NOTES for Gen 32:1-32
1 And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. |
2 And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's host: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim. |
3 And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom. |
4 And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye speak unto my lord Esau; Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now: |
5 And I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and menservants, and womenservants: and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight. |
6 And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him. |
7 Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed: and he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands; |
8 And said, If Esau come to the one company, and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape. |
9 And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the LORD which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee: |
10 I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands. |
11 Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children. |
12 And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. |
13 And he lodged there that same night; and took of that which came to his hand a present for Esau his brother; |
14 Two hundred she goats, and twenty he goats, two hundred ewes, and twenty rams, |
15 Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine, and ten bulls, twenty she asses, and ten foals. |
16 And he delivered them into the hand of his servants, every drove by themselves; and said unto his servants, Pass over before me, and put a space betwixt drove and drove. |
17 And he commanded the foremost, saying, When Esau my brother meeteth thee, and asketh thee, saying, Whose art thou? and whither goest thou? and whose are these before thee? |
18 Then thou shalt say, They be thy servant Jacob's; it is a present sent unto my lord Esau: and, behold, also he is behind us. |
19 And so commanded he the second, and the third, and all that followed the droves, saying, On this manner shall ye speak unto Esau, when ye find him. |
20 And say ye moreover, Behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will appease him with the present that goeth before me, and afterward I will see his face; peradventure he will accept of me. |
21 So went the present over before him: and himself lodged that night in the company. |
22 And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two womenservants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok. |
23 And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent over that he had. |
24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. |
25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. |
26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. |
27 And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. |
28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. |
29 And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. |
30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. |
31 And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. |
32 Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank. |
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The successful resolution of the story with Laban did not mean that all the trials were behind him. In addition to meeting Laban, Jacob still had to meet his own brother, Esau, and it was not clear which of the two meetings was more dangerous for him. After everything Jacob had done at home, he could hardly count on a warm welcome. He understood this perfectly well: the gifts he sent ahead, intended for his brother, were meant, if not to make amends for his guilt, then at least to begin reconciliation.
Moreover, the messengers were to testify that Jacob no longer claimed anything, that he respected Esau and was ready to acknowledge Esau's primacy. During his time with Laban, Jacob had clearly changed, and now he wants to testify to this before his brother in order, if possible, to avoid conflict. The danger of conflict, however, still existed: Jacob could not know in advance how Esau would behave when they met. In such a situation he needed God's intervention more than ever, perhaps even more than before, when he fled from Laban.
And it happened, on the very night before the meeting with Esau. The biblical account of Jacob's struggle with God for a blessing raises so many questions for readers today that translators sometimes even interpret it as a struggle with an angel, assuming, apparently, that a human being can sometimes defeat an angel, but God never and in no way. Meanwhile, much becomes clearer if we start from the fact that originally the event was narrated by Jacob himself, and narrated as a man of his own age would tell it.
In his time blessing meant not support and not goodwill, but the transfer to the blessed person of power, supernatural power, the kind that all gods and spirits were then thought to possess. This power could also be taken away. More than that, in order to receive the power of some god or spirit, one had to defeat him in single combat. Jacob wrestles with his God just as he would have wrestled with the god or spirit of any of his contemporaries, in order to receive power that would be very useful to him the next day when he met his brother. Objectively, this should have involved a stormy ecstasy experienced by Jacob, one of those that in those days, and later as well, sometimes accompanied theophanies. During such an ecstasy it would be no wonder to dislocate a hip, as happened to Jacob.
But the blessing turned out not to be what Jacob expected: instead of power he receives a new name, as his ancestor Abraham once did when he met God. The change of name then and now meant the same thing: spiritual renewal, a kind of initiation after which a person becomes different. Jacob changes inwardly. That is the blessing he received. It was not what he expected, but it was absolutely necessary for him as the leader of the people of God.
Readings for 10 February 2026
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