1 Next morning Laban rose early and, after kissing his sons and daughters, he blessed them and left for home.
2 As for Jacob, he went on his way and met Angels of God.
3 On seeing them Jacob exclaimed, “This is God’s camp,” and he named the place Mahanaim.
4 And going on his way, he sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.
Jacob’s struggle with God
5 Jacob sent Esau this message, “I have been staying with Laban until now.
6 I have oxen, asses, flocks, men-servants and maidservants. I have sent to tell you this, my lord, that you may receive me kindly.”
7 The messenger returned and said to Jacob, “We went to your brother Esau and he is already coming to meet you with four hundred men.”
8 Jacob was full of fear and dis-tressed. He then divided the people with him and the flocks, the herds and camels into two camps,
9 thinking, “If Esau attacks one camp, the other will escape.”
10 And Jacob said, “God of my father Abraham and my father Isaac, Yahweh, who said to me: ‘Return to your country, to your father’s land, and I will make you prosper,’
11 I am unworthy of the kindness and faithfulness you have shown to me, for with only my staff I crossed the Jordan and now I have enough to form two com panies.
12 Deliver me from the hands of my brother Esau for I am afraid lest he come and kill us all, even the mothers and their children.
13 Yet it was you who said: I will be good to you and make your descendants like the sand on the seashore, so many that they cannot be counted.” 13 So Jacob spent the night there.
14 Then he took what he had with him, a present for his brother Esau:
15 two hundred she-goats, and twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,
16 thirty camels in milk and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty she-asses and ten male donkeys.
17 He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, “Go ahead of me and leave a space between each herd.”
18 He instructed the leader, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong? And where are you going? Who is the owner of the animals you are driving?’
19 Then you shall say: They belong to your servant Jacob. It is a present he is sending to my lord Esau. He him self is coming along behind us!”
20 Jacob ordered the second and third servants and all who were following the herds in the same way, “That is what you shall say to Esau when you meet him:
21 Your servant Jacob is following!” For he thought to himself, “I may pacify him with the present I sent ahead, so that when I meet him face to face, he may perhaps receive me kindly.”
22 So the present went ahead of him, but he himself spent that night in the camp.
23 That same night Jacob got up and taking his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons, crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
24 He took them and sent them across the stream and likewise everything he had.
25 And Jacob was left alone. Then a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
26 When the man saw that he could not get the better of Jacob, he struck him in the socket of his hip and dislocated it as he wrestled with him
27 The man said, “Let me go, for day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go until you have given me your blessing.”
28 The man then said, “What is your name?” “Ja cob” was the reply.
29 He answered, “You will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have been strong-with-God as you have been with men and have prevailed.”
30 Then Jacob asked him, “What is your name?” He answered, “Why do you ask my name?” And he blessed him there.
31 So Jacob called the place Penuel, saying, “I have seen God face to face and survived.”
32 The sun rose as he passed through Penuel, limping because of his hip.
33 That is why to this day the Israelites do not eat the sciatic nerve which is in the hip socket because the sciatic nerve in Jacob’s hip had been touched.
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Comments Genesis, Chapter 32
• 32.1 God’s blessings are with the fugitive Jacob. He works untiringly and after twenty years he has two wives, many children and countless possessions. It is at this time that he returns to his homeland and gets ready to face Esau, his brother and rival. Jacob was full of fear and distressed. In his anguish Jacob prays to God, precisely to remind him of his promise and his “faithfulness,” that is to say, all that God has done for him and his fathers. God responds to him in his own mysterious way in the vision at night.
• 22. Then a man wrestled with him until daybreak. It is a struggle between God and Jacob. God accepts defeat and confirms his blessing on Jacob.
Occasionally we discover ourselves better in sleep than when we are awake. This is what happens with Jacob in his night struggle with God. He understands that his labors and trials have been more than a confrontation with society and men; they have been a wrestling with God. God promises success but will not grant it until Jacob exhausts all his strength.
Because Jacob understands better the reason for so many trials and delays, he personally addresses the one who blocks his way and who, alone, can change Esau’s disposition. Jacob becomes strong against God; he does not ask for a favor, a little help, but instead he demands that he keep his promises: I will not let you go until you have given me your blessing.
Jacob’s prayer does not show the resigned attitude characteristic of a believer, according to some. Praying does not consist only in accepting God’s will as a thing written in advance in heaven, or in asking for the strength to accept it: praying consists also in putting pressure on God, confident in his promises and knowing that he listens to us. If we could not have some part in the divine decisions concerning us and the governing of the world, the Covenant would be a fraud.
At the crossroads of life, pressed between the possibilities of becoming stagnant or surpassing himself, the believer knows that God will bring him beyond himself if he asks for it with faith.
He dislocated his hip. Jacob faces God when, after a long exile, he wants to force his entrance into the Promised Land. In fact, to enter this Land is simply to enter into the mystery of God who wants to share his life with us, and this is impossible for the person who feels strong, sure of himself and of his own ways. Therefore, when we are about to enter, God tests us. Whatever blow, or misfortune or crisis we may be going through, it leaves us wounded and like strangers in this world. Jacob en ters the Promised Land with a limp as Jesus also keeps the Land for those who weep, those who thirst for justice, those who are not violent.
Here again, as in many other ancient narratives of the Bible, modern discoveries throw fresh light on the text which allows us perhaps to have a different reading, apparently more earthy, and yet just as rich in a spiritual way. Recent excavations in this territory show us that the God of Penuel was responsible for putting people on the right road, and that his prophet Balaam (see Num 23:25) made known his threats. In fact the more ancient stories of Jacob lead us to believe that God had corrected him (Hos 12:4): the meaning of his name Ishrael was given: “corrected by God.” But later this name changed to Israel, for in central Palestine people had difficulty in pronouncing the sound “sh” (see Jdg 12:6). The interpretation “strong against God” was much more satisfactory for national pride. It may be assumed that in the primitive tradition, when Jacob returned, proud of his wives, of his sons and of all he had acquired in a more or less honest way, God stopped him, threatened him and wounded him. He needed to be humbled to receive the blessings promised to his ancestors.
After Jacob’s victory, events must be subject to God’s plans. Esau does not oppose Jacob’s return to the land of his ancestors.