Jacob’s Struggle with God

Jacob returns to his land after twenty years spent far from home, with his uncle Laban. The return fills him with dread, for he must there meet Esau again, the twin brother he had once robbed: he had taken from him his birthright, and then, by a deception, the blessing their father Isaac had kept for him. On the eve of their meeting, Jacob sends his wives, his children and his flocks across a torrent, the Jabbok, and remains alone on the far bank. There, in the night, a man attacks him and wrestles with him until dawn.

The struggle

The struggle is puzzling at first by the identity of the one who begins it. The account calls him a man, and in the morning Jacob will say he has seen God; this is because it is an angel, the Angel of the Lord, in whom God himself is made present and acts. Scripture says it plainly: “He strove with the angel and prevailed.” Hosea 12:5 This angel wrestles with Jacob the whole night: “Jacob being left alone, a man wrestled with him until the rising of the dawn.” Genesis 32:25 Yet he does not manage to overcome him. That God cannot prevail over a man says enough that he holds himself back: he acts like a father who wrestles with his child and lets him win on purpose, restraining his strength so that Jacob may stand firm and give himself wholly to the struggle. Then, with a single touch, he strikes his hip and puts it out of joint. The one blow he strikes reaches the body’s point of support, there where a man draws his strength to walk and to wrestle. Jacob still holds on, and when day threatens to break, he refuses to let go of the one he has seized: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Genesis 32:27 This man who had taken his father’s blessing by cunning no longer steals it: he asks for it openly, and clings to it.

The name

At the heart of the struggle a transformation takes place, and it passes through the name. Before blessing Jacob, the angel asks him what his name is, and Jacob answers: “Jacob.” Genesis 32:28 God knows this name; if he has him speak it, it is so that Jacob may confess who he is. For the name sums him up: Jacob, in Hebrew Ya’aqob (יַעֲקֹב), is built on the word ’aqeb (עָקֵב), the heel, and means the one who grasps the heel, who supplants, who takes another’s place. At his very birth he was already holding his twin brother’s heel; all his life thereafter he lived by cunning. In speaking his name, he acknowledges what he has been. Only then does God give him another: “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Genesis 32:29 Israel, in Hebrew Yisra’el (יִשְׂרָאֵל), means the one who strives with God, or the one whom God strengthens. The man who defined himself by his cunning struggles against men now defines himself by his struggle with God. And this name is not only his own: in renaming Jacob, God does more than transform a man, he lays the beginning of Israel, the whole people that will bear this name.

The wound

The hip is the body’s support, the point where a man stands and draws his strength. In putting it out of joint, God breaks this support, and with it the pride and the carnal nature of Jacob. The old Jacob is thus humbled to make way for the new man, submitted to God and leaning on him alone. “You have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man.” Colossians 3:9-10

The face of God

When dawn breaks, the adversary asks to leave. Jacob wishes to know his name, but the angel blesses him without telling it, and withdraws. Jacob then understands with whom he has wrestled the whole night, and he gives the place the name of Penuel (פְּנוּאֵל), which means the Face of God: “I have seen God face to face, and my life has been preserved.” Genesis 32:31 This last word reveals what is at stake in the scene. In Scripture, to see God face to face is held to be deadly, for no one can endure his presence. Jacob, however, comes out alive: this God comes to bless, and his face, which ought to strike down, leaves him living.

The next day, to go out to meet Esau whom he dreaded, Jacob walks at the front, the first before his own, he who had kept to the rear all the day before (Genesis 33:3).