Jacob Part 18: God Wrestles With Jacob

God Wrestles With Jacob

We are in the final act, the third and final act of Yaaqov's story, and we have reached the middle of this opening piece. The meeting with Esau happens on either side of this narrative right here. And the fact that they're all next to each other, it's a point of meditation that somehow the meeting with Esau is like the meeting with God. And the reckoning with Esau becomes his reckoning with God. They're all bound together. 

Genesis 32:22–Genesis 33 CSB

22 During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two slave women, and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, along with all his possessions. 24 Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not defeat him, he struck Jacob’s hip socket as they wrestled and dislocated his hip. 26 Then he said to Jacob, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 “What is your name?” the man asked. “Jacob,” he replied. 28 “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” he said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he answered, “Why do you ask my name?” And he blessed him there. 30 Jacob then named the place Peniel, “For I have seen God face to face,” he said, “yet my life has been spared.” 31 The sun shone on him as he passed by Penuel—limping because of his hip. 32 That is why, still today, the Israelites don’t eat the thigh muscle that is at the hip socket: because he struck Jacob’s hip socket at the thigh muscle. 1 Now Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming toward him with four hundred men. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two slave women. 2 He put the slaves and their children first, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last. 3 He himself went on ahead and bowed to the ground seven times until he approached his brother. 4 But Esau ran to meet him, hugged him, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. Then they wept. 5 When Esau looked up and saw the women and children, he asked, “Who are these with you?” He answered, “The children God has graciously given your servant.” 6 Then the slaves and their children approached him and bowed down. 7 Leah and her children also approached and bowed down, and then Joseph and Rachel approached and bowed down. 8 So Esau said, “What do you mean by this whole procession I met?” “To find favor with you, my lord,” he answered. 9 “I have enough, my brother,” Esau replied. “Keep what you have.” 10 But Jacob said, “No, please! If I have found favor with you, take this gift from me. For indeed, I have seen your face, and it is like seeing God’s face, since you have accepted me. 11 Please take my present that was brought to you, because God has been gracious to me and I have everything I need.” So Jacob urged him until he accepted. 12 Then Esau said, “Let’s move on, and I’ll go ahead of you.” 13 Jacob replied, “My lord knows that the children are weak, and I have nursing flocks and herds. If they are driven hard for one day, the whole herd will die. 14 Let my lord go ahead of his servant. I will continue on slowly, at a pace suited to the livestock and the children, until I come to my lord at Seir.” 15 Esau said, “Let me leave some of my people with you.” But he replied, “Why do that? Please indulge me, my lord.” 16 That day Esau started on his way back to Seir, 17 but Jacob went to Succoth. He built a house for himself and shelters for his livestock; that is why the place was called Succoth. 18 After Jacob came from Paddan-aram, he arrived safely at Shechem in the land of Canaan and camped in front of the city. 19 He purchased a section of the field where he had pitched his tent from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of silver. 20 And he set up an altar there and called it God, the God of Israel.

"So Yaaqov, he arose in the night." Remember, he just built his own ark. It was that night he built the own ark 'cause it's the night before meeting Esau. "He arose in the night. And he took his two wives and his two female slaves and his 11 children, and he crossed the Yabbok." Jacov yabbok see the similarities

"And he took them, and he made them cross the stream, and he made cross all that belonged to him. But Yaaqov, he's left alone." You have the lone human by the river.

"And a man wrestled with him."

Wrestled is "ye'aveq." Yaaqov ye'aveqs with the man "until the rising of the dawn.

And he saw that he could not prevail over him.

And he struck," well, it's the word "touched,"

"He was struck in the hollow of his thigh so hard that it was jerked away, the hollow of his thigh," that is the hollow of the thigh of Yaaqov, "as he wrestled with him."

So real quick, just so you can get the image, so they're wrestling all night, and it's a even match, right? It's a even match. And so the only option left is he, that is the man, touches the inner part of Jacob's thigh so hard that it dislocates. So it leaves it to your imagination, which part of your thigh would have to be hit so hard that you'd knock it out of the socket? Not the inside. It's square to the crotch.

Jerks out his leg.

"And he said," presumably, the man. There's even ambiguity.

The narrator doesn't make explicit always who's doing what. It's just he.

And if you follow the logic, you can figure it out. But it adds to the mysterious riddle-like nature of the story. It forces you to read and reread it to figure out who's doing what even.

"So he," is the man, "says, 'Send me away.

The sun has come up.' And he," that is Yaaqov, "said, 'I'm not sending you away until you bless me.' And he," is the man, "said to him," Yaaqov, "'Tell me your name. What is it?' And he said, 'Yaaqov.' And he said, 'Not Yaaqov will be your name spoken anymore, rather Yisrael because you have sarahed with El and with humans.

And you've won.

You've prevailed.' And Yaaqov requested, 'Hey, you tell me your name now.'"

 "And the man said, 'Why do you wanna know my name?' And he blessed him there.

And Yaaqov called the name of that place Peniel" "Peni" is the word "face." Face of El. "'Because I have seen El face to face, and my life was spared.' And the sun rose, and he crossed Penuel." Variation of Face of El. "But he was limping on that thigh.

And you know, dear reader, let's just pause the story. This is why all these centuries later, the sons of Israel, we don't eat the sinew of that hip nerve that's on the hollow of the thigh still to this day. Because he got punched in the hollow of his thigh of Yaaqov, that sinew of the hip nerve."

If you read this is Hebrew Yaaqov's name is everywhere. And then the center of the center of the narrative is about the shifting of his name.

Notice the timing. We're at the transition from night into dark. The sunrise, the transition from night to dark. This is a Genesis 1 theme.

sunrise moments are actually really significant. The crossing of the Sea of Reeds happens at sunrise, and it marks, it was night, and then it was the sun began to rise, and then it finished rising. So there's these moments of transitions at sunrise. It's like a thing. Day one of Genesis, and then it continues on.

Notice this mention of the thigh is the outer frame. Look at the design of the story. So this getting punched in the crotch, and the thigh dislocating, and then that's the last thing that's mentioned is his thigh. That's like this frame around it, and the crossing of the river.

And then on the inside is the blessing. 

"I won't let you go until you bless me." And then the blessing comes after the stuff with the name, and then the stuff with the name is in the middle. So there's this even a symmetrical design. Sometimes you call this a chiasm, where each part matches each other as you go in. So it's kinda like you go into the center, and then you start walking out through the same ideas but in reverse order on your way out. And this is a real common design strategy in biblical literature, a lot like poetry, to get you to compare the different parts.

God Picks a Fight and Wounds His Chosen One

So one obvious question is like, who's the man?

It's clear who Yaaqov comes to think who the man is. He says it's El, it's God. Has God appeared as a human before in the story?

When Yahweh appeared to Abraham by his tent in Mamre, it was in the form of a manאיש)  Gen. 18:1-3

Another mysterious man  (איש) will guide Joseph to his brothers ( Gen. 37:15 ), which Joseph later sees as an expression of diving guidance (“God sent me here,”).Gen. 45:5

The man who wrestles with Yaaqov can offer Yahweh’s blessing (32:29)

Yaaqov describes the experience as “seeing face to face!” (see Elohim  32:30)

So what's interesting is that he's described as man, but then at the end, at the matching end of the story, he's described as El.

God and man.

He appears as a man, but really it's God. He thinks he's wrestling a human, but really he's wrestling God.

That'll preach.

So you look at the design of the story. Presents the figure as a man, but then on the matching part, presents the figure as God.

So let's ponder this.

God can't beat Yaaqov.

And he even says it. "You have been wrestling with God. And buddy, I gotta give you credit, you just don't give up. You don't give up."

So what option is left open to God with somebody who won't give up?

He has to wound him. He has to pick a fight and wound his chosen one.

God Wrestles With Yaaqov

God spoke a word of blessing and choice over Yaaqov before he was born. And yet, from his first moments, Yaaqov has been seizing for the position of the firstborn blessing. This “heel grabbing” continued in Rivqah and Yaaqov's deception, in Yaaqov's deception of Lavan, and now in his attempt to bribe forgiveness from Esau.

At each point, God allows Yaaqov's deceit to turn back upon him, bringing more pain and isolation. And yet Yaaqov never seems to learn. He just repeats his old ways.

And so God gets personally involved and wounds Yaaqov so thoroughly he cannot recover.

This story is a vivid image of God’s journey with humanity as a whole and with his chosen people in particular. God’s purpose is to bless, and that purpose keeps bumping up against humanity’s inability to trust God’s generous intentions. Instead, Yaaqov keeps scheming as if the ultimate blessing is up to him.

Why a Strike to the Crotch?

When Abraham was concerned about the future of his family, he made his servant swear an oath by “placing your hand under my thigh ,(תחת ירכי see Gen. 24:2). This is precisely the region of Yaaqov's crotch struck by the divine man. It’s a strike to the reproductive region, and while Benjamin is yet to be born (see Gen. 35), it’s not impossible that Rakhel is already pregnant.

God responded to Abraham and Sarah's sin against Hagar with judgement and mercy through circumcision. In a similar way, God responds harshly by wounding Yaaqov in the same area. Yaaqov will walk with a limp, forever wounded.

Think of how Jesus would read this story. God has chosen a people, a very particular family, through whom to accomplish his purpose to restore Eden blessing to the world. 

What if that family is a snake? What if that family is even more accountable and culpable because of God's unique generosity to that family? 

This is similar to the Sinai covenant, and the curses of the covenant that seem so intense to us when you read Leviticus 26 or Deuteronomy 28, and you're like, man, is God ticked off or angry? 

And so the point isn't to model like, and this is how God treats everybody. This is God's relationship to this family. And it's as if all of God's generosity, but also his justice gets focused in in this super intense way. And what if the one that God's chosen becomes, is the most rebellious, recalcitrant human? And it's almost like God's generosity actually makes Yaaqov even more accountable. And so what is God to do with his chosen representative who, of all humans, should be way more humble?

And so it's like the extreme circumstances call for an extreme measure. And that's certainly how Jesus viewed the history of his family. I mean, when he talks about the Romans coming to Jerusalem to take out the temple, he talks about the whole cosmos collapsing in terms of, he sees what happens with his family as being of cosmic significance. And so he uses cosmic imagery to describe it. And so in the same way, this guy gets specially harsh treatment.

The wounding of Jacob by El, did that change Jacob?

We don't know yet from this story. We just know he's limping. (chuckles) So then the way it's designed, remember, this is in the middle of the meeting with Esau.

And the detail emphasized twice that told the truth about Yaaqov's intentions was putting himself at the back.

And so he undergoes this experience. And so the question we'll have is like, where is he gonna put himself tomorrow morning?

And that will tell the truth.

But we gotta wait for it.

Suffering: The Way to Blessing

Both of these details point in the same direction: God’s ultimate desire is to partner with humans, who are currently represented by the family of Abraham. But what if his chosen people are so recalcitrant that they continually become a source of curse among the nations instead of being a blessing? God reaches a point where the only option is to wound his chosen one, striking him in order to make him an able conduit of blessing to others.

This story seems to echo the equally dense riddle spoken by Yahweh to the snake in Genesis 3:15.

Genesis 3:15

And I will set hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

Yaaqov was born “grabbing the heel” of his brother, which began a cascade of painful consequences that eventually come back on Yaaqov's head. It’s as if his own failures become the way his own heel is struck in return.

Yaaqov suffers as a result of his own sin against others, and this, it appears, is the way that God’s purpose to bless comes about (see Gen. 50:20)!

I'm trying to imagine the way Jesus would view this story. The chosen representative going into suffering and death to emerge out the other side alive, new creation, Eden, so that forgiveness and blessing can go out to the nations.

That's how he sees what the story is all about. So I think for me to be a follower of the Messiah, the descendant of this guy, is to say, man, I'm a lot like this guy and I deserve a lot less mercy, probably a lot more severe consequences. And God's mercy and generosity to me is that one went through the whole thing on my behalf. And so I don't get what I deserve. What I get is another chance to become a new and different kind of human because of what the Messiah did for me. 

In other words, I think the judgment that Yaaqov's facing, we're meant to see as coming to its ultimate fulfillment in the suffering of the Messiah on my behalf. So that even my own physical death becomes not a punishment, but it becomes my great test and my passage into whatever the new creation is gonna be. I think that's what it means to read this with a messianic viewpoint.

A moralistic viewpoint would be just to take it out and to say, God and Jacob, me and God.

And to leave out the narrative arc of the story, which is like, if it's God and Yaaqov and me and God, I'm done for, you know? I need a messiah. Does that make any sense?

When we teach moralisms of stories taken out of the big story, we're essentially reading this literature as if the messianic fulfillment hasn't happened yet.

And so what God does to Yaaqov is what the Father hands the Son over to at the cross. That would be the parallel.

In Isaiah there is a poem called the Suffering Servant. that whole poem is about how God selects one out of Jacob. That's a whole section of poems in Isaiah. And the most repeated word to describe God's people in that section of Isaiah 49 to 55 is Yaaqov.

It's mentioned more times in the whole book of Isaiah than in that section. And that the center of that is one among Yaaqov who goes into suffering and death. And his death is his exaltation for the many, so that the many can be made righteous

And that suffering servant, messianic,

Does it willingly.

This suffering servant has to be

From Yaaqov to Israel

The name change is hugely significant. The meaning of Yaaqov's entire life up to this point is packed into this little narrative and into this new name.

Yaaqov = “heel-er,” i.e., “heel-grabber, trickster”

Yisrael = “he struggles with El”

“Names throughout Scripture are significant, but changes of name in midlife are specially so (cf. Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah in 17:5, 15). Here Jacob's new name was to become the nation’s name, and it is fraught with significance. Israel, ‘God fights or rules,’ is here reinterpreted as a reference to Jacob's struggle with God. Yet this reinterpretation captures the paradox of Jacob's struggle precisely. For while Jacob struggled with God, it was God who allowed Jacob to triumph in the fight ... Jacob's experience at the Yabbok, wrestling with God and yet surviving, was in later times seen as prefiguring the national experience (Hos. 12:5). Running through the psalms of national lament there is a similar conviction that the nation’s trials are heaven-sent; yet only from heaven can they look for deliverance (e.g., Ps. 74, 79, 80, 83). So this story of Jacob's struggle with God summed up for Israel their national destiny. Among all their trials and perplexities in which God seemed to be fighting against them, he was ultimately on their side; indeed, he would triumph, and in his victory, Israel would triumph too ...”

Wenham, Gordon J. (1998). Genesis 16–50, vol. 2. Word Biblical Commentary. Dallas: Word, Incorporated. 302-303.

Links With Earlier Narrative Patterns in the Genesis Scroll

Genesis 32-33 and the Eden Narrative

The entire sequence of Genesis 32-33 is overlaid with verbal references back to the core patterns of Genesis 1-11.

Both narratives portray a lone human who is unable to fulfill the purpose of God by themselves. So God comes in a mysterious, vivid way and performs a surprise “procedure” that opens up the pathway to divine blessing. In both stories, the character transitions from a place of inability and moves into a place of divine enablement.

In the human’s case, the one is divided into two, opening up the possibility for the two to become one and produce many descendants.

In Yaaqov's case, the one is struck in his reproductive organs, seeming closing off the possibility for future descendants. But this humiliating and wounding experience is what shifts Yaaqov into a new mindset, displayed in the next story.

Genesis 32-33 and the Cain and Abel Narrative

The sibling rivalry theme of Cain and Abel has reached its culmination in the Yaaqov and Esau story. It deliberately comes to its resolution by activating the vocabulary of the story from Genesis 4. However, instead of the older brother murdering the younger, Esau is surprisingly generous and forgives.

The Reunion of Jacob and Esau

Bibliography

https://bibleproject.com/classroom/jacob

Freedman, David Noel, Gary A. Herion, David F. Graf, John David Pleins, and Astrid B. Beck, eds. in The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

Freedman, David Noel, Allen C. Myers, and Astrid B. Beck. in Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000.

Mathews, K. A. Genesis 11:27–50:26. Vol. 1B of The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005.

Brannan, Rick, and Israel Loken. The Lexham Textual Notes on the Bible. Lexham Bible Reference Series. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014.

Barry, John D., Douglas Mangum, Derek R. Brown, Michael S. Heiser, Miles Custis, Elliot Ritzema, Matthew M. Whitehead, Michael R. Grigoni, and David Bomar. Faithlife Study Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016.

Cotter, David W. Genesis. Edited by Jerome T. Walsh, Chris Franke, and David W. Cotter. Berit Olam Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2003.

https://hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/Parashah/Summaries/Vayetzei/Leah_s_Eyes/leah_s_eyes.html

https://biblepure.com/tender-eyed-meaning-in-the-bible/

https://www.logos.com/grow/tender-eyed-leah-meaning/

John D. Currid, A Study Commentary on Genesis: Genesis 25:19–50:26, EP Study Commentary (Darlington, England; Carlisle, PA: Evangelical Press, 2003), 97–98.

Abraham Kuruvilla, Genesis: A Theological Commentary for Preachers (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2014), 374.

John D. Currid, A Study Commentary on Genesis: Genesis 25:19–50:26, EP Study Commentary (Darlington, England; Carlisle, PA: Evangelical Press, 2003), 97–98.

Abraham Kuruvilla, Genesis: A Theological Commentary for Preachers (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2014), 374.

Scott Noegel's “Sex, Sticks, and Tricksters in Genesis 30:31-43: A New Look at an Old Crux” in Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society, vol. 25 (1997), p. 7-17.