NOTES for Gen 32:24

Jacob's wrestling can be considered one of the most mysterious episodes in biblical history. With whom did Jacob wrestle? The Hebrew text gives a completely unambiguous answer: with God. Literally, the words of the mysterious nighttime Stranger sound like this: "you have wrestled with God and with people, and have prevailed." What does this mean? How can a human being not simply wrestle with God, but also defeat Him? And what could Jacob himself have thought about everything that was happening then? The story itself answers the last question, however, and it fully corresponds to the ideas generally accepted in Jacob's time. In those days, blessing was understood as the transfer from one person to another of the supernatural power that stood behind all the processes taking place in nature. Ideas about this power are characteristic of all peoples; like everything belonging to a person, it could be transferred, gifted, given away, taken, and even taken away, as a victor took it away from the one he defeated in battle. If we add that not only people possessed such power, but also gods and spirits, who could also share it both with people and with one another, and not always voluntarily, the picture becomes complete. And when Jacob needed a blessing, he decided, as a determined man, to obtain it at any cost. Objectively, the meeting with God apparently took the form for him of a turbulent ecstasy, which in those days was also no rarity. But for Jacob it was precisely a struggle, a real struggle for the blessing. True, the blessing turned out not to be exactly what Jacob had imagined. He wanted his God to give him strength for the meeting with his brother that lay before him the next day. Given how they had parted many years before, Jacob would have found strength very useful. But something else happens: together with the blessing, Jacob receives a new name. A new name is a symbol of inner, spiritual renewal, of the new life into which a person has entered. Jacob becomes a different person after meeting God, and this is the blessing. And the meeting with his brother will end unexpectedly well for Jacob. For the power of God can act in different ways. Sometimes it changes a person's heart. And then strength for struggle may turn out to be unnecessary.