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
1 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 240; John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH's Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 136.
2 Yair Zakovitch, Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch (Yale University Press, 2012), 95; Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 350; James Chukwuma Okoye, Genesis 12-50: A Narrative-Theological Commentary (Cascade Books, 2020), 219.
3 John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH's Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 135.
4 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 440.
5 Paul D. Vrolijk, Jacob's Wealth: An Examination into the Nature and Role of Material Possessions in the Jacob-Cycle (Gen 25:19–35:29) (Brill, 2011), 216-217.
6 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.325, in Loeb Classical Library 242:157.
7 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 58.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:155.
8 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 223.
9 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 450; John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH's Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 138.
10 Philip H. Kern, Jacob's Story as Christian Scripture (Cascade Books, 2021), 80.
11 John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH's Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 139.
12 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 225.
13 John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH's Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 144-145.
14 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 243.
15 Paul D. Vrolijk, Jacob's Wealth: An Examination into the Nature and Role of Material Possessions in the Jacob-Cycle (Gen 25:19–35:29) (Brill, 2011), 222-223.
16 Yair Zakovitch, Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch (Yale University Press, 2012), 98.
17 John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH's Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 145.
18 Joel S. Baden, The Promise to the Patriarchs (Oxford University Press, 2013), 86; pace Chad Bird, Limping with God: Jacob and the Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship (1517 Publishing, 2022), 112, who thinks Jacob is distorting God's word.
19 John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH's Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 143-144; Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 287.
20 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 243.
21 John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH's Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 142.
22 Otto Kaiser, “Deus absconditus and Deus revelatus: Three Difficult Narratives in the Pentateuch,” in David Penchansky and Paul L. Redditt, eds., Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do What Is Right?: Studies on the Nature of God in Tribute to James L. Crenshaw (Eisenbrauns, 2000), 80.
23 Paul D. Vrolijk, Jacob's Wealth: An Examination into the Nature and Role of Material Possessions in the Jacob-Cycle (Gen 25:19–35:29) (Brill, 2011), 231.
24 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 226-227; Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 454.
25 John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH's Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 142; Nechama Price, Tribal Blueprints: Twelve Brothers and the Destiny of Israel (Maggid Books, 2020), 17.
26 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 280; David W. Baker, “The Migrations and Wanderings of the Patriarchs,” in Barry L. Beitzel, ed., Lexham Geographic Commentary on the Pentateuch (Lexham Press, 2024), 120.
27 Ambrose of Milan, Jacob and the Happy Life 2.7 §30, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 65:163.
28 William P. Brown, “Manifest Diversity: The Presence of God in Genesis,” in Nathan MacDonald, Mark W. Elliott, and Grant Macaskill, eds., Genesis and Christian Theology (Eerdmans, 2012), 15.
29 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 227; David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 244; Steven C. Smith, The Face of the Lord: Contemplating the Divine Son through the Four Senses of Sacred Scripture (Franciscan University Press, 2020), 203.
30 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 447.
31 Esther J. Hamori, “Echoes of Gilgamesh in the Jacob Story,” Journal of Biblical Literature 130/4 (Winter 2011): 629.
32 Steven C. Smith, The Face of the Lord: Contemplating the Divine Son through the Four Senses of Sacred Scripture (Franciscan University Press, 2020), 231.
33 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 457; Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 357; Philip H. Kern, Jacob's Story as Christian Scripture (Cascade Books, 2021), 89.
34 John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH's Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 158.
35 Kevin P. Sullivan, Wrestling with Angels: A Study of the Relationship between Angels and Humans in Ancient Jewish Literature and the New Testament (Brill, 2004), 45.
36 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 459.
37 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 246; cf. James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 285.
38 Jerome of Stridon, Hebrew Questions on Genesis 32:28-29, in C.T.R. Hayward, Saint Jerome's Hebrew Questions on Genesis (Clarendon Press, 1995), 70.
39 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 458; John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH's Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 155.
40 Iain W. Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor University Press, 2014), 185.
41 Philip H. Kern, Jacob's Story as Christian Scripture (Cascade Books, 2021), 92.
42 Ladder of Jacob 4.3, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:408-409; see discussion in Kevin P. Sullivan, Wrestling with Angels: A Study of the Relationship between Angels and Humans in Ancient Jewish Literature and the New Testament (Brill, 2004), 51-52.
43 Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 28.18, in Popular Patristics Series 23:51.
44 Augustine of Hippo, Expositions of the Psalms 49.14, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/16:395.
45 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.332, in Loeb Classical Library 242:159.
46 Kevin P. Sullivan, Wrestling with Angels: A Study of the Relationship between Angels and Humans in Ancient Jewish Literature and the New Testament (Brill, 2004), 46-47.
47 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.331-332, in Loeb Classical Library 242:159.
48 Targum Onqelos Genesis 32:30, in Aramaic Bible 6:116.
49 Targum Neofiti Genesis 32:27, in Aramaic Bible 1A:159.
50 Prayer of Joseph, fragment A, line 4, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:713.
51 Targum Neofiti Genesis 32:25, in Aramaic Bible 1A:158; cf. also Ladder of Jacob 3.3, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:408.
52 Genesis Rabbah 77.3, in Harry Freedman, ed., Midrash Rabbah (Soncino Press, 1982), 2:711-712, 717; cf. also Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 404.
53 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 58.6-7, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 6:239-240; cf. Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 1.7 §56, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 23:52.
54 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 125.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 6:342.
55 Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 1.7 §57, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 23:52.
56 Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity 5.19, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 25:149.
57 Novatian of Rome, On the Trinity 19.14, in Corpus Christianorum in Translation 22:102.
58 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 126.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 6:344.
59 Ambrose of Milan, Jacob and the Happy Life 2.7 §30, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 65:164.
60 Steven C. Smith, The Face of the Lord (Franciscan University Press, 2020), 204.
61 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 30.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:181.
62 4Q158 fragment 1, lines 7-9, in Florentino Garcia Martinez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition (Brill, 1999), 1:305.
63 4Q158 fragment 1, line 10, in Florentino Garcia Martinez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition (Brill, 1999), 1:305.
64 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.333, in Loeb Classical Library 242:161.
65 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 463.
66 Michael B. Hundley, Yahweh among the Gods: The Divine in Genesis, Exodus, and the Ancient Near East (Cambridge University Press, 2022), 233; cf. James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 155.
67 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 357-359.
68 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 450.
69 Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 28.18, in Popular Patristics Series 23:50.
70 Chad Bird, Limping with God: Jacob and the Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship (1517 Publishing, 2022), 116.
71 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 463.
72 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 290.
73 Philip H. Kern, Jacob's Story as Christian Scripture (Cascade Books, 2021), 93.
74 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 464-465.
75 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 58.14, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 87:161.
76 Prayer of Joseph, fragment A, lines 3-8, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:713.
77 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 125.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 6:343.
78 Steven C. Smith, The Face of the Lord (Franciscan University Press, 2020), 229.
79 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 125.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 6:343.
80 Ambrose of Milan, On His Brother Satyrus 2.100, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 22:242.
81 Novatian of Rome, On the Trinity 19.8-9, in Corpus Christianorum in Translation 22:101.
82 Augustine of Hippo, Expositions of the Psalms 79.3, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/18:143.
83 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 229F.2, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/6:286; Caesarius of Arles, Sermon 88.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 47:37.
84 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 229F.3, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/6:287.
85 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 5.6, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/1:221.
86 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 5.8, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/1:223.
87 Jonathan Strom, German Pietism and the Problem of Conversion (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018), 24.
88 Quoted in George Miller, Kurze Beschreibung der würkenden Gnade Gottes bey dem Erleuchteten evangelischen Prediger Jacob Albrecht (Johann Ritter & Co., 1811), 7.
89 George Miller, autobiography, in Reuben Yeakel, Jacob Albright and His Co-Laborers (Publishing House of the Evangelical Association, 1883), 185, 187.
90 George Miller, autobiography, in Reuben Yeakel, Jacob Albright and His Co-Laborers (Publishing House of the Evangelical Association, 1883), 229.
91 Alexander McLean and Joel W. Eaton, Penuel; or, Face to Face with God (W. C. Palmer Jr., 1869), ix.
92 August Hermann Francke, “Anweisungen für das Beten mit Leib und Seele” (1695), in Veronika Albrecht-Birkner et al., Pietismus: Eine Anthologie von Quellen des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2017), 74.
93 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 448.
94 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 5.2.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:247.
95 Otto Kaiser, “Deus absconditus and Deus revelatus: Three Difficult Passages in the Pentateuch,” in David Penchansky and Paul L. Redditt, eds., Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do What Is Right?: Studies on the Nature of God in Tribute to James L. Crenshaw (Eisenbrauns, 2000), 81.
96 Charles Wesley, “Wrestling Jacob,” in John Wesley and Charles Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems, 3rd ed. (Felix Farley, 1742), 116-118.
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