Genesis 32.29-32-Jacob Survives Encounter with God and Crosses Over Penuel
Tuesday September 12, 2006
Genesis: Genesis 32:29-32-Jaocb Survives Encounter with God and Crosses Over Penuel
Lesson # 203
Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 32:24.
This evening we will continue with our studies of Genesis 32.
Thus far in our studies of this chapter, we have noted the following:
In the first part of Genesis 32:24 we saw Jacob alone in prayer prior to his encounter with Esau and entrance into the land of Canaan, which was in obedience to the Lord’s command.
Then, in the second half of Genesis 32:24 we saw Jacob wrestling the God-Man, the preincarnate Christ.
This wrestling match between God and Jacob is a “microcosm” or “symbolic” of Jacob’s struggles in life with men, which in reality were with God.
The wrestling match with Jacob did “not” teach any spiritual lessons to Jacob but rather the divine discipline that he underwent in the form of the fourteen years of hard labor for his deceitful uncle Laban taught Jacob many spiritual lessons, which are symbolized in the wrestling match with the Lord.
Also, in Genesis 32:24, we noted the significance of Jacob’s wrestling match with the Lord taking place at night, which is that it is a picture or symbolic of the divine discipline he underwent in the form of his fourteen years of hard labor for his deceitful uncle Laban.
Then, in Genesis 32:24, we noted the significance of the wrestling match ending at daybreak, which is that it symbolized or was a picture of Jacob no longer under divine discipline but rather experiencing fellowship with God.
We have also studied Genesis 32:25a and noted the significance of the Lord not prevailing over Jacob in their wrestling match.
The Lord did not prevail over Jacob in the sense that the Lord could not refuse Jacob’s prayer requests because they were according to His will and because Jacob persevered in prayer.
In Genesis 32:25b, we studied the significance of the Lord dislocating Jacob’s hip.
The dislocation of Jacob’s hip symbolized that by means of the fourteen years of hard labor for Laban, which constituted divine discipline, the Lord had succeeded in getting Jacob to stop trusting in his own power to solve his problems and to depend upon the power of God.
In Genesis 32:26, we saw the crippled Jacob clinging to the Lord and not letting Him go until the Lord blessed him.
Then on Sunday, we studied Genesis 32:27-28 and the significance of the Lord changing Jacob’s name to Israel.
This evening we study Genesis 32:29-32, which presents to us the record of Jacob naming the place of his wrestling match with the Lord “Peniel” and then crossing it.
Genesis 32:24, “Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”
Genesis 32:25, “When he (the Lord) saw that he (the Lord) had not prevailed against him (Jacob), he (the Lord) touched the socket of his (Jacob’s) thigh; so the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.”
Genesis 32:26, “Then he (the Lord) said, ‘Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.’ But he (Jacob) said, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’”
Genesis 32:27, “So he (the Lord) said to him (Jacob), ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’”
Genesis 32:28, “He said, ‘Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.’”
Genesis 32:29, “Then Jacob asked him and said, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And he blessed him there.”
Jacob asked the Lord what His name was because he could not fathom that he indeed wrestled with God and lived to tell about it.
In Genesis 32:30, Jacob names the place where he had the wrestling match with the Lord “Peniel,” because as he said, “I have seen God face to face and yet my life has been preserved.”
Therefore, Jacob inquired from the Lord about His identity because Jacob could not believe that he could have wrestled with God and lived to tell about it, it was beyond comprehension that he could have a wrestling match with the Creator.
The Lord’s response to Jacob’s question clearly indicates that Jacob ought to have known who it was who had wrestled with him and spoke to him since in Genesis 32:28, we see that the Lord clearly identifies Himself as Elohim, “God.”
Genesis 32:28, “He said, ‘Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.’”
Hosea 12:5 identifies the Wrestler as being Yahweh, “the Lord,” which is the covenant keeping name of God.
Hosea 12:3, “In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his maturity he contended with God.”
Hosea 12:4-5, “Yes, he wrestled with the angel and prevailed; He wept and sought His favor. He found Him at Bethel and there He spoke with us, even the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD is His name.”
Yahweh (hw *hy+), “Lord” is the personal covenant name of God emphasizing the “immanency” of God where the Lord intervened in the life of Jacob.
Genesis 32:29, “Then Jacob asked him and said, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And he blessed him there.”
The statement “He (the Lord) blessed him (Jacob)” is “not” a reference to a blessing since the changing of Jacob’s name to Israel and the wrestling match itself constituted a blessing.
Rather the statement “He (the Lord) blessed him (Jacob)” denotes the Lord saying farewell to Jacob and no longer making Himself visible to Jacob in human form.
Genesis 32:30, “So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, ‘I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.’”
“Peniel” is the proper noun peni’el (la@yn!P+) (pen-ee-ale), which means, “face of God” and is an abbreviated form of “I have seen God face to face.”
Bruce K. Waltke, writes, “The location of the site is uncertain, but a good case has been made for modern Tulul edh-Dhahab, which stands on the bank of Jabbok, four miles east of Succoth” (Genesis, A Commentary, page 447, Zondervan).
Although, Jacob did not get a definitive answer from the Lord as to His name, nonetheless, Jacob definitively identifies the unidentified man as Elohim, “God” and to memorialize this he names the place where the wrestling match took place as “Peniel.”
The expression “face to face” (panim `el-panim) is used only of direct encounters by human beings with deity.
The believer will have a face to face encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ as well at physical death when he will absent from the body but face to face with the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5:8, “we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home (pros) face to face with the Lord.”
Bruce K. Waltke, “God says explicitly to Moses: ‘No one may see me and live’ (Ex. 33:20). Moses’ face-to-face meeting is equated with ‘he sees the form of the Lord’ (Num. 12:8). In the man Jacob sees a form of the Lord. The intensity of meeting his messenger is equivalent to meeting God face to face. The encounter is both terrifying and intimate” (Genesis, A Commentary, page 447, Zondervan).
The reason why Jacob could wrestle the Lord and live to tell about it is that the Son of God “condescended” to Jacob.
The fact that the Son of God “condescended” means that He descended to a less formal or dignified level, namely He appeared as a human being and waived the privileges of His rank as God and assumed equality with Jacob by manifesting Himself as a human being in order to communicate with Jacob.
The Son of God condescended two thousand years ago in Bethlehem when He added to His deity a true, sinless human nature, thus becoming permanently, the God-Man.
John 1:14, “And the Word (Son of God) became flesh (a Man), and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only uniquely born One from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The fact that the Son of God did not destroy Jacob while wrestling with him was a manifestation of His gentleness and gentleness by way of definition is power held in reserve.
At any time, the Son of God could have body slammed Jacob through the earth, but did not because He is gentle, His power was held in reserve.
The fact that Jacob survives this encounter with God would reassure him since if he could survive this encounter with the Lord, the Creator and Sovereign ruler of creation, then it follows that he will be rescued in his encounter with his twin brother Esau and should therefore not fear Esau.
The Lord had chosen Jacob to be the progenitor, the father of the nation of Israel, through whom He, the Lord would come into the world not only in the form of man but as the very Son of Man.
Jacob’s encounter with Esau presented the greatest opposition to the accomplishment of the mission God had given him.
If Esau were victorious over Jacob, then all of God’s plans and promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the promise of salvation to the entire world would be defeated and the world would never have a Savior.
The Lord wanted Jacob to have assurance concerning the importance of the mission that the Lord had given him to carry on the line of Christ and to be the father of the nation of Israel and that the Lord would not allow anyone, not even Esau to stop this mission from being accomplished.
Genesis 32:31, “Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh.”
The sun rising was symbolic of Jacob’s spiritual condition at this time and symbolized that Jacob no longer was under divine discipline but rather experiencing fellowship with God.
The rising sun suggests that Jacob is living now according to the standards of God’s holiness, which is love and he is living in obedience to the Word of God and as a result is experiencing fellowship with God.
The fact that the wrestling match took place at night is a picture or symbolic of the divine discipline he underwent in the form of his fourteen years of hard labor for his deceitful uncle Laban.
Whereas the daybreak Genesis 32:26 symbolizes or is a picture of Jacob no longer under divine discipline but rather experiencing fellowship with God, which is called by the apostle John in 1 John 1:5-10 as “walking in the light.”
The name “Penuel” (la@WnP+) (pen-oo-ale) is a variant of “Peniel.”
As we have seen the Lord dislocated Jacob’s hip with just a touch during the wrestling match.
The dislocation of Jacob’s hip symbolized that by means of the fourteen years of hard labor for Laban, which constituted divine discipline, the Lord had succeeded in getting Jacob to stop trusting in his own power to solve his problems and to depend upon the power of God.
Therefore, the dislocation of Jacob’s hip during this wrestling match symbolizes what the Lord had accomplished in Jacob through the divine discipline in the form of fourteen years of hard labor for Laban, which was to demonstrate to Jacob his own impotence and God’s omnipotence.
During the fourteen years of hard labor for Laban, the Lord had broken Jacob’s confidence in his own strength and got him to acknowledge that God was all powerful and all sufficient and that he was helpless and hopeless and totally and completely dependent upon God.
The divine discipline in the form of fourteen years of hard labor for his uncle Laban humbled Jacob so that he acknowledged his own human weakness or impotence so as to experience the power of God in life and his right to appropriate that power by prayer and claiming the divine promises given to him.
2 Corinthians 12:9, “And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”
2 Corinthians 12:10, “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults (people testing), with distresses (thought testing), with persecutions (system testing), with difficulties (disaster testing), for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Therefore, the dislocation of Jacob’s hip was symbolic of the Lord breaking Jacob’s confidence in his own strength and ability to deal with problems with people.
The dislocation of Jacob’s hip would be a perpetual reminder or memorial to Jacob to not depend upon his own power and ability but rather to depend and rely upon the power of God to deal with problems with people and adversities in life.
The dislocation of Jacob’s hip is also a reminder to us here in the church age to never depend upon our own human power to solve our problems in adversity with people and circumstances but rather to depend upon the power of God, which is resident in the Word of God and our union and identification with Christ.
The Lord dislocating Jacob’s hip resulting in a limp would be a visual illustration to everyone who knew Jacob that the Lord had changed his walk not only physically but more importantly spiritually.
Jacob is no longer self-sufficient but rather he is now totally dependent upon the all sufficiency of God.
Genesis 32:32, “Therefore, to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip which is on the socket of the thigh, because he touched the socket of Jacob's thigh in the sinew of the hip.”
The expression “sons of Israel” is used here for the first time in the Bible and is a designation for the nation of Israel in Moses’ day and is not simply a designation for Jacob’s sons.
Moses informs the reader that the Israelites in his day made it a rule not to eat the sciatic muscle of slaughtered animals as a reminder to them of this encounter that Jacob had with the Lord.
“Sinew” is the noun gidh (dyG!) (gheed), which refers to the sciatic nerve, i.e. the central nerve of the hip region.
They were Israelites and not Jacobites, because God touched Jacob and changed His name, and which name was reflective of his spiritual character and walk with God.
This dietary restriction was never imposed upon them by God but was instituted by Israel since they recognized the importance of what Jacob experienced at Peniel.
It would be a reminder to the nation of Israel that when Jacob became weak and was disabled, Israel emerged as victorious.
This dietary restriction would be a reminder to Israel to not have confidence in their own strength and ability to deal with problems with other nations.
It would be a perpetual reminder or memorial to not depend upon their own power and ability but rather to depend and rely upon the power of God to deal with problems with other nations.
This dietary restriction would be a reminder to the nation of Israel to never depend upon their own human power to solve their problems with other nations but rather to depend upon the power of God.