The Other Brother

After twenty long years away, he's almost home. We've been following Jacob from his inglorious start as a very smooth operator to his functional exile in Paddan-aram, where he gained wives, kids, and flocks while matching wits with his uncle and father-in-law Laban; now he's closed the Laban chapter of his life with a covenant. So Jacob's mind has little choice but to turn once more, the text says, “to Esau his brother, in the land of Seir, in the field of Edom” (Genesis 32:3). That choice of words suggests Jacob's coping with a lot of memories of their upbringing and the rift between them. Remember that Esau was born hairy, which sounds like 'Seir,' and red, which sounds like 'Edom' (Genesis 25:25); that Esau was “a man of the field” (Genesis 25:27), who “came in from the field” and sold his birthright for Jacob's “red, red” (Genesis 25:29-33), and whose hairness, his 'Seir,' was artificially imitated by Jacob to pilfer his blessing (Genesis 27:23).¹

The guilt of their past tortured relationship is something Jacob's been carrying for years, and it's crippled him in so many ways ever since.² Jacob understands now that he can't move forward with his life while this weighty albatross is hung 'round his neck. “To go forward, he must face his past and the mistakes that he once made.”³ Jacob needs “to settle accounts with Esau and to make amends for his conniving past.”⁴ Therefore, inspired by his encounter with God's messengers at Mahanaim, Jacob sent his own “messengers before his face to Esau” (Genesis 32:1-3). He carefully crafts his message, having his messengers refer to Esau as Jacob's 'lord' and to Jacob as Esau's 'servant,' his vassal, his shamed social inferior (Genesis 32:4). Jacob diplomatically glosses over the real reason for his twenty-year absence. In mentioning his present prosperity by way of reassurance, he avoids mentioning his family and describes his wealth in terms of collective singulars – ox, donkey, sheep, servant – while omitting camels, the luxury item, so as not to boast over Esau.⁵

Finally, Jacob stresses that the point of his messengers' visit is to probe the prospects of a renewed relationship between them, “in order that I may find grace in your eyes” (Genesis 32:5). “With great diplomacy, he sought to greet his brother in a peaceful manner.”⁶ His goal here was “to invite Esau with humility and to prevail on him with kindnesses.”⁷ Hence his messengers “conveyed to Esau the gentlest of words,”⁸ words intimating his contrition for what he'd done.⁹ This is a message “consciously shaped by Jacob to undo his previous attitude toward his brother.”¹⁰ Jacob is bent on making things right somehow. But that's a sensitive task, since the last time he was around, Esau's sole consolation for his outrage was meditating on killing Jacob (Genesis 27:41-42)!

Jacob's messengers eventually return with an ominous observation: that Esau is marching north to meet Jacob, but is bringing a very oversized welcoming party of four hundred men (Genesis 32:6), a group bigger than the fighting force Grandpa Abraham led against four whole armies (Genesis 14:14-15). This doesn't bode too well. If Jacob recalls how Cain spilled his brother Abel's red blood “in the field” (Genesis 4:8), it looks like Esau the Red from “the field of Edom” might still be entertaining similar designs of fratricide.¹¹ It's little wonder Jacob is “greatly afraid and distressed” (Genesis 32:7), being “afraid of his brother's aggression,”¹² and takes the safety precaution (sensible in those days) of dividing a caravan into smaller groups in times of danger.¹³ St. Augustine quipped that, “although we believe in God, we should still do the things that must be done by human beings for safety's sake, lest, by omitting them, we appear to tempt God.”¹⁴ Faith's no excuse to be reckless.

But then he crowns his preparations with a beautiful prayer, one we've already explored pretty deeply (Genesis 32:9-12). He begs for divine deliverance “from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau” (Genesis 32:11) – for, “seeing himself caught in a trap, he had recourse to the invincible Lord.”¹⁵ And where his message to Esau cast Jacob as Esau's servant, here in prayer he acknowledges Esau as his brother and casts himself as the Lord God's servant (Genesis 32:10). He'll be his brother's good servant, and God's first.

After praying, Jacob “took from what came to his hand a gift for his brother Esau” (Genesis 32:13). All in all, that gift entails a selection of almost six hundred animals, which highlights the incredible prosperity Jacob must have had.¹⁶ Jacob sends male and female goats at a 1:10 ratio, and the same for sheep, plus cattle at a 1:4 ratio and donkeys at a 1:2 ratio – nice breeding stock, all of them – and in the center of the list stand thirty camels (remember how Abraham's servant so impressed Rebekah with just ten [Genesis 24:10]), plus the calves for whom they're producing milk (Genesis 32:14-15). Camel milk is so nutrient-rich that ancient nomads would sometimes live on nothing but camel milk for up to a month on a journey; with these gifts, and knowing nothing of Esau's financial situation, Jacob can assure his brother will never go hungry.

Jacob carefully arranges these animals and gives them “into the hand of his servants, each drove by itself,” and instructs them to go ahead of his face, with substantial difference between each set, so that they reach Esau in waves (Genesis 32:16-20), “in order to appear more numerous by arriving continuously,”¹⁷ thus calculated for “the greatest psychological impact... through its incremental effect.”¹⁸ With each servant telling Esau that Jacob is behind them, and then repeatedly deferring Jacob's appearance with another gift, Jacob can heighten Esau's anticipation to a fever pitch.¹⁹ The word Jacob uses can mean either a gift to a friend or tribute paid to an overlord, and Jacob's intentional ambiguity leaves room for Esau to “interpret it as he wishes.”²⁰ Jacob here is “humbly petitioning by means of peaceful gifts” to assuage Esau's anticipated anger.²¹ It was an “offering of good will so that [Esau] would not remember the offense that [Jacob] committed against him” before,²² and “it was hoped that Esau would be induced by the presents to relax his wrath, were he still indignant.”²³

Jacob's explanation of his hope is dense and rich: “I will cover his face with the offering that goes before my face, and afterward I shall see his face; perhaps he will lift my face” (Genesis 32:20). That's a lot of faces, and it points us back to the Cain-and-Abel story, since their division arose over God's reception of the brothers' offerings (Genesis 4:4-5), causing Cain's face to fall in gloom and the LORD to hint that doing good to his brother would be a cause for his face to instead be lifted up again (Genesis 4:6). Jacob is learning and hoping that, if Abel's gift incited Cain's anger, maybe Jacob's gift can diffuse Esau's.²⁴ Thus he can wipe the anger from Esau's face and, in doing him good, have his own face lifted – by Esau – to meet Esau's face face-to-face.²⁵

At the same time, “Jacob's language resembles religious sacrifice.”²⁶ When Jacob says 'cover,' that's the Bible's word usually translated as 'atonement.' Scarcely has the Book of Leviticus opened before we read how a sacrificial offering should be brought “to the face of the LORD” and “it will be accepted for him to cover,” or atone, “for” the sinner (Leviticus 1:3-4). In particular, after somebody trespasses against a neighbor, the Law directed not only that he make reparations to the offended neighbor, but also that he bring an offering, and “the priest shall make atonement for him to the face of the LORD, and he shall be forgiven” (Leviticus 6:7). Jacob's stated strategy here “resembles a supplicant's approach to an angry god.”²⁷ Jacob is propitiating Esau's wrathful face with an offering of atonement, in hopes of being accepted back into Esau's good graces.

So Jacob sent off his offering from before his face, hundreds of animals in staggered waves, while Jacob stayed behind that night in his camp (Genesis 32:21). Little did he realize that, after he separated himself alone in the dark, it would be the night of his surprise encounter with a mysterious wrestler, assailing him at Peniel by the banks of the Jabbok – a wrestler who, by the approach of dawn, would hint that Jacob has been struggling with none other than God (Genesis 32:22-32). We've already explored the profundity of that moment. Beneath the risen sun, as Jacob waits for Esau, he has assurance of deliverance even though he's weakened and humbled.

This wounded Jacob “lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming – and with him, four hundred men” (Genesis 33:1), just as his messengers had reported. Esau and his retainers were marching north from the southern horizon, appearing as stunningly as when Abraham once “lifted up his eyes, and saw, and behold,” three heavenly guests loomed nearby (Genesis 18:2).²⁸ Jacob readied himself by reorganizing his family: Bilhah and Zilpah in the first row, with their sons Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher; and behind them, a second row of Leah with her six sons Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun, plus her daughter Dinah; and behind them, to “close the group from the rear,” Rachel with her sole son Joseph (Genesis 33:2).²⁹

What's most important at the moment, though, is that, up until now, Jacob has continually put others in front of his face, like a buffer; his servants were ordered to pass before his face, with the animals before their faces, and to emphasize that Jacob was “behind us” (Genesis 32:15-19). But now, with his family arranged in ranks from first to last, Jacob himself “passed over before their faces” (Genesis 33:3), assuming his position as the leader and positioning himself between his family and Esau's army.

Then, Jacob started moving south, away from his family and toward Esau; where once he impersonated Esau to “draw near” to their father Isaac in the dark (Genesis 27:22), now he draws near to Esau his brother in the open light of day. As he did so, Jacob “bowed himself to the earth seven times, until he came near to his brother” (Genesis 33:3). This is a full-body prostration, putting Jacob's face in the dust – which, given his limp, would have been “physically taxing” and been a pretty pitiful sight for Esau to see.³⁰ This custom of seven bows was described in letters from Canaanite kings to their Egyptian overlords, where the Canaanite would cast himself as Pharaoh's “servant” and declare: “At the feet of my lord the king, seven times and seven times have I fallen.”³¹ This is the most submissive gesture possible in their culture.³² “Jacob lowers himself and glorifies Esau.”³³

Which is shocking, because it's so unlike what Isaac predicted. Remember the blessing he was hoodwinked into giving Jacob: “Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you” (Genesis 27:29). As Isaac confirmed to Esau later, “Behold, I have made him lord over you,” and “you shall serve your brother” (Genesis 27:37, 40). But here's Jacob bowing down to Esau and addressing him as 'my lord.' It's an intentional choice to contradict the stolen blessing that had so outraged Esau in the first place.³⁴

And now we can appreciate why Jacob first organized his family into ranks and kept them close by instead of shipping them away to anonymous safety. Presenting your family was a common part of surrender practices in the ancient world.³⁵ It communicated that Jacob “was entrusting himself into [Esau's] hands with all that he treasured most.”³⁶ More than that, given the circumstances here, Jacob “was submissive in a manner befitting a saint,” as one sainted bishop marveled long ago.³⁷ Jacob is becoming Israel precisely by submitting to be “the least of all,” “last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35), especially a servant of his brethren.³⁸

So now comes the dramatic and decisive moment. Jacob has surrendered, placing himself at Esau's mercy. At this point, “Esau ran to meet him” (Genesis 33:4). That could be menacing; after all, “David ran... to meet” Goliath (1 Samuel 17:48), and that didn't exactly spark a beautiful friendship! So perhaps “Esau charges Jacob, as if to attack.”³⁹ Then, we read, “he clasped him,” grabbed hold of Jacob (Genesis 33:4). We're not sure that if that's a good sign, because it rhymes so closely with the word lately used for the mystery man 'grappling' with Jacob aggressively throughout the night (Genesis 32:25).⁴⁰ Third, we read, Esau “fell upon his neck” (Genesis 33:4). But we're still unsure if that's threatening or not, since Joshua and his soldiers “fell upon” the Canaanite kings quite sharply – and the Canaanites did not enjoy that (Joshua 11:7).

Things only become fully clear once we reach the fourth verb: “and he kissed him” (Genesis 33:4). Yes, Esau ran to Jacob – not to confront him, but to be with him. Yes, Esau clasped Jacob – in an embrace, a big bear hug. Yes, Esau leaned on Jacob's smooth neck, but in a spirit of fraternal closeness. And, reversing Jacob's kiss to his father in deceit (Genesis 27:27), Esau's kiss is a sign of welcome. To Jacob's “formal greeting of submission,” Esau here returns “the warm and forgiving greeting of a brother.”⁴¹ And so “the humility of Jacob conquered the fury of Esau his brother,”⁴² “succeeded in appeasing his brother's anger,” if any anger had been left remaining that morning in the first place.⁴³ But “on that day, Esau his brother came to him and was reconciled to him.”⁴⁴ “And they wept” (Genesis 33:4). It's so shocking to some scholars that they assume it's got to be a typo.⁴⁵ But there it is anyway: they wept, Esau and Jacob, together, in regret and relief. This quick-paced sequence of Esau's five verbs – ran, embraced, fell, kissed, wept – answers the last time Esau got five verbs back-to-back, when he ate, drank, rose, went, and despised his birthright (Genesis 25:34).⁴⁶

As this teary reunion works itself out, now Esau “lifted up his eyes and saw the women and children” in their ranks behind Jacob, and asked, “Who are these with you?” (Genesis 33:5). Jacob's reply is eloquent, short, and sweet: “The children with whom God has graced your servant” (Genesis 33:6). With just six Hebrew words, Jacob manages to praise God, celebrate grace, reiterate his sincere humility before Esau, and mention his kids without highlighting his wives, wives having been “a touchy subject for Esau and his parents.”⁴⁷ Then, as part of the surrender ceremony, each group – first Bilhah and Zilpah with their four children, then Leah with her seven, and lastly Rachel with her one – came forward to bow to Esau (Genesis 33:6-7).

That settles what's behind Jacob, but what about what came ahead of him? “Who to you,” asks Esau, “is all this camp that I met,” the many servants with their droves of livestock. Jacob's reply repeats words from his earlier message: “to find grace in the eyes of my lord” (Genesis 33:8). Remember that the Hebrew word for 'grace' is buried inside the word 'camp' and backwards in the word 'gift'; so, having been graced with abundance, Jacob presents this camp as a gift to secure Esau's grace,⁴⁸ since, alongside bowing and presenting the women and children, the rendering of tribute was the third major component of a ceremonial surrender.⁴⁹

But this is more than that, too. “Acknowledging God's grace in his good fortune, he does not hesitate to share it,”⁵⁰ in fact “holding it the greatest of blessings to share with his brother what God had given him.”⁵¹ Jacob has at last come to understand and appreciate that “peace is greater than material wealth, and the attainment of brotherly love ought to come before temporal blessings.”⁵² Jacob's priorities have been reordered. Now what matters is “finding Esau's favor” and “restoring the relationship.”⁵³

Now, in the Middle East, it's long been bad form to accept a gift right off the bat.⁵⁴ So naturally, Esau initially declines the gift. “I have much, my brother,” he says, “keep what you have for yourself” (Genesis 33:9). Note first that, for all Jacob's 'my lord' this and 'your servant' that, Esau addresses him as 'my brother.'⁵⁵ Next, recall that the blessing Isaac had left for Esau wasn't very impressive, suggesting he'd live without natural resources and have to survive by his sword (Genesis 27:39-40); but despite that, “Esau became very rich and began to rule over a vast property,”⁵⁶ being already in the process of establishing his own nation.⁵⁷ Esau has an abundance, the very thing Isaac accidentally promised to Jacob rather than Esau (Genesis 27:28).⁵⁸ And this is all without the now-irrelevant inheritance of Isaac's riches.⁵⁹ Hence, Esau insists Jacob “keep what you have for yourself” (Genesis 33:9), “tacitly conceding any residual claim to the birthright.”⁶⁰

But Jacob isn't about to take Esau's no at face value. “No, please, if I have found grace in your eyes, then take my offering from my hand,” Jacob insists (Genesis 33:10). Just moments ago, Jacob said that this gift was so that he could achieve Esau's grace (Genesis 33:8); now, he says, if Jacob is in Esau's grace, then Esau should receive the gift as an offering. But his reason is what's interesting: “For on this basis have I seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you were satisfied with me” (Genesis 33:10). Esau, not knowing about last night's ordeal at Peniel, couldn't have known the fullness of what Jacob meant; but to Jacob, it's “almost as if” the nocturnal divine visitation and his present happy reunion with Esau “blend into each other.”⁶¹

This is the first time Jacob and Esau have really been face-to-face, have really seen each other. Jacob at last isn't seeing Esau as a mark to be swindled or a subject to be studied, but as a full person, a man who's so much more than he always assumed. Having freshly wrestled with the mystery of God at Peniel, Jacob can marvel to discover now the majestic “mystery that is Esau,” a bearer of God's image, capable not only of judgment but also of grace and forgiveness beyond Jacob's wildest imagination.⁶² Both these face-to-face encounters, initially full of fear and dread, were then unveiled as occasions of welcome, of grace, and of life.⁶³ Having hoped to atone for his trespasses, Jacob can see that Esau has already received him with satisfaction – the end-goal of any atoning sacrifice (Leviticus 1:4).⁶⁴ With wrath wiped away, Jacob realizes that “Esau's face reflects the face of God,”⁶⁵ and learns that “embracing Esau as his brother is the decisive step in embracing the way of the Lord.”⁶⁶

But Jacob isn't finished there. He still insists. Only now he doesn't call it a gift or an offering. “Take, please, my blessing that is brought to you” (Genesis 33:11). The subtext has reached the surface: this big gift, this camp, is intended as, “in a way, a reparation for the purloining of the paternal blessing.”⁶⁷ Back then, Isaac lamented to Esau that Jacob “took your blessing” (Genesis 27:35); now Jacob insists that Esau return the favor and take Jacob's blessing that's been brought and offered.⁶⁸ He thus “symbolically returns Esau's blessing” once stolen.⁶⁹ Of course, he can't literally return the blessing – “Jacob cannot renounce the future that God has assigned him,”⁷⁰ “for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29) – but this symbolic act is meant as “Jacob's best attempt at restoring what he took.”⁷¹ This is “an act of significant sacrifice... akin to reparations..., a willingness to give up the power he has taken from Esau.”⁷² Jacob “led the way when it came to making amends, and showed generosity in paying out compensation.”⁷³

Jacob then explains why he feels confident in doing so: “because God has graced me, and because I have all” (Genesis 33:11). Esau, in telling Jacob to keep what was his, did so because Esau had “much,” certainly enough to satisfy him (Genesis 33:9); but Jacob says he can freely give to the one who already has much, because God's grace has given him more than 'much,' has given him everything that really matters. That may come across as somewhat audacious, almost as if rubbing Esau's nose in it;⁷⁴ but because he ascribes it, not to their father's blessing or to his own craft and skill but to the grace of God, it's the boldness of true humility.

So “Jacob pressed him, and he took” (Genesis 33:11), much as Lot had pecked away at God's incognito angels until they accepted his hospitality (Genesis 19:3). If Jacob refused to let last night's wrestler go without giving him a blessing (Genesis 32:26), Jacob now refuses to let Esau go without taking from him a blessing.⁷⁵ Esau does just that, and “accepts it as reparation for his brother's wrongs.”⁷⁶ With this transfer, “Esau would forgive his brother the injury he thought he had received.”⁷⁷ Reconciliation has been accomplished and sealed. “Jacob repents, repairs, and repays,” and so “he achieves closure,”⁷⁸ as “Esau has forgiven his brother.”⁷⁹ But is that just Jacob's doing? Or is it that “God placated his heart” and “allayed his anger” before the day even came?⁸⁰

What comes next is a very weird negotiation. Since Jacob surrendered to Esau as to an overlord, Esau seems to assume that Jacob will join his retinue and maybe even settle with him in Seir;⁸¹ but while Jacob is glad to be reconciled to his brother, Jacob also understands “the way of Israel needs separation from the way of Edom.”⁸² Jacob excuses himself several times, making “a tactful request to disengage,” since to refuse directly would risk “insulting Esau” and undoing the hard-won peace between them.⁸³ In the end, Esau returns to settle in Seir permanently, ceding Canaan to Jacob, because, like Abram and Lot, “their possessions were too great for them to dwell together” (Genesis 36:6-7; cf. 13:6).⁸⁴ This was God's will, who “gave Esau the hill country of Seir to possess” (Joshua 24:4). The brothers have separated in peace, but we've yet to find a way for brothers to dwell together in unity (Psalm 133:1) – that will take more of Genesis to accomplish.⁸⁵

To ancient Jewish readers, this story wasn't satisfying, because they knew Edom later “pursued his brother with the sword... and he kept his wrath forever” (Amos 1:11). They also didn't like the picture of Jacob humbling himself before Esau. So they made up a sequel that isn't in the Bible. Once Isaac had died, Esau's sons schemed to “uproot [Jacob] from the land before he seizes power.”⁸⁶ They goaded Esau into “remember[ing] all of the evil which was hidden in his heart against Jacob his brother.”⁸⁷ They came against Jacob's family with “a force powerful and strong.”⁸⁸ Esau disowned Jacob as his brother, saying the two of them could no more live at peace than “wolves [could] make peace with lambs.”⁸⁹ Forced by necessity, Jacob shot Esau in the chest, killing him,⁹⁰ while Jacob's sons invaded Seir and “besieged the children of Esau” until they “bowed down their necks to become servants of the children of Jacob” and “pay tribute to Jacob and his sons always.”⁹¹ Thus these retellers 'fixed' the story so it would line up more clearly with the starkness of Isaac's original blessing.

But such a 'fix' drains the beauty and truth out of what the Bible actually contains. Even in later times, when the old bitterness of Esau seemed to be reviving in his descendants, what did Moses teach Israel? “Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite.” Why not, Moses? “Because he's your brother!” (Deuteronomy 23:7). The reconciliation sought and bought by Jacob's humility ought to still live in Israel's heart down through the ages. It paints too beautiful a picture not to be kept. That's why Jesus retold this story in a new and even better way.

Did you know that? There's a very strong chance that Jacob and Esau served as an inspiration for what we call the Parable of the Prodigal Son.⁹² Genesis and Jesus both tell a tale of a younger brother running off to a far country and returning weighed down with shame and fear, laying plans to assuage the expected anger of the family and community they've betrayed (Luke 15:18-19).⁹³ Esau runs, embraces, and kisses his lost brother; in Jesus' story, while the older brother stews at home, it's the father who, in compassion and grace, “ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).⁹⁴ Before the lost son can even get past his contrition to his prepared speech of submission, though, the father interrupts him; and rather than the prodigal son giving gifts of reparation, his return is all the gift his father seeks, showering him instead with festivity and grace.⁹⁵ In his new version, Jesus makes the father's goal to bring peace between the son who was far off and the son who stayed near, to reconcile the two brothers so that they, unlike Jacob and Esau, can really dwell together again.⁹⁶ But the reunion of Jacob and Esau would remain, in Jesus' retelling, “the paradigm of impossible grace” made real.⁹⁷

For “in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). Indeed, “you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind” as Esau had been toward Jacob, “doing evil deeds, [Christ] has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if undeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard” (Colossians 1:21-23).

Part of continuing in the faith, as St. Paul said, St. John will explain: “Whoever loves God must also love his brother..., for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20-21). In seeing his brother's face, Jacob rediscovered what it meant to love and be loved as a brother, and he knew the connection between his brother's face and seeing the unseen and unseeable face of God. It's not for nothing that Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, told people that “if you're offering your gift at the altar, and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). A pure sacrifice is meant to upbuild and express a heart of love for God, but a loveless lack of reconciliation with the brothers against whom we've trespassed is an impediment against such right worship. The face of our brother and the face of God can't be severed. That's why St. Paul insisted that “if possible, insofar as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18), to “always strive to get through situations without being contentious.”⁹⁸

So what might it take to live peaceably? Ask Jacob. It's been said that “only in giving up his rights does Jacob fully become the family leader.”⁹⁹ In this, he foreshadows the One who, refusing to exploit his divine rights, instead “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7), teaching that “the greatest among you shall be your servant,” and “whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:11-12). Seeking reconciliation and living peaceably calls for “speaking appropriate words.”¹⁰⁰ It's written that, just as “a harsh word stirs up anger,” so “a soft answer turns away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1). It calls for an attitude of gentleness and humility, “the great power of meekness.”¹⁰¹ And that's easier when we can see the image of God in our brother's or sister's face. It also calls for acts of appropriate surrender, for “sacrifices are required to find a way past wrongdoings.”¹⁰² One of history's greatest preachers counseled his congregation this way, in the wake of telling them of Jacob and Esau: “When some people are disposed to be hostile to us, let us, instead of adding fuel to their anger, quell their aggression by our great meekness and humility in both word and action, and thus bring healing to their brokenness.... This truly is a mark of the greatest virtue...: winning over by much kindness those bent on offering us abuse.”¹⁰³ So far as we can, repairing our trespasses and atoning the anger from the faces of others is what it means to hold our own heads high this side of Peniel.

In past weeks, we've heard how Jacob, the younger brother receiving the birthright forsaken by the elder, was very quickly taken as a symbol for the early Christians in their relationship with their Jewish neighbors. That was a challenging image to digest, maybe; but now we've seen Jacob's humility before his elder brother. St. Paul designed his ministry to “somehow make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them; for if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?” (Romans 11:14-15). Early Christians took this as a sign that, in the last days, “our Lord Jesus Christ will be reconciled with Israel,” such that “after the calling of the Gentiles, Israel will be converted..., will be received into the love of Christ through faith...,” and then “will marvel at these riches in Christ.”¹⁰⁴ The estranged brothers will be reconciled at last after “the pattern of Jacob and Esau,” with the Church finally learning from its Head how to best serve a brother in love.¹⁰⁵ They learned this from St. Paul himself, who prophesied that once “the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,” then the “partial hardening” will be lifted from Israel, “and in this way, all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:25-26). Then “grace will be close at hand,” and “Christ the Savior of us all will come down from heaven with the holy angels.”¹⁰⁶ Lord, hasten the day of such grace! Amen.

Wrestling in the Night

We're at last coming to the climax, maybe, of the story of Jacob, the third and last of the three great patriarchs in Genesis. We've heard already how his grandfather Abraham had been called out from Mesopotamia to Canaan, given incredible promises like a magnified name, abundant offspring and land, a destiny as a nation, a mission to bless all families of the earth. Through the forge of decades of testing, reaching its fever pitch on the mount of sacrifice, Abraham's faith was transformed into an absolute devotion to God and an unshakeable conviction of his goodness and faithfulness. We've heard, too, about Jacob's father Isaac, Abraham's son of promise and heir of the covenant, whom Abraham was willing to offer back to the Lord in love. Traumatized and passive, Isaac nevertheless learned of God's great faithfulness; God ordained his marriage to his cousin Rebekah and forged him into a worthy patriarch himself, one committed to entrenching Abraham's mission in the land.

And now there's Jacob, conceived as one of two twins, the subject of a perplexing prenatal prophecy. Born second with a vice grip on his fuzzy brother Esau's ankle, Jacob was a clever mama's boy whose schemes first extorted his brother's birthright and then, by identity theft, secured the blessing Isaac meant for Esau. We've heard how Jacob was then shuttled away from the land, a penniless exile, who dreamt of angels and the promises of God on his way to seek refuge at the house of his uncle Laban in the place whence God had plucked Abraham so long before. His warm welcome there soon proved a crucible of flame, as his deceptive schemes were reflected back at him, hitching him to his two cousins Leah and Rachel and compelling him to slave away in a foreign land for twenty years until God bade him head home. Last Sunday, we watched Jacob's exodus and Laban's pursuit, leading to a showdown of words rather than warriors. Jacob testified that it was the goodness of a faithful God that shielded him from Laban's tyrannical avarice and brought him forth to freedom.

From the hilly heights of Gilead where they'd squared off southeast of the Sea of Galilee, Laban “went and returned to his own place” (Genesis 31:55), while “Jacob walked on his way,” moving further southward on the far side of the River Jordan (Genesis 32:1). Two decades ago at Bethel, Jacob had vowed a vow, one of the conditions of which was that God would “guard me in this way that I am walking” (Genesis 28:20).¹ Now, as if to remind him of the fulfillment of that condition, “the messengers of God encountered him” at a particular spot in Gilead (Genesis 32:1). This is the first time 'messengers of God' (or 'angels of God' – 'angel' is just the Greek word for 'messenger') have been mentioned as a group since Jacob “encountered” the site of Bethel and dreamed his dream of “messengers of God” there (Genesis 28:11-12).² But this time, Jacob's not dreaming. This is the waking world. These are angels of God out in the open. They encounter Jacob not by chance but on purpose. And it isn't one or two, but a significant group; when Jacob sees them all, he exclaims, “This is the camp of God!” – just as, waking up twenty years ago, he realized that “this is the house of God”; and so, as he named that place Bethel, so he now names this place Mahanaim, 'Two Camps' (Genesis 28:17-19; 32:2).³

The question is what the encounter means. This language, 'to meet,' 'to encounter,' is ambiguous; sometimes it has confrontational overtones. So some see the angels 'encountering' Jacob at Mahanaim as “a threatening encounter,”⁴ or at best ambiguously tense for the sake of suspense.⁵ On the other hand, perhaps these angels were “visions which inspired him with good hopes for the future,”⁶ an encouraging encounter intended by God to “drive out all his apprehension” and reassure him that the host of heaven had his back.⁷ It's hard to say.

All this time, Jacob's thoughts have undoubtedly been preoccupied with what it means to return to Canaan. The reason he left was to escape his twin brother, a man who, last time he was mentioned in Genesis, was consumed with a burning, mounting bloodthirst to slay Jacob (Genesis 27:41). Rebekah, their mother, had promised to let Jacob know when Esau had moved past this passion (Genesis 27:45). But that summons never arrived, so Jacob is no doubt wrestling “long-suppressed memories from his ignoble past.”⁸ Inspired by God's messengers having met Jacob, Jacob adopts the idea and mimics it, sending his own messengers “from his face, toward Esau his brother in the land of Seir, the field of Edom” (Genesis 32:3).⁹

The message Jacob dictates for them to carry, in finely formal language, explains Jacob's absence and return as merely a family visit with Uncle Laban, assures Esau that Jacob has no reason to come make demands on the inheritance, and stresses his desire simply to “find grace in your eyes” (Genesis 32:4-5).¹⁰ But when Jacob's messengers return and report that Esau is already marching northward from Seir with a personal militia in order to intercept Jacob, Jacob melts in sheer panic. “He feared greatly and was distressed,” expecting the worst (Genesis 32:6). Appreciating the duality he invoked when he named Mahanaim ('Two Camps'), he decides to take a precautionary measure: dividing his own group into two separate camps, each containing some of his spouses, children, servants, sheep, goats, donkeys, and camels; that way, if push comes to shove, one camp can get away while the other one is being sacrificed at Esau's sword (Genesis 32:7-8). The irony is that, while Jacob is seeking 'grace' in Esau's eyes, the word 'camp' contains the word for 'grace.'¹¹

Jacob alternates pragmatism and piety – that's sort of his thing – so, after implementing his practical precaution, he prays the longest prayer in the Book of Genesis. First, an invocation: Jacob cries out to God, invoking the way God had introduced himself at Bethel as “the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac” (Genesis 28:13); now Jacob calls on the “God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the LORD” (Genesis 32:9). Jacob further paraphrases the LORD's more recent command to “return to the land of your fathers and to your nativity, and I will be with you” (Genesis 31:3) as a command to “return to your land and to your nativity, and I will do good with you” (Genesis 32:9).¹²

Second, a confession: Jacob praises God for “all of the kindnesses and all of the faithfulness which you have done your servant.” Specifically, Jacob highlights how God has prospered him to have “become two camps” – both camps are equal extensions of Jacob's own self – even though, when he'd “passed over this Jordan” twenty years earlier, it was merely “with my staff,” or “with my stick” (Genesis 32:10). Clever Jacob is subtly pointing back, not only to his poverty as an exile, but to how God prospered him through the use of “sticks” to plead for miracles in breeding his flocks and herds and gaining the upper hand over Laban (Genesis 30:37-39).¹³ In praising God for such kindnesses and for this faithfulness, Jacob, who spent decades slaving away in service to Laban, now positions himself as God's servant.¹⁴ He also humbly declares his unworthiness. But the word he uses is more literally 'littleness,' and connects with the description of Jacob as having been his mother's “younger son,” or literally, “smaller son” or “lesser son” (Genesis 27:42).¹⁵ Jacob is embracing that status.

Third, a supplication: Jacob names aloud his fear of Esau, “lest he may come and attack me, the mother with the sons” (Genesis 32:11), a rare phrase found later in the Law forbidding somebody from taking both a mama bird and her chicks (Deuteronomy 22:6-7). Jacob is concerned about the prospect, not simply of his own harm, but of family annihilation, an act of “unparalleled brutality” of which he thinks Esau might well be capable if he has continued degenerating morally throughout these twenty years.¹⁶ So, he pleads, “deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau” (Genesis 32:11) – from the very hand he once had dressed up his own hands as (Genesis 27:22-23). Jacob already testified how God “delivered” the livestock of Laban and gave them to him (Genesis 31:9), so surely God can deliver him from Esau's hand and give him to himself.¹⁷

Fourthly and finally, a recollection: Jacob closes out his prayer by citing back to God his previous promises as a basis for Jacob's present hope. The exact words Jacob puts in God's mouth are a pastiche, drawing on the angel's promise to Hagar of descendants “which cannot be numbered for multitude” (Genesis 16:10), the angel's promise to Abraham of seed “like the sand of the sea” (Genesis 22:17), and Jacob's own desperate but hopeful understanding that God means to “absolutely do good” to him (Genesis 32:12). Though not quoting verbatim anything God said to him personally, Jacob nonetheless faithfully sums up God's outlined plan.¹⁸ Jacob stresses that, if Esau were to target Jacob's children, then God's promises of uncountable descendants would be placed in jeopardy unless God were to intervene somehow, thus answering Jacob's prayer.¹⁹

Jacob's prayer is carefully constructed and rhetorically powerful. But the most important thing is that Jacob – yes, the infamously self-reliant Jacob – is actually praying. For the first time that we read, Jacob asks God for salvation.²⁰ Jacob steps out in faith. But Jacob also works. After that evening prayer, the next day Jacob sets in motion his next stratagem. Having just begged God to deliver him “from the hand of [his] brother... Esau” (Genesis 32:12), Jacob now “took from what came to his hand an offering for his brother Esau,” which he then “gave to the hand of his servants” (Genesis 32:13-15). Jacob gave these servants careful commands to “pass over” in front of his face, to separate the herds, and to have certain answers at the ready “when Esau my brother encounters you” as the messengers of God had 'encountered' Jacob (Genesis 32:15-19). Each set of Jacob's servants would inform Esau that Jacob is “behind us,” though each time the expectation of Jacob would be deferred by another drove of livestock. The author even clues us in to what Jacob is telling himself about his hopes: “I will cover his face with the offering that goes before my face, and afterward I shall see his face; perhaps he will lift my face” (Genesis 32:20). That's a lot of faces! We'll retread that ground in a couple weeks.

And so Jacob's present, his 'offering' to Esau, “passed over before his face, and he himself stayed that night in the camp” (Genesis 32:21). The Hebrew words for 'offering' and 'camp' are anagrams – they have all the same letters, but the middle two are switched around.²¹ The offering and camp are now separated. But in the middle of the night, Jacob gets up – for reasons that aren't clear – and he takes his family and flocks (presumably two camps' worth of them), and “he passed over the pass of the Jabbok, and he took them and made them pass over the river, and he made what he had pass over” (Genesis 32:22-23). The Jabbok – today called the Zarqa River – is a bendy stream between the hills that ultimately flows west to feed into the Jordan. And it just so happens that the name 'Jabbok' is the name 'Jacob,' just minus one letter and with the last two swapped. Suspicious...

So picture Jacob “standing in the deep-cut river's ice-cold waters in the darkness of night,” facing “the steep path leading upward” on the other side.²² As he had his servants separate the droves he sent towards Esau, now Jacob separates himself from his family and from his flocks to be a flock-of-one.²³ He puts the others on one side of the stream, and leaves himself on the other side; and all in the dead of night, when crossing a stream is a risky proposition. If Jacob moved them back to the north side and stayed on the south, then Jacob is backing his family toward safety and stepping out further in Esau's direction.²⁴ But if Jacob moved his family to the south side and stayed himself on the north, then Jacob might be using his family as a buffer so he can abandon them and bolt if things get rough.²⁵ Thankfully, most scholars think Jacob stayed on the south side.²⁶ Either way, for reasons of his own, Jacob isolates himself from everything God has given him. He “cast off all that was his,” as if to “forsake worldly things.”²⁷ He's outside the camp, alone in the dark, as on that lonesome night at Bethel.

Suddenly, much like at Bethel, Jacob realizes he isn't alone. On his side of the Jabbok, there's somebody there in the darkness with him. “A man,” we're told. And that man, sneaking up silently in the dark, is on the attack, “assaulting Jacob at night” like a ninja.²⁸ If I were in Jacob's sandals, I'd assume it was Esau or his messenger. We read that this mysterious “man grappled with him,” with Jacob (Genesis 32:24). This story is the only time this verb ever shows up in the Bible, and it's just one letter away from the names 'Jacob' and 'Jabbok' – more and more curious!²⁹ Literally, it means to make dusty – as in, these two are rolling around in the dust by the river.

This becomes an intense wrestling match, “both terrifying and intimate,” and it lasts for hours and hours, “until the ascent of the dawn” (Genesis 32:24).³⁰ There are no weapons involved; this isn't a fight to the death.³¹ This man and Jacob appear almost evenly matched – almost as if by design. But in order to hold his own for hours and hours, Jacob necessarily “summoned all his strength, perseverance, and courage.”³² As dawn gets closer, “he saw that he did not prevail against him” – the author intentionally drops out the names so that, as we read it or hear it, we aren't sure who's who in the dark.³³ But whoever sees he isn't prevailing against his opponent then “touched the palm of his thigh,” hard enough to dislocate it, wrench it out of place (Genesis 32:25). It's a cheap move, literally below the belt, exactly the sort of cheating you'd expect from Jacob. But it turns out that, as his name surfaces through the blackness, he was victim rather than victimizer in this tricky maneuver. Now we know it's the mystery man who couldn't get a clear victory over Jacob, the mystery man who reached out and struck at Jacob's thigh, much as Abraham's steward swore with his hand at Abraham's thigh (Genesis 24:9).³⁴

Amazingly, despite his thigh or hip being wrenched during this grappling session, Jacob doesn't give up. Now the pair are entwined, and the darkness is beginning to lighten to gray as the dawn ascends. So, effectively, they “wrestle to a stalemate.”³⁵ On that basis, one of the two – again we have to wait to figure out which – speaks to the other, breaking through the silence otherwise punctuated only by grunts and groans. “Send me away, for the dawn is ascending” (Genesis 32:26). The opening word here is exactly what Jacob said to Laban six years ago, “Send me away,” “Let me go” (Genesis 30:25). Back then, Laban wouldn't let Jacob go, because keeping him meant continuing to profit from the LORD's blessing (Genesis 30:27); and now, one wrestler says to another, “I will not send you unless you bless me” (Genesis 32:26). He's got a grip on the one who's trying to disengage – a grip as strong as Jacob had on Esau's heel the day of their birth (Genesis 25:26).

In reply to this demand for a blessing as a condition of freedom, “he said to him, 'What is your name?' And he said, 'Jacob'” (Genesis 32:27). Twenty years ago, when asked in the darkness who he was, Jacob had answered very differently: “I am Esau,” he'd lied (Genesis 27:19). Now, at last, he remedies his old lie with a confession of the pure and simple truth: “Jacob.” After Jacob had impersonated Esau then, the real Esau had lamented that the name 'Jacob' fit this younger twin too well – for 'Jacob' sounds like somebody who craftily overtakes, trips up, restrains, replaces, and cheats people (Genesis 27:36).³⁶ In now truthfully declaring his name to be 'Jacob,' Jacob confesses his patterns of conduct – his lies and trickery, his craft and guile, his self-seeking and self-serving, all the ferocity of his ambitions. Before he can be blessed, “Jacob must confess who he is.”³⁷

Now, in the face of this confession, the mysterious wrestled masked by the dark is about to do something Jacob could've never seen coming. “Not Jacob shall be your name any longer!” (Genesis 32:28). A change of name is on the way – like Sarai to Sarah, like Abram to Abraham. This patriarch will be no more “one who trips up” others; he will be someone different, someone more.³⁸ But who, and what? Using the same phrasing Jacob just used, “Except if you bless me” (Genesis 32:26), the man tells him, “Except if,” or rather, “Israel” (Genesis 32:28). That will be his new name, his new identity: Israel.

And now maybe we understand a bit what this grappling and wrestling has all been about. The last time we read about a twenty-year wait that culminated in close entanglement and opposition in the darkness, where was it? It was in utero. Rebekah waited twenty years to conceive a child, and when she did, the twins in her womb behaved as if in close-quarters combat like this (Genesis 25:20-23), with Esau born trying to be let go of Jacob's grasp (Genesis 25:24-26). Now, after a twenty-year gestation in Paddan-aram, Jacob is again grappling in the dark with an opponent – with an ersatz Esau – and is desperate to enter the light.³⁹ This encounter at the Jabbok is “the birth of the person he is to be,”⁴⁰ is “a new spiritual birth... no longer as Jacob but as Israel.”⁴¹

Now the mystery man explains that choice of name: “For you have striven with God and with men, and you have prevailed,” or endured (Genesis 32:28). Later Jews saw a similarity between the word 'Israel' and the kinds of names that archangels had.⁴² 'Israel' is therefore “a great and blessed title,”⁴³ “the name that signifies God's choice” of him.⁴⁴ They took this explanation as “an omen of great blessings to come and an assurance that his race would never be extinguished and that no mortal man would surpass him in strength.”⁴⁵

Now, certainly Jacob knew he had striven with human beings – he grappled Esau in the womb, outmaneuvered him for a birthright, deceived Isaac for a blessing, and ultimately overcame Laban's tyranny. But having striven with gods – with God? When? Now? Here? And how, anyway, does this mystery man assume authority to decree for Jacob a new name, when so far the only times a name has been changed have been by the voice of the LORD when he appears in person on the earth (Genesis 17:5, 15)?

In awe and wonder, Jacob asks a question, he makes a request; he urges this mysterious figure, who wishes to depart before the sunrise, “Tell me, please, your name?” But the mysterious one retorts with a question of his own: “Why do you ask this, about my name?” (Genesis 32:29). This is word-for-word the answer Samson's father Manoah once heard: “Why do you ask this, about my name? And it is wonderful!” (Judges 13:18). The speaker then was none other than the Angel of the LORD, who then ascended in flame.⁴⁶ So the prophet says Jacob “in his strength strove with God, and he was prince over the Angel, and he prevailed” (Hosea 12:3-4).

Taking their cues from Judges and Hosea, ancient Jews understood the opponent as a “phantom,” a “specter,” an “angel of God,”⁴⁷ as “an angel of the Lord,”⁴⁸ maybe one who needed to return to heaven before sunrise so he could lead the morning liturgy of worship as “a chief of those who praise.”⁴⁹ Some specifically identified the assailant as “Uriel the angel of God,”⁵⁰ or as “the angel Sariel... in the appearance of a man,”⁵¹ or even as Esau's own guardian angel.⁵² But as early as the second century, Christians were identifying the mysterious wrestler as none other than the Word of the Father who, later in flesh appearing, would be Christ the Lord.”⁵³ They said he “ministered to the will of God, yet he is God,”⁵⁴ and he evaded Jacob's request for his name because “he had not yet become man.”⁵⁵ Jacob, Israel, “this man is for you the true God, not in name but in nature,”⁵⁶ “both human and God.”⁵⁷ And so there none other than “God appeared to him, wrestled with him, and blessed him.”⁵⁸

How did Jacob prevail in his struggle with God? By clinging. By not letting go, even when it hurt. By not weakening his grip, even once he was crippled by God in the darkness. And so, as ancient Jews and Christians read the story, Wisdom “gave him the prize for his hard struggle, that he might know that devotion to God is mightier than all else” (Wisdom 10:12), showing that “Jacob's faith and devotion were unconquerable.”⁵⁹ And so the very name 'Israel,' as borne by the nation that Jacob is becoming, is founded on the patriarch's “new character and destiny,” achieved through a determined struggle with God, to endure in cleaving to him.⁶⁰

Jacob's request for a blessing was “to make it known that it was in love that they had laid hold of each other,” himself and this man who was God.⁶¹ And so, after the name change, “he blessed him there” (Genesis 32:29). We've heard Isaac's blessing for Jacob, but Genesis doesn't spell out the words of this blessing. A later version in the Dead Sea Scrolls, though, tries to fill in the blank, saying that the man blessed Jacob with fruitfulness and multitude, that the LORD would fill him with “knowledge and intelligence,” and – most important here – “may he free you from all violence... until this day and for everlasting generations.”⁶² And with that, the mystery man – the man, the Angel, the God – is mentioned no more. Genesis doesn't tell us how he went. Some Jews figured he “walked on his way,”⁶³ and others assumed he simply “vanished.”⁶⁴

Awed by this encounter of the night, Jacob gives a name to the spot once he's left alone, as he had at Bethel and at Mahanaim. This place will henceforth be Peniel, which means 'Face of God,' “for I have seen God face to face, and my soul has been delivered,” he muses (Genesis 32:30). Jacob is “marveling at his survival in this intimate encounter with the divine,”⁶⁵ since, as the LORD said to Moses, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). What grace is this, to have lived through this night with the Face of God?

But on the other hand, wasn't this just what Jacob had prayed for? He begged, “Deliver me” (Genesis 32:12), and now he testifies, “My soul has been delivered” (Genesis 32:30). Somehow, through these painful, punishing, sweaty, costly hours of wrestling with God in the dirt and in the dark, Jacob has received the salvation he sought, and has been assured of his true grounds for hope. What he now understands (and what all those who lay claim to his new name must understand) is that his struggles with Isaac, with Laban, with Esau – these all take a backseat to his encounter with God, his relationship with God. This experience has given Jacob a much-needed “realignment of his hopes and fears.”⁶⁶ His story was never primarily about Jacob versus Laban, Jacob versus Esau, Jacob versus exile, even if that's how he would've told it. The question was always whether Jacob would struggle with God, flee from God, or cling to God. With God, there's hope, regardless of the fear.

And now, as he passed over this place of Penuel, “the sun rose upon him” (Genesis 32:31). Finally! It's about time! We've been waiting to hear about the sun ever since, at Bethel, we read that “the sun had set” (Genesis 28:11). Literarily and spiritually, this has been a twenty-year night of exile, a sunless void into which Jacob had been plunged. But now that's over: “the sun rose upon him” (Genesis 32:31). “For you who fear my name,” says the LORD, “the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings” (Malachi 4:2).

Healing in its wings – but there's a sense in which Jacob isn't healed. As he passed over Penuel by the light of the risen sun, “he limped on his thigh,” the one that got wrenched and twisted in the grappling (Genesis 32:21). Jacob has a track record – he fled from Esau (Genesis 27:43), then he fled from Laban (Genesis 31:21) – and, as God's saving answer, he's now physically disabled from fleeing away from his problems any more.⁶⁷ Having crossed paths with “God's severe mercy,”⁶⁸ Jacob – but now we should know him as Israel – perpetually “bore on his body the tokens of the wrestling.”⁶⁹ From Peniel on, “his every halting step is a silent sermon, preaching that his body has been marked by the touch of God.”⁷⁰ As he moves forward in life, Israel quite visibly “gets along only with the help of grace,”⁷¹ “no longer reliant upon his own strength.”⁷² He's starting to understand that “being chosen means being wounded” as well as “possessing the promises.”⁷³

This chapter wraps up on an odd note, though. We know that the mysterious man, who was in some way God, “touched the palm of Jacob's thigh on the cripped sinew.” But now it's explained that this is commemorated by a tradition, a custom: “On this basis, the Children of Israel do not eat the crippled sinew that is on the palm of the thigh to this day” (Genesis 32:32). Before, there was a defining mark on the heirs of Abraham, and that was circumcision (Genesis 17:10), a one-time mark imposed on the sons which would seldom be seen by others; now, to it is added a custom that would be displayed by sons and daughters alike at every feast, a custom to be practiced by a community of the Children of Israel. This would constitute the Children of Israel as a people, as a people who don't do all the things that other peoples do, a people dislocated from the norm by a holy touch unique to them and their sacred tradition.⁷⁴ That custom is instituted in hope, a hope that “future generations would unfailingly meditate on God's kindnesses” to all who receive this name of Israel and limp on in grace.⁷⁵

This is an unfathomably deep and mysterious story. Some ancient Jews were so stunned by it, they thought Jacob was actually an incarnated angel now learning his true identity as “Israel, the archangel of the power of the Lord..., the firstborn of every living thing..., the first minister before the face of God.”⁷⁶ But to Christians, who confessed Jesus Christ as “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15), Christ's “name from of old was Israel – a name which he conferred on the blessed Jacob when he blessed him with his own name, announcing thereby that all who come to the Father through him are part of the blessed Israel.”⁷⁷ The Gospel itself declares that “no one has ever seen God” in his essence, not even Jacob; rather, “God the Only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (John 1:18).⁷⁸

To the first Christians, “by touching Jacob's thigh and making it numb, Christ showed that he too would grow numb... in physical and mental suffering at his crucifixion,”⁷⁹ so that “the paralysis of [Jacob's] thigh might prophesy his Heir's Passion.”⁸⁰ By the third century, though, they started to take this scene as a prophecy of “the future struggle between Christ and the descendants of Jacob,” with the crucifixion as the moment Jacob's seed 'prevailed' over the Lord, after which “their own walk of faith and salvation began to limp seriously, uncertain and insecure.”⁸¹ Jacob left his Peniel “both blessed and lame,”⁸² predicting his children who (respectively) believe and disbelieve.⁸³ “If you have come to believe in Christ, recognize yourself as blessed; if you have denied Christ, recognize yourself as lame..., one of those about whom the prophet says, 'They have limped off from their paths.'”⁸⁴ On top of this, some took Jacob as representing, not Jews, but “the Christian people” who “wrestled with the Lord” by faith.⁸⁵ “Jacob's withered thigh stands for bad Christians, so that we find in him both blessing and limping. He is blessed with respect to those who live good lives; he limps with respect to those who live bad lives.... For the time being, the Church is lame. It puts down one foot firmly; the other one, being crippled, it drags.... Yet the touch of the Lord is the hand of the Lord, chastising and giving life.”⁸⁶

That was Jacob's experience. Jacob was, as it were, born again as Israel, but only through intense struggle and perseverance. In the German Pietist tradition our denomination grew out of, that was often what they expected being born again to look like: a breakthrough after an intense Bußkampf or 'repentance struggle.'⁸⁷ Our founder – whose first name was, after all, Jacob – described his dark season of “persistent and fervent pleading” that led him gradually “closer and closer to [his] enlightenment.”⁸⁸ His chief companion confessed that “for three long years I continued in this penitent and sorrowing condition... under a load of guilt, [until] it pleased a gracious and merciful God to deliver me from my sad estate..., to have a glimpse of the saving mercy of his grace.”⁸⁹ Later, though, he told of another experience where he spent a thirty-mile journey in weeping and then “in the evening I wrestled about an hour in prayer, until I was finally overwhelmed with a mighty stream of love....”⁹⁰ In the early Holiness camp meetings, they emphasized that “to every fully consecrated and believing soul shall be found other Penuels than that beside the ford Jabbok, and to those who wrestle there it shall be given them to say, 'I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'”⁹¹ Genesis 32 was a Pietist model, a challenge for the believer to “persevere all the more in struggling and striving before the Lord” until true piety is restored.⁹²

But you don't have to be a Pietist (I'm not) or follow the Holiness Movement (I don't) to find rich lessons in Jacob's wrestling. In a more general way, we find that we often “encounter God in ambiguity, even in apparent hostility, in mystery cloaked in darkness.”⁹³ We grapple with him – in prayer, in repentance, in our daily walk of faith – and, in the dark, we struggle to cling on when it feels to us like he's trying to shake us off. But actually he's challenging us to cling harder. He's disabling that in us which has fallen to abuse. He's reviving in us that which has been buried by our guilt and shame. He's changing and blessing us, not that we might walk away from the encounter perfected, but that we might limp away with a new perspective and a new calling. Jacob reminds us that “nobody can obtain the glories of virtuousness without pains, yet after the struggles, God bestows upon him a crown of joy.”⁹⁴ But “whoever has encountered God will remain marked by him.”⁹⁵ So I invite you to pray with this lovely poem by Charles Wesley, inspired by the holy ferocity of Jacob at the Jabbok:

Come, O thou Traveller unknown,
whom still I hold, but cannot see:
my company before is gone,
and I am left alone with thee,
with thee all night I mean to stay,
and wrestle till the break of day.

I need not tell thee who I am,
my misery or sin declare;
thyself hast called me by my name,
look on thy hands and read it there.
But who, I ask thee, who art thou?
Tell me thy name, and tell me now!

In vain thou strugglest to get free,
I never will unloose my hold:
Art thou the Man that died for me?
The secret of thy love unfold;
wrestling I will not let thee go,
till I thy name, thy nature know.

Wilt thou not yet to me reveal
thy new, unutterable name?
Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell –
to know it now resolv'd I am;
wrestling I will not let thee go,
till I thy name, thy nature know.

'Tis all in vain to hold thy tongue,
or touch the hollow of my thigh;
though every sinew be unstrung,
out of my arms thou shalt not fly;
wrestling I will not let thee go,
till I thy name, thy nature know.

What though my shrinking flesh complain
and murmur to contend so long?
I rise superior to my pain;
when I am weak, then I am strong,
and when my all of strength shall fail,
I shall with the God-Man prevail.

My strength is gone, my nature dies,
I sink beneath thy weighty hand,
faint to revive, and fall to rise,
I fall, and yet by faith I stand –
I stand, and will not let thee go,
till I thy name, thy nature know.

Yield to me now, for I am weak,
but confident in self-despair:
Speak to my heart, in blessings speak,
be conquer'd by my instant prayer:
Speak, or thou never hence shalt move,
and tell me if thy name is LOVE!

'Tis Love, 'tis Love! Thou died'st for me,
I hear thy whisper in my heart.
The morning breaks, the shadows flee:
Pure Universal Love thou art!
To me, to all thy bowels move,
thy nature and thy name is Love.

My prayer hath power with God; the grace
unspeakable I now receive;
through faith I see thee face to face,
I see thee face to face and live:
In vain I have not wept and strove –
thy nature and thy name is Love!

I know thee, Savior, who thou art:
Jesus, the feeble sinner's Friend;
nor wilt thou with the night depart,
but stay and love me to the end;
thy mercies never shall remove –
thy nature and thy name is Love!

The Sun of Righteousness on me
hath rose with healing in his wings;
wither'd my nature's strength, from thee
my soul its life and succor brings;
my help is all laid up above –
thy nature and thy name is Love.

Contented now, upon my thigh
I halt, till life's short journey end;
all helplessness, all weakness I,
on thee alone for strength depend,
nor have I power from thee to move –
thy nature and thy name is Love.

Lame as I am, I take the prey,
hell, earth, and sin with ease o'ercome;
I leap for joy, pursue my way,
and as a bounding hart fly home,
through all eternity to prove
thy nature and thy name is LOVE!⁹⁶