Jacob Becomes Israel
Notes
Transcript
Jacob Becomes Israel
Genesis 32:1-32
Jacob had a big reason to be encouraged. Laban and Mesopotamia were history. Laban’s parting word, “The Lord watch between you and me, when we are out of one another’s sight” (31:49) was not a blessing but a hostile curse. And it was music to his son-in-law’s ears. Never again would Jacob have to deal with his smug, manipulating father-in-law. Jacob was going home victoriously with eleven sons and immense wealth.
He was also further heartened because we read:
Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.
And when Jacob saw them he said, “This is God’s camp!” So he called the name of that place Mahanaim.
Twenty years earlier when he had left Canaan on the run, “the angels of God” had met him and now as he returned to Canaan, “the angels of God” again met him. His joyful declaration of “Mahanaim” observed that there were two camps: a camp of angels was alongside his camp. Likely it was a vast multitude of angels because elsewhere the phrase describes a large camp (1 Chronicles 12:22).
So right there, about twelve to thirteen miles from the Jordan, Jacob was divinely refreshed by angelic realities that the psalmist would later celebrate in his own setting when he sang:
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.
All of this provided an amazing retrospect upon Jacob’s twenty-year sojourn in Mesopotamia and now, as he returned, the prospect that angels would clear the way for his entrance back into Canaan.
And Jacob’s sighting of angels was visual confirmation of a deeper reality—that Jacob had been and would continue to be the object of God’s relentless grace—that an intrusive, tenacious, contending, renovating grace was at work on his life to make him to be the man that God intended him to be.
This grace couldn’t be shut out, wouldn’t let him go, and fought with him and for him at every turn.
Jacob’s Mounting Fear
Jacob’s Mounting Fear
Lifted by the camp of angels, Jacob chose to first deal with a matter that laid increasingly heavy upon his heart for those twenty years—his shabby dealings with his brother Esau and their broken relationship. We know that this was a heart-necessity because it was not a geographical must. Esau didn’t block his way, for he had settled far to the south at Mount Seir in Edom.
Consequently, it was the spiritual necessity of making things right with his brother that drove Jacob. In support of this, Derek Kidner observes that the sequence of chapters 32 and 33, which culminates in 35:1–15, powerfully acts out the principles of spiritual reconciliation outlined in Matthew 5:23–25.
Jacob began with a peaceful overture.
And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother in the land of Seir, the country of Edom,
instructing them, “Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have sojourned with Laban and stayed until now.
I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants. I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.’ ”
While the titles “my lord” and “your servant” were extravagantly humble in a brother relationship, they were not disingenuous but wholly sincere. These self-effacing terms were freighted with Jacob’s repentance for his stealing ascendancy over his older brother. And Jacob’s mention of his oxen, donkeys, flocks, and servants were more than a hint of his willingness to make reparations. Formerly thieving, Jacob ached to make a generous payback to Esau.
The bare-facts report of the returning messengers:
And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.”
It doesn’t indicate whether they had been able to convey Jacob’s overture to Esau. All Jacob learned is the ominous number of four hundred men approaching with Esau in the lead, which was the standard size of a militia. Jacob’s fear and distress were reasonable. The last he had heard from Esau was that Esau was biding his time to kill him.
Now Esau was coming with a small army! This, mixed with the elements of the physical aspects of his big, hairy brother, made the memories of his brother’s profile, even his smell terrifying.
The irony of Jacob’s panicked response as he fearfully divided his people into two camps (Hebrew, mahanaim) could not have been missed by Jacob in retrospect. He simply wasn’t thinking of the angels now. All that was on his mind was survival—and increasing the odds for at least half his camp.
But while the Bible doesn’t minimize using your head in difficult circumstances, it is implicit throughout the account that Jacob’s actions would have proven futile apart from the ministries of God’s camp.
Jacob’s prayer in verses 9–12 is the first recorded prayer of Jacob and represents an advance in his spiritual growth. He includes within this prayer elements of invocation, confession, and petition and references to God’s word at the beginning and end.
His passionate confession of his unworthiness and lowliness:
And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’
I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.
Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children.
But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’ ”
This had not been characteristic of Jacob earlier. His newfound humility, like that of his wives before him, would now become the human ground for God’s blessing, just as it had been for them.
Jacob’s opening and concluding references to God’s promises were also implicit statements of faith in his word. And we need to see that when Jacob finished his prayer and engaged in more measures to control the situation, it wasn’t Jacob’s desperate measures that succeeded but his prayer!
His measures bore a desperate brilliance.
So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took a present for his brother Esau,
two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,
thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.
All in all, Jacob assembled more than 550 animals that he arranged into five groups of goats, sheep, camels (and some calves), cattle, and donkeys. The size and mixture of the gift was fit for a king.
And Jacob staged the gift for maximum impact, spacing the droves out so that Esau would have just enough time to admire the animals and interact with the servants before the next group arrived. Jacob then instructed his servants:
then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present sent to my lord Esau. And moreover, he is behind us.’ ”
So, when the 220 goats arrived, Esau heard the spiel and the concluding words, “he is behind us.” So, it was with the 220 bah-ing sheep and rams. And again, with the thirty camels. And again, with the fifty mooing cattle, and finally with the thirty loud donkeys.
and you shall say, ‘Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.’ ” For he thought, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.”
The scene became one of sheer night-time terror.
So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.
Was Jacob praying? Probably, though the text does not say.
Clearly, he was on the edge because he did a dangerous thing by fording the ravine of the fast-moving Jabbok to place his wives and children on the other side. It was dangerous enough in the daylight, but in the black of night, extremely dangerous. In the morning he would be the first to meet Esau.
Jacob’s Mortal Combat
Jacob’s Mortal Combat
It was the darkest night of Jacob’s life as he sat alone reflecting on the past and on what the sunlight might bring, alternately shivering in the mountain cold and trembling at the approach of Esau.
The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had.
And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.
Then his heart seized as a hand fastened onto him—a powerful hand. Jacob was in the mighty hold of someone who seemed intent on taking his life. Jacob could see nothing. The assailant was silent and nameless.
But Jacob, no pushover himself, rose mightily to the occasion. And that long night (six or seven hours?) became one of burning sweat with dripping hair and beard. There came brief periods of labored breathing, and then renewed fury, gouging, pulling, butting. And then more rage, more pain and smothering frustration.
Unknown to Jacob through most of that agonizing night, he was wrestling with a divine being. Hosea 12:4 is unmistakable in his identification: “He strove with the angel.” God was Jacob’s ultimate and intimate enemy. Jacob was wrestling with God.
Certainly, he didn’t see the wrestling for what it was—a parable of his entire life. Throughout the long account, Jacob’s life has been characterized as a grasping struggle. Jacob had wrestled with his brother, and then with his father, and then with his father-in-law, and now with God.
Jacob had always struggled with both man and God.
As the two wrestled, Jacob had no idea that he was in the grip of God’s relentless grace. Hours passed, and we read:
When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.
Did the pain produce an agonized cry? Jacob was reduced to a clinging doll, his disjointed leg dangling useless in the ruckus. But he hung on. His opponent had done it with a mere touch! A touch that dislocates suggests an opponent with superhuman power. Now maybe Jacob began to wonder at the source of his enemy.
As the story unfolds, this was a crippling grace from the hand of God. We know that God accommodated his almighty strength to that of Jacob as he wrestled with him in human form. Only later would Jacob begin to understand.
As the wrestlers became exhausted from their marathon match, they began to speak. The unknown attacker began:
Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
Jacob had already been given an intimation of the assailant’s intimation of the assailant’s supernaturalness by the effortless dislocation, and his concern to remain unknown was another hint of his supernatural origin. Later Scripture would record that no man can see God and live. Jacob sensed the divine. Here Jacob, sensing the character of his opponent, seized the opportunity and insisted on a blessing.
After all, he still is Jacob.
We know that the spirit of a man is not merely in the words he utters, but in the attitude in which he speaks. And here we discover Jacob’s heart-attitude in the God-given interpretation of the story provided us in Hosea 12:4: “He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor.”
It was not from proud dominance that Jacob asked for blessing, but with tears. His request came when he was at the end of himself, helpless. “I will not let you go unless you bless me” was a tear-choked plea.
In the context of the Bible, to disclose your name could be an act of self-disclosure, a revelation of your character, your deepest identity. So, the attacker asked the question:
And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”
Here it was a confession of guilt, “I’m a fraud. I’m a deceiver. I’m an ouster. I’m rightly named Jacob, because I cheated my brother twice!” This confession evoked amazing, transforming grace, because instead of merely blessing him, his attacker changed Jacob’s name, announcing his new character.
Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
The name Israel literally means “God fights” or “God strives.” But here the popular usage puts the emphasis on Jacob’s fighting or striving, “Israel, for you have striven with God and with men.”
Popular etymologies or usages like this employ loose wordplays on the sound of a word to express its significance. As Allen Ross says, “The name ‘God fights’ and the popular explanation ‘you fought and prevailed’ thus obtained a significance for future struggles.”
We must remember that Jacob fought in his weakness. The paradox continues to instruct us. The day of failure through power was over, and the day of success through weakness had begun.
Encouraged by his new name, Jacob was emboldened to ask:
Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him.
Such grace! Relentless grace—crippling grace—transforming grace—and now a gracious blessing.
At last Jacob realized that he had been wrestling with God, and his persistence turned to awe.
So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”
Jacob’s seeing God at daybreak suggests a dusky vision, dimly lit though face-to-face. Indeed, God withdrew at dawn to protect Jacob, because no man can see God’s face and live. So, the encounter ended as mysteriously as it had begun.
Now the sun shone brightly on Jacob. When Jacob had fled Canaan twenty years earlier, his flight was marked by an ominous sunset and darkness. But sunrise greeted him as he returned to Canaan.
The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
The bright morning sun revealed a stooped, bleeding, bruised man in tattered clothes, dark with soil and sweat, dragging a leg and grimacing with each step.
Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh.
God had left his permanent mark on him. All Jacob’s descendants were to remember this—so the traditional avoidance of eating the sinew around the hip socket of an animal.
This blessed man sported two new distinctives—a new name and a new crippling. And here is the point: “The new name cannot be separated from the new crippling, for the crippling is the substance of the name” (Brueggemann).
Jacob (now Israel) prevailed when he came to the end of himself. His weakness gave birth to strength. His defeat wrought victory. His end was his beginning.
Jacob’s life is the story of relentless grace—tenacious grace, contending grace, intrusive grace, renovating grace.
· Tenacious in that it would not let him go.
· Contending as it was always battling for his soul.
· Intrusive because it would not be shut out.
· Renovating because it gave him a new limp and a new name.
This is the God who has redeemed us. He wrestled Satan on the cross and won. He has given us new life. And now that we are his, he will not let us go. We must submit to him. We must understand with Luther:
Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing.
How blessed we are when we yield to God at the beginning of God’s call, the way Abraham and Joseph did. But so many of us are like Jacob. We struggle independently of the God whom we believe and love. We want to be part of his plan, but alas, we make our own plans—and we never truly succeed.
Then a crisis comes through which he lays his hand upon us (life becomes dislocated—out of joint), and we have an appalling sense of our own incompetence and weakness. That is the great hour—the hour of grace, because from there on our walk is never the same.
God may be wrestling with some of you this very day. He may be saying to you (clever, perceptive, capable as you are), “You have believed in me, but you have always manipulated your own life and made your own arrangements. My child, what is your name?”