Genesis 32

¹³ So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took a present for his brother Esau, ¹⁴ two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, ¹⁵ thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. ¹⁶ These he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove.” ¹⁷ He instructed the first, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?’ ¹⁸ then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present sent to my lord Esau. And moreover, he is behind us.’” ¹⁹ He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, “You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him, ²⁰ and you shall say, ‘Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.’” For he thought, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.” ²¹ So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp. ²² The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. ²³ He took them and sent them across the stream, and eveything else that he had. ²⁴ And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. ²⁵ When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. ²⁶ Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” ²⁷ And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” ²⁸ Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” ²⁹ Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. ³⁰ So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” ³¹ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. ³² Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh.

The late B.H. Carroll told a story about being inspired by the tenacious persistence and determination of the Greeks in the Battle of Marathon.

You have heard me state before, and I will restate it now, how that idea of persistence got hold of me when I was four years old. I slept with my eldest brother and he taught me history lessons in child stories. One night he told me the history of the Battle of Marathon, where one hundred thousand Persians were assailed by ten thousand Greeks under Miltiades; how the Greeks broke the ranks of the Persians, and followed them into the sea; how the Persians got into their boats, and the Greeks grabbed the boats with their hands until the Persians cut their hands off; and then how they caught hold with their teeth until the Persians cut their heads off. And when my brother got that far, I jumped up in the bed and yelled out, “Hurrah for the Greeks!” until I woke up the whole house.[1]

Well! That is probably a bit much for a bedtime story for a four-year-old, but apparently it did make an impression. The Greeks simply refused to let the Persians go. They clung to their boats with their hands, then with their teeth, then…well…then they let go.

People love stories about fierce, stubborn, dogged determination against all odds: a refusal to quit, an adamant refusal to let go, an unwilting desire to accomplish some great goal. But of course, this kind of behavior can be for noble or ignoble means. The Greeks showed this when they refused to let the Persians go. But lots of people today demonstrate this kind of tenacity when it comes to pursuing wealth or fame or comfort. However, in Genesis 32, Jacob showed this kind of unrelenting determination with God! He refused to let go of God until God blessed Him!

If the stubborn determination of the Greeks caused little four-year-old B.H. Carroll to hop up and yell, this should inspire us infinitely more. Let us consider what it looks like to take hold of God and refuse to let go.

Jacob reaches the end of himself.

This kind of need for God and need to take hold of God inevitably begins with reaching the end of ourselves. We hold most tenaciously to those things that we believe will fundamentally define our existence and undergird our very being. We let go of insignificant things easily, but when we have staked our minds and hearts on something, that is what we will not let go of. But to get there, we must reach the end of ourselves. Let us see Jacob reach the end of himself. He is preparing to meet his brother, Esau. He is convinced he will die. So he makes one last effort to prepare himself.

¹³ So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took a present for his brother Esau, ¹⁴ two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, ¹⁵ thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. ¹⁶ These he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove.” ¹⁷ He instructed the first, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?’ ¹⁸ then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present sent to my lord Esau. And moreover, he is behind us.’” ¹⁹ He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, “You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him, ²⁰ and you shall say, ‘Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.’” For he thought, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.” ²¹ So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp. ²² The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. ²³ He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. ^24a And Jacob was left alone.

This is fascinating. Jacob, terrified and afraid, decides to send an excessively lavish gift on ahead to his brother who is approaching with 400 men.

¹⁴ two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, ¹⁵ thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.

The point of this list is not to demonstrate how wealthy Jacob is but rather how frightened he is. Then, as if to maximize the effectiveness of this gift in assuaging his brother’s wrath, he instructs the servant to arrange the droves of animals in such a way that there is space between each drove. In this way, Esau will have to pass through wave after wave of gifts! Thus, by the time Esau reached Jacob, he would, Jacob hoped, be appeased and in a mood to forgive his brother. In fact, we do not even have to guess about this since Moses gives us a glimpse into his inner thoughts.

²⁰ and you shall say, ‘Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.’” For he thought, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.”

But what is really striking is how this section ends. Jacob, after sending on ahead Esau’s gifts, then sends his wives and household and the rest of his possessions on ahead. And the first phrase of verse 24 reads, “And Jacob was left alone.”

Jacob was left alone.

Jacob reached the end of himself.

All of his tactics were now in play and there was nothing else for him to do.

He could do all that he could do.

And in the next sentence, we see Jacob’s struggle with God.

But do not miss this: our greatest and most life-changing moments with God do not happen until we have reached the end of ourselves, until our frantic activity ceases, until our best efforts to control have finally depleted themselves. We do not wrestle with God until we are done wrestling with our own egos, our own agendas, our own schemes.

We are not altered until we are emptied of everything else that still props up the illusion that we have some control over life and its circumstances.

Have you reached the end of yourself? Do you wonder why you cannot hear from God, why you have not been changed? Is it not because you are still desperately trying to fix things yourself? Is it not because you are still bowing before the idol of control?

Jacob moves from striving with to clinging to God.

Having reached the end of himself, this happens:

²⁴ And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. ²⁵ When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. ²⁶ Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” ²⁷ And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” ²⁸ Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” ²⁹ Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. ³⁰ So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” ³¹ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. ³² Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh.

Here is one of the most famous and perplexing passages in all of scripture. Let us begin by trying to identify the figure with whom Jacob strives. In Hosea 12 we find some help:

² The Lord has an indictment against Judah and will punish Jacob according to his ways; he will repay him according to his deeds. ³ In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God. ⁴ He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor.

This is likely where we get the famous image of Jacob wrestling with an angel, though, it needs to be noted that verse 3 says Jacob “strove with God.” Most significantly, Jacob himself says in verse 30, “For I have seen God face to face…” Some have suggested that the angel is the “angel of the Lord,” or a theophany or Christophany, that is, an Old Testament appearance of the Father or Son in physical form. Others suggest that to see an angel is to see an authorized, sent representative of God and therefore God Himself. (Interestingly, Gerhard Von Rad points to “the late Jewish Midrash” that “understands the demand to be released [because the day had broken] as follows: I must sing in the morning choir before God’s throne…”[2]) Regardless, based on the words of Jacob and of Hosea 12 we can rightly say that Jacob wrestles with God, however you try to understand that.

What is perhaps most telling in our text is the way this conflict evolves and changes. You will note that Jacob moves from wrestling with God to clinging to God. The wrestling ends with the Lord touching and dislocating his hip. The clinging ends with God blessing Jacob. R.R. Reno has helpfully interpreted the passage thus:

Jacob seems to both struggle against and tenaciously cling to his adversary. Moreover, 32:26 and Jacob’s tenacious grip function as the pivot of the episode. Before this verse, the adversary is a nameless man who can easily be read as representing the enemies of Israel, the human forces that God will allow to prevail in judgment against a sinful Israel. Yet, as the wrestling ends, the former adversary is revealed to be God himself. The providential power behind the afflictions now blesses Jacob…By this reading, the nightlong duration of the wrestling is meant to suggest the futility of a spiritual disposition that seeks to lash God to terms we devise, a futility that leads only to a maimed life: “Jacob’s thigh was put out of joint” (32:25). Yet, as the wrestling match moves to its end, Jacob does exactly the opposite of what he pledged after his vision in Gen. 28. He holds on to God—he makes the Lord his God—and this in spite of long servitude to Laban, in spite of conflict in his household, in spite of worries about the murderous resentments that his brother very likely harbors against him. Like Israel in exile, in spite of his trials, Jacob holds God close, and therein is he blessed.[3]

This is helpful because it gets at the transformation that is unfolding in this contest. Jacob moves from wrestling to clinging, from being wounded to being blessed. There is a model in this for us.

Churches oftentimes create a culture in which the only options are (a) a rosy problem-free faith or (b) shaming (often subtle) by the church if one is struggling or wrestling with one’s faith. I am not saying that any church would ever say this outright, but it seems to be the upshot.

But what of those who are wrestling with God, who are trying to understand, who are grappling in the dark. What of those whose faith is messy? What of those who do not want to walk away from God but who are struggling to understand exactly who this God is?

Our text shows us that there is a place for wrestling with God and that, oftentimes, wrestling in fear turns into clinging for a blessing.

I will say this: to wrestle honestly is better than to pose dishonestly. It is also better than walking away. One may wrestle and end up blessed. One may smile and end up damned. Better to wrestle in the night with God than to posture in the day with the church. To wrestle with another one must at least admit that the one with whom one is wrestling exists, is really there. You may call Jacob impertinent but you cannot call him an atheist.

So I say this: if you are wrestling with God, take courage: God does not rebuke Jacob for wrestling. He allows it. In fact, it seems to be necessary for Jacob to become the man God wants him to be. To not shame the honest wrestler. There may be reasons why he or she is engaged in the contest. There may be reasons why God is allowing it. Sometimes, in the darkness of hurt or confession or hurt, we wrestle with God. But remember: the one who wrestles in darkness often ends up clinging in desperate faith and is better for the pain-full journey.

Jacob is wounded in his striving but blessed in his clinging.

But there is a price to pay for wrestling with God. Notice that when Jacob strives with God he is wounded but when Jacob clings to God he is blessed.

²⁵ When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

²⁶ Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”…^29e  And there he blessed him.

God may allow us to wrestle, but He will never allow us to diminish Him. In other words, there is always a limit. God remains God. Man remains man. But God will eventually touch our hip, throwing it out of socket, to remind us that we are not God, no matter how He may allow us the contest. God does this to Jacob. “He touched his hip.” Robert Alter points out that “the verb naga in the qal conjugation always means ‘to touch,’ even ‘to barely touch.’”[4] God “barely touches” Jacob’s hip, and “Jacob’s hip was put out of joint.” Such is the power of God. There was never really any question, though God, in the divine self-limitation of this moment, allowed the wrestling match to happen.

Jacob is wounded in his wrestling. This, too, is grace. When God wounds us that too is because He loves us. But Jacob is blessed when he clings, when he refuses to let go. God gives Jacob a new name: Israel, a name that will have such powerful, historical significance.

These two realities—the wounding and the blessing—both play their part in the formation of Jacob as a man of God. Derek Kidner sees the two as connected.

The crippling and the naming show that God’s ends were still the same: He would have all of Jacob’s will to win, to attain and obtain, yet purged of self-sufficiency and redirected to the proper object of man’s love, God himself.[5]

There is something else in this, something deeper, something that we dare not miss. This dynamic of wounding and blessing is also a pointer to the cross and resurrection of Jesus. This dynamic finds its fulfillment in the wounding and blessing of Jesus. Jesus is wounded on the cross, wounded to death. Jesus is blessed in the resurrection.

Jesus, of course, never wrestled with God. The Son and the Father are ever one. But on the cross, when Christ became our sin there was a foreign element introduced into the relationship, an element that brings strife: sin. Christ, who never sinned, became our sin (2 Corinthians 5:21) on the cross. In so doing, “He was wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5). Then, three days after His death, He rose again, receiving the blessing of the Father.

Jacob got his limp, Jesus his scars. We may learn from the former but we are only saved by the latter.

 

[1] B.H. Carroll, Genesis. An Interpretation of the English Bible. (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1942), p.342.

[2] Gerhard Von Rad, Genesis. Revised Edition. The Old Testament Library. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1972), p.321.

[3] R.R. Reno, Genesis. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2010), p.246-247.

[4] Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses. The Hebrew Bible. vol. 1 (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2019), p.121n26.

[5] Derek Kidner, Genesis. Tyndale Old Testament Commentary. Vol.1 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), p.180.