart(s) to give us [him] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." (II Cor. 4:6). For Jacob the earth was full of the glory of God that morning, because his heart was full of it.

This did not mean that he "jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God," like the lame man who was healed at the temple by Peter and John. For Jacob, praising God because he had seen Him face to face meant that he could not longer walk normally and jump; he limped. The angel had grabbed his heel and pulled his leg right out of the socket, worse than Jacob himself had ever pulled other people's leg and tripped them. The amazing thing is that Jacob's limp became his glory, just as for us the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Jews recognize the glory of Jacob's handicap. Verse 32 tells us: "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." As we said before, this reduced Jacob's encounter with God to part of the religious liturgy, thereby robbing it of its vibrant content. On the other hand in observing the ritual of not eating the tendon on the hip of an animal, the Israelites express the understanding that when a person brings an animal as a sacrifice, he identifies with the sacrifice. When the animal dies, he dies. In a certain way Jacob died at Penuel. He rose again when the sun rose; a new day, a new life.