NOTES for Gen 32:1-32
The description of Jacob's struggle with God is a difficult-to-understand account of a mystical experience whose details remain unknown. We can only try to understand what exactly the author wants to bring to our attention by including this story in the text of the book. Its point is that God's promise to Abraham, inherited by Jacob, did not become Jacob's property, but remains rooted in the will of the Almighty. In this, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob differs from pagan tribal deities. Moreover, God's freedom to remain faithful to His promise or, on the contrary, not to let Jacob enter the promised land remains unchanged. Only by His own will does God continue to remain in covenant with Abraham and his descendants, and they must learn to rely on this will of God, good and perfect. On the other hand, Jacob's struggle with God reveals to Jacob himself, and to the reader, that following the path marked out for him by the promise to Abraham has become a matter of life and death for him. Jacob cannot turn back, and nothing in the world matters to him as much as God's blessing and His promise. Jacob himself remains faithful to the covenant God made with his ancestors, no matter what, and this faithfulness to the covenant receives God's blessing.