Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Genesis 32:1

The Messengers to Esau

v. 1. And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him, literally, they came up with him, joined him. Their protection had shielded him on Mount Gilead, and the meeting with them at this time gave him the assurance of their further assistance.

v. 2. And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God’s host; and he called the name of that place Mahanaim (double host). He thus commemorated in the name of the place where he was shown this vision the fact that the army of the Lord joined his own little band for the sake of protection. The camp of the angels may have been invisible to all eyes but his own, but he had received his encouragement nevertheless, and went his way with greater cheer.

v. 3. And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau, his brother, unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom. As Esau’s family grew, he gradually loosened the bonds which tied him to the home of his parents, since he felt that he really had no part in the patriarchal blessing. He made the wilderness of Zin, with Mount Hor, his home, the level portion of which was known as the fields of Seir.

v. 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;

v. 5. and I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and men-servants, and women-servants; and I have sent to tell my lord that I may find grace in thy sight. This message with its humble, almost abject submissiveness was intended to conciliate Esau; it was purposely held like the report of a subordinate to his superior officer, otherwise the details may well have been omitted.

v. 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. The return of Jacob’s messengers without a friendly greeting was intended by Esau to make an ominous impression. As a princely sheik of the desert he came with his retainers, his sons, his servants, and other adherents, with whose aid he was gradually driving out the Horites from the land of Seir. If nothing else, Esau wanted to have his brother feel his superior power, for this he valued more highly than the promise of a religious dominion in the dim and distant future.

v. 7. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. Rebekah, who had not been informed as to a change of mind in Esau, had not called her favorite son back, nor had Esau given any sign that he would now easily be reconciled. Even the believers still have their weak flesh to contend with, and this is very easily discouraged. And he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands;

v. 8. and said, If Esau come to the one company, and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape. This division of the entire caravan into two companies was a precaution intended to save at least one half of his possessions. It shows that Jacob, although in an advanced state of panic, had not lost his natural cunning, overhasty and impatient though it was. The actual experience of danger often causes even firm Christians to forget their simple trust in the Lord’s almighty power for a while.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Gen 32:1

And Jacob (after Laban’s departure) went on his way (from Galeed and Mizpah, in a southerly direction towards the Jabbok), and the angels of Godliterally, the messengers of Elohim, not chance travelers who informed him of Esau’s being in the vicinity (Abarbanel), but angels (cf. Psa 104:4)met him. Not necessarily came in an opposite direction, fuerunt ei obviam (Vulgate), but simply fell in with him, lighted on him as in Gen 28:11, (LXX.), forgathered with him (Scottish); but whether this was in a waking vision (Kurtz, Keil, Inglis) or a midnight dream (Hengstenberg) is uncertain, though-the two former visions enjoyed by Jacob were at night (cf. Gen 28:12; Gen 31:10). Cajetan, approved by Pererius, translating “in him,” makes it appear that the vision was purely subjective, non fuisse visionem corporalem, sed internam: the clause interpolated by the LXX; , seems rather to point to an objective manifestation. The appearance of this invisible host may have been designed to celebrate Jacob’s triumph over Laban, as after Christ’s victory over Satan in the wilderness angels came and ministered unto him (Rupertus, Wordsworth), or to remind him that he owed his deliverance to Divine interposition (Calvin, Bush, Lange), but was more probably intended to assure him of protection in his approaching interview with Esau (Josephus, Chrysostom, Rosenmller, Keil, Murphy, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’), and perhaps also to give him welcome in returning home again to Canaan (Kurtz), if not in addition to suggest that his descendants would require to fight for their inheritance (Kalisch).

Gen 32:2

And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God’s host:Mahaneh Elohim; i.e. the army (cf. Gen 1:9; Exo 14:24) or camp (1Sa 14:15; Psa 27:3) of God, as opposed to the Mahanoth, or bands of Jacob himself (vide Gen 32:7, Gen 32:10)and he called the name of that place Manahan.i.e. Two armies or camps, from the root decline or bend, and hence to fix oneself down or encamp; meaning either a multitudinous host, reading the dual for a plural (Malvenda), or two bands of angels, one before, welcoming him to Canaan, and another behind, conducting him from Mesopotamia (Jarchi and others), or one on either side to typify the completeness of his protection, as in Psa 34:8 (Calvin, Bush, Gerlach, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’), or, as the best expositors interpret, his own company and the heavenly host (Abort Ezra, Clericus, Dathe, Keil, Lange, Rosenmller, Kalisch, Murphy). Mahanaim, afterwards a distinguished city in the territory of Gad (Jos 13:26), and frequently referred to in subsequent Scripture (2Sa 2:8; 2Sa 17:24; 27; 2Sa 19:32; 1Ki 4:14), as well as mentioned by Josephus (‘Ant.’ 7. 9, 8), as a strong and beautiful city, has been identified with Mahneh, a deserted ruin six or seven miles north-west by north of Ajlun (Mount Gilead), and about twenty miles from the Jabbok; but the narrative appears to say that Mahanaim lay not north of Ga-leed, but between that place and Jabbok. Hence Porter suggests Gerasa, the most splendid ruin east of the Jordan, and bordering on the Jabbok, as occupying the site of Mahanaim.

Gen 32:3

And Jacob sent messengers (with the messengers of Jacob, the messengers of Elohim form a contrast which can scarcely have been accidental) before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir,vide on Gen 14:6. Seir, nearly equivalent in force to Esau (Ewald), and meaning the rough or bristling mountain (Gesenius), was originally occupied by the Horites, but afterwards became the seat of Esau and his descendants (Deu 2:4; 2Ch 20:10), though as yet Esau had not withdrawn from Canaan (Gen 36:5-8)the country (literally, plain or level tract = Padan (male Hoses Gen 12:13) of Edom, as it was afterwards called.

Gen 32:4, Gen 32:5

And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye speak unto my lord Esau; Thy servant Jacob saith thus;the expression “my lord “may have been designed to intimate to Esau that he (Jacob) did not intend to assert that superiority or precedency which had been assigned him by Isaac’s blessing (Gen 27:29), at least so far as to claim a share in Isaac’s wealth (Calvin, Bush, Gerlach), but was probably due chiefly to the extreme courtesy of the East (Gerlach), or to a desire to conciliate his brother (Keil), or to a feeling of personal contrition for his misbehavior towards Esau (Kalisch), and perhaps also to a secret apprehension of danger from Esau’s approach (Alford, Inglis)I have sojourned with Laban, and stayedthe fut. Kal. of occurring only here, is a contraction for , like for (Psa 104:29; vide Gesenius, 68, 2)there until now: and I have (literally, there are to me, so that I stand in need of no further wealth from either thee or Isaac) oxen, and asses, flocks, and menservants, and women servants:cf. Gen 12:16 (Abraham); Gen 26:13, Gen 26:14 (Isaac)and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight (cf. Gen 33:8, Gen 33:15; Gen 39:4; and vide Gen 6:8; Gen 18:3).

Gen 32:6

And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he cometh to meet thee (vide Gen 33:1), and four hundred men with him. That Esau was attended by 400 armed followers was a proof that he had grown to be a powerful chieftain. If the hypothesis be admissible that he had already begun to live by the sword (Gen 27:40), and was now invading the territory of the Horites, which he afterwards occupied (Delitzsch, Keil, Kurtz), it will serve to explain his appearance in the land of Seir, while as yet he had not finally retired from Canaan. That he came with such a formidable force to meet his brother has been set down to personal vanity, or a desire to show how powerful a prince he had become (Lyra, Menochius); to fraternal kindness, which prompted him to do honor to his brother (Poole, Calvin, Clarke), to a distinctly hostile intention (Willet, Ainsworth, Candlish), at least if circumstances should seem to call for vengeance (Keil), though it is probable that Esau’s mind, on first hearing of his brother’s nearness, was simply excited, and “in that wavering state which the slightest incident might soothe into good will, or rouse into vengeance” (Murphy).

Gen 32:7, Gen 32:8

Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed:literally, it was narrow to him; i.e. he was perplexed. Clearly the impression left on Jacob’s mind by the report of his ambassadors was that he had nothing to expect but hostilityand he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands;according to Gerlach, caravans are frequently divided thus in the present day, and for the same reason as Jacob assignsAnd said, If Esau come to the one company, and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape. It is easy to blame Jacob for want of faith in not trusting to God instead of resorting to his own devices (Candlish), but his behavior in the circumstances evinced great self-possession, non ita expavefactum fuisse Jacob quin res suns eomponeret (Calvin), considerable prudence (Lange), if not exalted chivalry (Candlish), a peaceful disposition which did not wish vim armata repellere (Rosenmller), and a truly-religious spirit (‘Speaker’s Commentary’), since in his terror he betakes himself to prayer.

Gen 32:9-12

And Jacob said,the combined beauty and power, humility and boldness, simplicity and sublimity, brevity and comprehensiveness of this prayer, of which Kalisch somewhat hypercritically complains that it ought to have been offered before resorting to the preceding precautions, has been universally recognizedO God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the LordJacob’s invocation is addressed not to Deity in general, but to the living personal Elohim who had taken his fathers Abraham and Isaac into covenant, i.e. to Jehovah who had enriched them with promises of which he was the heir, and who had specially appeared unto himself (cf. Gen 28:13; Gen 31:3, Gen 31:13)which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee:here was a clear indication that Jacob had in faith both obeyed the command and embraced the promise made known to him in HaranI am not worthy of the least of (literally, I am less than) all the mercies, and (of) all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant;the profound humility which these words breathe is a sure indication that the character of Jacob had either undergone a great inward transformation, if that was not experienced twenty years before at Bethel, or had shaken off the moral and spiritual lethargy under which he too manifestly labored while in the service of Labanfor with my staff (i.e. possessing nothing but my staff) I passed over this Jordan (the Jabbok was situated near, indeed is a tributary of the Jordan); and now I am become two bands (or Macha-noth). Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau (thus passing from thanksgiving to direct petition, brief, explicit, and fervent): for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me (i.e. my whole clan, as Ishmael, Israel, Edom signify not individuals, but races), and the mother with the children. Literally, mother upon the children, a proverbial expression for unsparing cruelty (Rosenmller, Keil), or complete extirpation (Kalisch), taken from the idea of destroying a bird while sitting upon its young (cf. Hos 10:14). And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good,literally, doing good, I will do good to thee (vide Gen 28:13). Jacob here pleads the Divine promises at Bethel (Gen 28:13-15) and at Haran (Gen 31:3), as an argument why Jehovah should extend to him protection against Esauconduct at which Tuch is scandalized as “somewhat inaptly reminding God of his commands and promises, and calling upon him to keep his word; but just this is what God expects his people to do (Isa 43:26), and according to Scripture the Divine promise is always the petitioner’s best warrantand make thy seed as the sand of the sea,this was the sense, without the ipsissima verb? of the Bethel promise, which likened Jacob’s descendants to the dust upon the ground, as Abraham’s seed had previously been compared to the dust of the earth (Gen 13:16), the stars of heaven (Gen 15:5), and the sand upon the sea-shore (Gen 22:17)which cannot be numbered for multitude.

Gen 32:13

And he lodged there that same night; and tooknot by random, but after careful selection; separavit (Vulgate)of that which came to his handnot of those things which were in his hand, }n e!feren (LXX.), such as he had (Ainsworth), quae in mann erant (Rosenmller), but of such things as had come into his hand, i.e. as he had acquired (Keil, Alford, ‘Speaker’s Commentary,’ Inglis)a present (Minchah; used in Gen 4:3, Gen 4:4, Gen 4:5, as a sacrifice to Jehovah, q.v.) for Esau his brother.

Gen 32:14, Gen 32:15

Two hundred she goats, and twenty he goats, two hundred ewes, and twenty rams, thirty milch camels (specially valuable in the East on account of their milk, which was peculiarly sweet and wholesome) with their colts, forty kine, and ten hulls, twenty she asses, and ten foals. The selection was in harmony witch the general possessions of nomads (cf. Job 1:3; Job 42:12), and the proportion of male to female animals was arranged according to what the experience of the best ancient authorities has shown to be necessary for the purposes of breeding (Rosenmller, Keil, Kalisch).

Gen 32:16

And he delivered them into the Band of his servants, every drove by themselves; and said unto his servants, Passover (the river Jabbok) before me, and put a space (literally, a breathing-place) betwixt drove and droveas is still the manner with Oriental shepherds.

Gen 32:17-20

And he commanded the foremost, saying (with admirable tact and prudence), When Esau my brother meeteth thee, and asketh thee, saying, Whose art thou? and whither goest thou? and whose are these before thee! then thou shalt say, They be thy servant Jacob’s; it is a present sent unto my lord Esau: and, behold, also he (Jacob) is behind us. 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 himliterally, in your finding of him. And say ye (literally, and ye shall say) moreover, Behold, thy servant Jacob is Behind us” for he thought that this would convince Esau that he Went to ‘meet him with complete confidence, and without apprehension” (Kalisch)for he said (the historian adds the motive which explained Jacob’s singular behavior), I will appease him (literally, I will cover his face, meaning I will prevent him from seeing my past offences, i.e. I will turn away his anger or pacify him, as in Pro 16:14) with the present that goeth before me,literally, going before my face. So Abigail appeased David with a present (1Sa 25:18-32)and afterward I will see his face; peradventure he will accept of meliterally, lift up my face; a proverbial expression for granting a favorable reception (cf. Gen 19:21; Job 42:8). “Jacob did not miscalculate the influence of his princely offerings, and I verily believe there is not an emeer or sheikh in all Gilead at this day who would not be appeased by such presents; and from my personal knowledge of Orientals, I should say that Jacob need not have been in such great terror, following in their rear. Far less will now ‘make room,’ as Solomon says, for any offender, however atrocious, and bring him before great men with acceptance”.

Gen 32:21-23

So (literally, and) went the present over Before him: and himself lodged that night in the company. And he rose up that night,i.e. some time before daybreak (vide Gen 32:24) and took his two wives, and him two women servants (Bilhah and Zilpah), and his eleven sons (Dinah being not mentioned in accordance with the common usage of the Bible), and passed over the fordthe word signifies a place of passing over. Tristram speaks of the strong current reaching the horses girths at the ford crossed by himself and twenty horsemenJabbok. Jabbok, from bakak, to empty, to pour forth (Kalisch), or from abak, to struggle (Keil), may have been so named either from the natural appearance of the river, or, as is more probable, by prolepsis from the wrestling which took place upon its banks. It is now called the Wady Zerka, or Blue River, which flows into the Jordan, nearly opposite Shechem, and midway between the Lake Tiberias and the Dead Sea. The stream is rapid, and often Completely hidden by the dense mass of oleander which fringes its banks. And he took them, and sent them (literally, caused them to pass) over the brook, and sent over that he hadhimself remaining on the north side (Delitzsch, Keil, Kurtz, Murphy, Gerlach, Wordsworth, Alford), although, having once crossed the stream (Gen 32:22), it is not perfectly apparent that he recrossed, which has led some to argue that the wrestling occurred on the south of the river (Knobel, Rosenmller, Lange, Kalisch).

HOMILETICS

Gen 32:1-23

Mahanaim, or preparing for Esau.

I. THE ANGELIC APPARITION.

1. The time when it occurred.

(1) After Jacob had concluded a covenant of peace with Laban. Celestial visitations of a peaceful and encouraging character are never vouchsafed to those who are living in a state of enmity with their fellow-men. The troubled sea reflects not the shining face of heaven, and neither does the wrathful soul invite approaches of God.

(2) When Jacob was proceeding on his way to Canaan. The road which Jacob now pursued was the path of duty, inasmuch as it had been prescribed by God, and led to the covenant inheritance; and only then need the saints expect to meet with either God or his angels, when they are walking in the way of his commandments, and making for the better country, even an heavenly.

2. The impression which it made. Whether completely surrounding him, or divided into two companies, one on either side of him, Jacob’s angelic visitors, from their number, their orderly array, their military dispositions, assumed the appearance of a heavenly army lying encamped over against His own; and the sight of the two companies immediately suggested the ejaculation, “This is God’s host,” and caused him to name the place Mahanaim.

3. The purpose which it served. For an enumeration of the different ends which this sublime vision is supposed to have been intended to subserve the Exposition may be consulted. The greatest probability attaches to that which regards it as having been designed to prepare Jacob for his rapidly-approaching interview with Esau. It was fitted to remind him of the heavenly reinforcements that are always at hand to succor saints in their extremities (cf. 2Ki 6:17; Psa 34:6; Zec 9:8; Heb 1:14).

II. THE FRIENDLY EMBASSY.

1. The dispatch of the messengers.

(1) Their destinationto Mount Seir, to Esau;

(2) their instructionsto inform Esau of Jacob’s prosperous estate and immediate return;

(3) their designto deprecate the wrath of Esau, and find grace for Jacob in his sight.

2. The return of the messengers.

(1) Their alarming reportthat Esau was on the way with 400 men;

(2) the terror it producedJacob was greatly afraid and distressed;

(3) the acts to which it ledstratagem, supplication, conciliation.

III. THE SUDDEN STRATAGEM. Jacob divided the people that were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two bands.

1. An evidence of Jacob’s self-possession. The fear inspired by Esau’s approach had not been so great as to make him lose command of his faculties. Men that have God upon their side should not allow themselves to be thrown by evil tidings into excessive trepidation (Psa 27:1-3; Rom 8:31).

2. A proof of Jacob’s prudence. The division of his company into two bands afforded to one at least of the portions a chance of escaping the sword of Esau. Though contrary to the Divine word to resist evil, it is not wrong to use all lawful endeavors to avoid it.

3. A testimony to Jacob’s chivalry. In a time of danger he thinks of the safety of others, of the women and children, rather than of himself.

4. A sign of Jacob’s meekness. He contemplates not armed resistance to the onset of his infuriated brother, but prepares by peaceful means to elude at least the full force of his attack.

IV. THE EARNEST PRAYER. Characterized by

1. Lofty faith. Jacob addresses himself to God as to a living personality, and not as to an impersonal force; to the God of the covenant,”O God of my father Abraham,” &c.,and not simply to God in the abstract, as the inscrutable power that presides over men and things, and bases his appeal upon the promises which God in virtue of that covenant had extended to himself.

2. Profound humility. He not only acknowledges the Divine hand in his remarkable prosperity, which is always difficult for the proud spirit of the worldling to do, but he distinctly describes “all the mercies” he has received to the pure, unmerited grace of God, declaring himself to be utterly less than the least of them. Language such as this is either impious hypocrisy or lowly humility.

3. Beautiful simplicity. Plain, direct, artless, and confiding, it is such a prayer as a loving child might breathe into a mother’s ear when driven by impending danger to seek shelter in her bosom:”Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of Esau my brother: for I fear him.”

V. THE CONCILIATORY PRESENT. “A man’s gift maketh room for him,” says Solomon. (Pro 18:16); and again, “A gift in secret pacifieth anger, and a rewared in the bosom strong wrath” (Pro 21:14). The gift of Jacob to his brother was

1. Handsomely prepared. It was munificently and generously selected from the best of the flocks and herds in his possession.

2. Skillfully arranged. The sheep, goats, camels, asses, kine that composed it were drawn up in a series of droves, which were dispatched in succession under the care of as many drivers.

3. Promptly dispatched. The measures just recited were adopted on the very day that Jacob’s messengers returned, and the several droves dispatched upon their journey ere the night fell.

4. Peacefully designed. They were meant to appease the wrath of Esau.

Lessons:

1. The ministry of angels.

2. The courage inspired by true religion.

3. The value of prayer.

4. The use of a present.

HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD

Gen 32:1, Gen 32:2

Divine protection.

The pilgrim on his way is met by the angels of God. They are two hosts”Mahanaim,” that is, twofold defense, before and behind. There was fear in the man, but there was trust and prayer. He saw the objective vision, but the inward preparation of heart enabled him to see it. On our way we may reckon on supernatural protectionprotection for ourselves, protection for those who are Divinely appointed to be with us. The double host is an emblem of that angelic guardianship which we are told (Psa 34:1-22, and Psa 91:1-16.) “encampeth round about them that fear the Lord, and delivereth them,” “keepeth them in all their ways.”R.

Gen 32:3-8

Faith and fellowship.

Jacob’s preparation against danger betokened his sense of duty to do his utmost under the circumstances, and his sense of past errors and ill desert towards his brother. There is an exercise of our own judgment in times of distress and extremity which is quite consistent with dependence upon God.R.

Gen 32:9-12

Jacob’s prayer.

1. It was the prayer of humility.

2. Of faithfaith in a covenant God, faith in him who had already revealed himself, faith in promises made to the individual as well as to God’s people generally, faith founded on experience of the past, faith which has been mingled with obedience, and therefore lays hold of Divine righteousness. He has commanded me to return; I am in the way of his commandments. Faith in the great purpose of God and his kingdom: “I will make thy seed as the sand of the sea,” &c. So Luther, in his sense of personal weakness in a troubled world, cried, “The Lord must save his own Church.”

3. It was the prayer of gratitude. “I was alone; I am now two bands;“ “not worthy of the least of thy mercies,” &c; “yet abundantly blessed.”R.

Gen 32:13-23

The crisis at hand.

Jacob understood the human heart.

I. KINDNESS WILL WORK WONDERS. “I will appease him with the present that goeth before me, and afterward I will see his face.” It gave Esau time to think of an altered state of things, a changed brother, and his own brotherly affection, not entirely destroyed.

II. IMPORTUNITY IN DOING GOOD. The repeated strokes upon the iron changes its nature. We may learn a lesson from Jacob to prepare human hearts for the reception of the gospel by the same importunity. Kind deeds and kind words will often open the way for a more direct face-to-face pleading for God.

III. EXPERIENCE SANCTIFIES. The trials of Jacob’s life were working a deeper and more loving wisdomworking out the more selfish craft, and transmuting the natural features of a character, far from pure and simple at first, into such as blended more really with the work of grace. So in the course of providence family cares and anxieties deliver us from lower thoughts, or may do so, if we serve God, and help us to walk steadfastly in the way of faith.

IV. THE TRUE LOVE PROVIDES FOR ITS OBJECTS. The shepherd with his flocks, and family, with his little bands of precious ones, fearing for them, and yet working for them, and putting them before him in the hands of God, is a type of the great Shepherd of the sheep, who was “not ashamed to call them brethren;” and saying, as he stood in their midst,partaker of their infirmities, representative of their wants and sorrows, guardian of their safety,”I will put my trust in him. Behold I and the children which God hath given me” (Heb 2:13).

V. THE TWO WORLDS. If Esau be taken as a type of the kingdoms of this world threatening the kingdom of God, Jacob represents the little flock to whom the promise of victory and peace has been given. The true mediator must be left alone by the ford Jabbok. The place of his intercession and prevailing is where none of the people is with him, can be with him.R.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Gen 32:1. The angels of God, &c. When Jacob embarked in this enterprize, and left Canaan, God was pleased to encourage him by a vision of angels, and by the assurance of his protection: and now that he was returning, happily escaped from Laban, but with good reason afraid of Esau, another vision of the celestial messengers is presented to him. From the vision of the angelical powers, he called the place, by a military name, referring to the idea of hosts or armies, Mahanaim, or camps, which is not a dual, but a plural word; and therefore all that has been said of two camps, is built upon a mistake, Psa 34:7. Mahanaim was situated between Mount Gilead and the brook Jabbok: it was afterwards one of the residences of the Levites, and one of the strong places of David.

REFLECTIONS.God hath preserved the patriarch hitherto, and still continues to guard him safe home. He had the promise of protection, and he trusted in it: now he has the sight of his angelic convoy, and may be comforted. Who can hurt them to whom angels minister? And need there was of every support; for his part dangers were only the prelude of greater impending. God thus prepares his people by strong consolations for difficult services. Note; When the believer draws near his last conflict in death, then shall these attendant spirits surround the dying bed, to welcome the departing soul, and lodge it safe in the bosom of Jesus.*

[* The lines of our ancient poet on the ministration of angels to the heirs of glory, are so suitable to the present subject, and so extremely beautiful, that I cannot forbear inserting them.
And is there care in heaven? And is there love In heavenly spirits to these creatures base, That may compassion of their evils move? There is: else much more wretched were the case Of men than beasts. But O! th’ exceeding grace Of highest God that loves his creatures so, And all his works with mercy doth embrace, That blessed Angels he sends to and fro To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe!
How do they their silver bowers leave To come to succour us that succour want? How oft do they with golden pinions cleave The flitting skies, like flying Pursuivant, Against foul fiends to aid us militant? They for us fight, they watch and duly ward, And their bright Squadrons round about us plant; And all for love, and nothing for reward: O why should heavenly God to men have such regard!]

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

FOURTH SECTION

Jacobs flight. Labans persecution. The covenant between the two on the mountain of Gilead. Departure.

Gen 31:4 to Gen 32:2

, 4And Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field unto his flock. 5And said unto them, I see [am seeing] your fathers countenance, that it is not toward me as before: 6but the God [Elohim] of my father hath been with me. And ye3 know that with all my power I have served your father. 7And your father hath deceived4 me, and changed my wages ten times: but God suffered him not to hurt me. 8If he said thus, The speckled shall be thy wages; then all the cattle bare speckled: and if he said thus, The [symm.: white-footed] ring-streaked shall be thy hire; then bare all the cattle ring-streaked. 9Thus God hath taken away the [acquisitions] cattle of your father, and given them to me. 10And it came to pass at the time that the cattle conceived, that I lifted up mine eyes, and saw in a dream, and behold [I saw], the rams which leaped upon the cattle were ring-streaked, speckled, and grizzled.5 11And the angel of God spake unto me in a dream, saying, Jacob: And I said, Here am I. 12And he said, Lift up now thine eyes and see, all the rams which leap upon the cattle are ring-streaked, speckled, and 13grizzled: for I have seen all that Laban [is doing] doeth unto thee. I am the God of Beth-el, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred [birth]. 14And Rachel and Leah answered, and said unto him, Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our fathers house? 15Are we not counted of him strangers? for he hath sold us, and hath quite devoured6 also our money. 16For all the riches which God hath taken from our father, that is ours, and our childrens: now then, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do.

, 17Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and wives upon camels; 18And he carried away all his cattle, and all his goods [his movable property, gain] which he had gotten, the cattle of his getting, which he had gotten in Padan-aram; for to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan. 19And Laban went to shear his [to the feast of sheep-shearing] sheep: and Rachel had stolen the images7 [Teraphim, household gods] that were her fathers. 20And Jacob stole away unwares [the heart of] to Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled. 21So he fled with all that he had; and he rose up, and passed over the river [Euphrates], and set his face [journey] toward the mount Gilead. 22And it was told 23Laban on the third day, that Jacob was fled. And [Then] he took his brethren with him, and pursued after him seven days journey: and they overtook him in the mount Gilead. 24And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said unto him, Take heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad.

25Then Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mount: and Laban with his brethren [tented] pitched in the mount of Gilead. 26And Laban said to Jacob, What hast thou done, that thou hast stolen away unwares to me, and carried away my daughters, as captives taken with the sword [the spoils of war]? 27Wherefore didst thou flee away secretly, and steal away from me, and didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee away [given thee a convoy] with mirth, and with songs, with tabret, and with harp? 28And hast not suffered me to kiss my sons [grandsons], and my daughters? thou hast now done foolishly in so doing. 29It is in the power of my hand8 to do you hurt: but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight, saying, Take thou heed 30that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad. And now, though thou wouldest needs be gone, because thou sore longedst after thy fathers house; yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods? 31And Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because I was afraid: for I said [said to myself], Peradventure thou wouldest take by force thy daughters from me. 32With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live: before our brethren discern thou what is thine with me, and take it to thee: for Jacob knew not that Rachel had stolen them. 33And Laban went into Jacobs tent, and into Leahs tent, and into the two maid-servants tents; but he found them not. Then went he out of Leahs tent, and entered into Rachels tent. 34Now Rachel had taken the images [household gods], and put them in the camels furniture, and sat upon them. And Laban searched all the tent, but found them not. 35And she said to her father, Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women [female period] is upon me. And he searched [all], but found not the images.

36And Jacob was wroth, and chode with Laban: and Jacob answered, and said to Laban, What is my trespass? what is my sin, that thou hast so hotly pursued [burned] after me? 37Whereas thou hast searched all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household-stuff? set it here before my brethren, and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt us both. 38This twenty years have I been with thee; thy ewes and thy she-goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock have I not eaten. 39That which was torn of beasts, I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it [must make satisfaction for it]; 40of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by night. Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes. 41Thus have I been twenty years in thy house: I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle: and thou hast changed my wages ten times. 42Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty. God hath seen mine affliction, and the labor [wearisome labor] of my hands, and rebuked [judged] thee yesternight.

43And Laban answered, and said unto Jacob, These daughters are my daughters, and these children are my children, and these cattle are my cattle [herds], and all that thou seest is mine; and what can I do this day unto these my daughters, or unto their children which they have borne? 44Now therefore come thou, let us make a covenant 45[a covenant of peace], I and thou; and let it be for a witness between me and thee. And Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar. 46And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones, and made an heap: and they did eat there upon the heap. 47And Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha [syriac: heap of witness]: but Jacob called it Galeed [the same in Hebrew]: 48And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and 49 thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed: And Mizpah [watch-tower]; for he said, The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another. 50If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives besides my daughters, no man is with us; see, God, is witness betwixt me and thee. 51And Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap [stone heap], and behold this pillar, which I have 52cast [erected] betwixt me and thee; This heap be witness, and this pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm. 53The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge [plural] betwixt us. And [But] Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac. 54Then Jacob offered sacrifice upon the mount, and called his brethren to eat bread: and they did eat bread, and tarried all night in the mount. 55And early in the morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them: and Laban departed, and returned unto his place.

Gen 32:1 And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And 2when Jacob saw them, he said, This is Gods host: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim [two camps: double camp].

GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS

1. Delitzsch regards the present section as throughout Elohistic; but according to Knobel, Jehovistic portions are inwrought into it, and hence the narrative is here and there broken and disconnected.
2. The present journey of Jacob is evidently in contrast with his previous journey to Mesopotamia; Mahanaim and Peniel form the contrast with Bethel.

3. We make the following division: 1. Jacobs conference with his wives, Gen 31:4-16; Genesis 2. the flight, Gen 31:17-21; Genesis 3. Labans pursuit, Gen 31:22-25; Genesis 4. Labans reproof, Gen 31:26-30; Genesis 5. Labans search in the tents of Jacob, Gen 31:31-35; Genesis 6. Jacobs reproof, Gen 31:36-42; Genesis 7. the covenant of peace between the two, Gen 31:43; Gen 31:53; Genesis 8. the covenant meal and the departure, Gen 31:54ch. Gen 32:2.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Gen 31:4-16. Jacobs conference with his wives.Unto his flock.Under some pretext Jacob had left the flocks of Laban, although it was then the feast of sheep-shearing, and gone to his own flocks (a three days journey, and probably in a direction favoring his flight). Hither, to the field, he calls his wives, and Rachel, as the favorite, is called first.Changed my wages ten times.The expression ten times is used for frequently, in Num 14:22, and in other passages. [Keil holds that the ten, as the number of completeness, here denotes as often as he could, or as he had opportunity. It is probably the definite for an indefinite.A. G.]If he said thus, The ring-streaked.As Laban deceived Jacob in the matter of Rachel, so now in the arrangement for the last six years, he had in various ways dealt selfishly and unjustly, partly in dividing equally the spotted lambs, according to his own terms, and partly in always assigning to Jacob that particular kind of spotted lambs which had previously been the least fruitful.And the Angel of God.Jacob here evidently joins together a circle of night-visions, which he traces up to the Angel of the Lord, as the angel of Elohim, and which run through the whole six years to their close. If Laban imposed a new and unfavorable condition, he saw in a dream that now the flocks should bring forth lambs of that particular color agreed upon, now ring-streaked, now speckled, and now spotted. But the vision was given to comfort him, and indeed, under the image of the variegated rams which served the flocks. This angel of Elohim declares himself to be identical with the God of Bethel, i, e., with Jehovah, who reveals himself at Bethel as exalted above the angels. It is thus his covenant God who has guarded his rights against the injustice of Laban, and prepares this wonderful blessing for him; a fact which does not militate against his use of skill and craft, but places those in a modified and milder light. The conclusion of these visions is, that Jacob must return. [The difference between this narrative and that given in ch.30, is a difference having its ground and explanation in the facts of the case. For obvious reasons Jacob chose here to pass over his own strategy and craft in silence, and brings out into prominence the divine providence and aid to which his prosperity was due. That Jacob resorted to the means he did, is not inconsistent with the objective reality of the dream-vision, but rather confirms it. If he regarded the vision as prophetic of the issue, as he must have done, the means which he used, the arts and cunning, are characteristic of the man, who was not yet weaned from confidence in himself, was not entirely the man of faith. If we regard this vision as occurring at the beginning of the six years service, it is entirely natural that Jacob should now connect it so closely with the voice of the same angel commanding him to return to the land of his birth.A. G.]Are we not counted of him strangers?Laban takes the same position towards his daughters as towards Jacob himself. Hence they have nothing more to hope for from him. He had sold them as strangers, i. e., really, as slaves, for the service of Jacob. But this very price, i. e., the blessing resulting from Jacobs service, he had entirely consumed, i. e., the daughters had received no share of it. Hence it is evident that they speak with an inward alienation from him, although not calling him by name, and that they desired the flight.

2. Gen 31:17-21. The Flight.The circumstance that Jacob, with his wives, was already at the station of his herds, while Laban remained at his own station, three days journey distant, keeping the feast of sheep-shearing, favored the flight. Either Laban had not invited Jacob to this feast, which is scarcely probable, since he was usually at this station, or Jacob took the opportunity of leaving, in order to visit his own flocks. As the sheep-shearing lasted several days (1 Samuel 25.) the opportunity was a very favorable one.And Rachel had stolen.This feature, however, as also the following, when she denied the theft to her father, reveals a cunning which is far more befitting the daughter of Laban, than the wife of the prudent Jacob.The images.Literally Teraphim (see Delitzsch, p. 410, Note 73), Penates, small figures, probably resembling the human form, which were honored as guardians of the household prosperity, and as oracles. But as we must distinguish the symbolic adoration of religious images (statuettes) among ancients, from the true and proper mythological worship, so we must distinguish between a gentler and severe censure of the use of such images upon Shemitic ground. Doubtless the symbolic usage prevailed in the house of Laban and Nahor. It is hardly probable that Rachel intended, by a pious and fanatical theft, to free her father from idolatry (Greg. Naz., Basil), for then she would have thrown the images away. She appears to have stolen them with the superstitious idea that she would prevent her father from consulting them as oracles, and under their guidance, as the pursuer of Jacob, from overtaking and destroying him (Aben Ezra). The supposition of a condition of war, with its necessity and strategy, enters here with apologetic force. This, however, does not exclude the idea, that she attributed to the images a certain magical, though not religious, power (perhaps, as oracles. Chrysostom). The very lowest and most degrading supposition, is that she took the images, often overlaid with silver, or precious metals, from mercenary motives (Peirerius). Jacob himself had at first a lax rather than a strict conscience in regard to these images (see Gen 35:2), but the stricter view prevails since the time of Moses (Exodus 20; Jos 24:2; Jos 24:14 f.) [The derivation of the Heb. word teraphim, always used in the plural, is doubtful. Some derive it from taraph, to rejoicethus dispensers of good; others from a like root, to inquirethus they are oracles; and others, as Kurtz and Hofmann, make it another form of Seraphim. They were regarded and used as oracles (Jdg 17:5-6; Eze 21:21; Zec 10:2). They were not idols in the worst sense of the word; and were sometimes used by those who professed the worship of the true God (1Sa 19:13). The tendency was always hurtful, and they were ultimately rooted out from Israel. Laban had lapsed into a more corrupt form of religion, and his daughters had not escaped the infection. We may modify our views of Rachels sin, but it cannot be excused or justified (see Keil, Arch., p. 90; Wordsworth, p. 132; Hengstenberg, Christology; Havericks Ezek. 13:47).A.G.]And Jacob stole away unawares to Laban.The explanation in the sense of to deceive (Del., Keil), appears to us incorrect. The expression indeed does not bear the sense which we moderns associate with the words steal the heart, and Gen 31:26 seems to indicate that the heart of Laban is the love which this hard-hearted father bears towards his daughters. Rachel, however, seems to have been his favorite. He regarded and treated her not only as a wise but cunning child, and, hence, while he searched carefully everything in all the tents, he did not venture to compel her to arise. The last clause of Gen 31:20, further cannot possibly mean in that he told him not that he fled. For who would betray his own flight? We interpret impersonally, it was not told him.The Syrian.Moses gives this title to Laban because the Syrians were more crafty than other nations. Jacob, however, surpassed him (Cleric.). Over the river.The Euphrates.Toward the mount Gilead.For the mountains of Gilead see Geographies of Palestine, Bible Dictionaries, Books of Travels, etc. Knobel understands to be the mountain range now known as Gebel Gilad, or Gebel es-Ssalt, and combines with the present Ssalt. But this assumption leads to the improbable results that Mahanaim, south of Jabbok and Succoth (probably the one on the other side), lay north from Jabbok, and thus Jacobs line of march would be backwards in a north-westerly direction. Delitzsch. Delitzsch understands correctly, that it is the northern side of the mountains of Gilead, above the Jabbok, which lay nearest to those coming from Mesopotamia.

3. Gen 31:22-25. Labans pursuit.On the third day.This is partially explained by the long distance between the two stations.His brethren with him.Of the same tribe, kinsmen.Seven days journey.As Jacob, with his herds, moved slower than Laban, he lost his start of three days in the course of seven days.And God came to Laban.A proof that he had still some nobler traits of character.Either good or bad.The translation neither good nor bad is not fitting here. Literally from good to bad (Knobel). It presupposes that he was inclined to pass from a hasty greeting of his daughters and their children, to reproaches and invectives.Now Jacob had pitched his tent.As soon as he reached the heights of the mountain range, the mount Gilead, he pitched his tent, but here Laban with his retinue overtook him, and tented near by him. The text assumes: 1. That a certain mountain, north of Jabbok, gave its name to the whole range of mountains (just as Galilee, originally designating a small mountain region, gradually extended its significance). 2. That thus we must distinguish between this first mountain in the range of Gilead, and the principal mountain mentioned later.

4. Gen 31:26-30. The words of Laban are characteristic, passionate, idiomatic, exaggerated even to falsehood and hypocrisy, and still at the end there is a word which betrays the manshows his human nature and kindness. He calls his daughters his heart; their voluntary flight (although he had sold them) an abduction, as if they were captives. He asserts that he had not given any occasion to Jacob to flee, on the contrary, that he would have sent him away with music and mirth. He had not, however, even suffered him to take leave of his daughters and grandsons. These tender utterances are followed at once by haughty threats (Gen 31:29). From his own point of view it seems imprudent to relate the night warning, but his pride and animosity lead him to do it. Jacob should not think that he willingly let him go unpunished, but the God of your father, he says, with a bitter heart, has forbidden me. He finally (Gen 31:30) acknowledges in a sarcastic way that Jacob might go, but only to crush him with the burden of his accusation, in which, however, there was a two-fold exaggeration; first, in calling the teraphim his gods, and then, second, in making Jacob the thief. The true sentiment for his children, the fear of God, and, finally, a real indignation at the secrecy of Jacobs departure, form the core of the speech, which assumes at last the shape of a pointed accusation. There is no trace of self-knowledge or humility.With mirth.(See 1Sa 18:6; 2Sa 6:5.) The word is indeed a collective for all that follows, and Delitzsch thinks it probably means dance.With tabret.See Winer: Musical Instruments. [Also Kitto and Smith.A. G.].Thou hast done foolishly.Thou who art usually so prudent hast here acted foolishly. The reproach of folly carries with it that of immorality.It is in the power of my hand.Knobel and Keil [and Jacobus.A. G.] translate There is to God my hand, with reference to Job 12:6; Hab 1:11. Others translate power (so Rosen., Gesen.), [Wordsworth, Bush, A. G.] and this seems here to be preferable, notwithstanding Knobels objection, since Laban immediately says it is Elohim who restrains his hand.

5. Gen 31:31-35. Labans search.Labans rash accusation gives Jacob, who knew nothing of the theft of the teraphim, great boldness.Let him not live.We must emphasize the finding, otherwise Jacob condemned Rachel to death. The cunning of Rachel was well planned, for even if Laban had not regarded it as impure and wrong to touch the seat of a woman in this state (see Lev 15:22), how could he have thought it possible that one in this state would sit upon his God.Delitzsch. But Keil calls attention to the fact that the view upon which the law (Leviticus 15.) was based, is much older than that statute, and exists among other people. [See also Kurtz: Gesch., vol. i. p. 252; Baehrs Sym. of the Mosaic Cultus, vol. ii. p. 466.A. G.] For the camels furniture or saddle, see Knobel, p. 251.

6. Gen 31:36-42. Jacobs reproof. He connects it with Labans furious pursuit and search. Then he reminds him generally of his harsh treatment, as opposed to his own faithful and self-sacrificing shepherd service for more than twenty years. The strong feeling and the lofty self-consciousness which utter themselves in his speech, impart to it a rhythmical movement and poetic forms ( to pursue ardently; elsewhere only 1Sa 17:53.) Delitzsch.And the frost by night.The cold of the nights corresponds with the heat of the day in the East (Jer 36:30; Psa 121:6).My sleep.Which I needed and which belonged to me. He had faithfully guarded the flocks by night. Notwithstanding all this Laban had left him unrewarded, but the God of his fathers had been with him and secured his rights. Both the name of his God, and of his venerable father, must touch the conscience of Laban.The fear of Isaac.[Heb: he whom Isaac feared.] The object of his religious fear, and veneration; of his religion, , .Rebuked thee yesternight.This circumstance, which is only incidentally alluded to in the course of Labans speech, forms the emphatic close to that of Jacob. Jacob understands the dream-revelation of Laban better than Laban himself.

7. The covenant of peace between the two. Laban is overcome. He alludes boastfully indeed once more to his superior power, but acknowledges that any injury inflicted upon Jacob, the husband and father, would be visited upon his own daughters and their children.What can I do unto thee.i.e., in a bad sense. The fact that his daughters and grandsons were henceforth dependent upon Jacob, fills his selfish and ignoble mind with care and solicitude about them; indeed, reminded of the promises to Abraham and Isaac, he is apprehensive that Jacob might some time return from Canaan to Haran as a mighty prince and avenge his wrong. In this view, anticipating some such event, he proposes a covenant of peace, which would have required merely a feast of reconciliation. But the covenant of peace involved not only a well-cemented peace, but a theocratic separation.Let us make a covenant.Laban makes the proposal, Jacob assents by entering at once upon its execution. The pillar which Jacob erected, marks the settlement, the peaceful separation; the stones heaped together by his brethren (Laban and his retinue, his kindred) designate the friendly communion, the covenant table. The preliminary eating (Gen 31:46) appears to be distinct from the covenant meal (Gen 31:54), for this common meal continued throughout the day. The Aramaic designation of the stone heap used by Laban, and the Hebraic by Jacob, are explainable on the supposition that in the fatherland of the patriarchs, Mesopotamia, the Aramaic or Chaldee was used, but in the fatherland of Jacob, Canaan, the Hebrew was spoken, whence it may be inferred that the family of Abraham had acquired the Hebrew tongue from the canaanites (Phnicians).Keil. [But this is a slender foundation upon which to base such a theory. The whole history implies that the two families of Abraham and Nahor down to this time and even later found no difficulty in holding intercourse. They both used the same language, though with some growing dialectic differences. It is just as easy to prove that Laban deviated from the mother tongue as that Jacob did.A. G.] Knobel regards it an error to derive the name Gilead, which means hard, firm, stony, from the Gal-Ed here used. But proper names are constantly modified as to their significance in popular use, from the original or more remote, to that which is proximate.And Mizpah, for he said.Keil concedes that Gen 31:49-50 have the appearance of an interpolation, but not such as to justify any resort to the theory of combination from different sources. But since Labans principal concern was for the future of his daughters, we might at least regard the words, And Mizpah, for he said, as a later explanatory interpolation. But there is not sufficient ground even for this, since Galeed and Mizpah are here identical in fact, both referring to the stone heap as well as to the pillar. Laban prays specifically to Jehovah, to watch that Jacob should not afflict his daughters; especially that he should not deprive them of their acquired rights, of being the ancestress of Jehovahs covenant people. From this hour Jehovah, according to his prayer, looks down from the heights of Gilead, as the representative of his rights, and watches that Jacob should keep his word to his daughters, even when across the Jordan. But now, as the name Gilead has its origin in some old sacred tradition, so has the name Mizpah, also. It is not to be identified with the later cities bearing that name, with the Mizpah of Jephthah (Jdg 11:11; Jdg 11:34), or the Mizpah of Gilead (Jdg 11:29), or Ramoth-Mizpah (Jos 13:26), but must be viewed as the family name which has spread itself through many daughters all over Canaan (Keil, 216).No man is with us.i.e., no one but God only can be judge and witness between us, since we are to be so widely separated.Which I have cast.He views himself as the originator, and of the highest authority in this covenant.That I will not pass over.Here this covenant thought is purely negative, growing out of a suspicious nature, and securing a safeguard against mutual injuries; properly a theocratic separation.The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor.The monotheism of Laban seems gliding into dualism; they may judge, or judge. He corrects himself by adding the name of the God of their common father, i.e., Terah. From his alien and wavering point of view he seeks for sacredness in the abundance of words. But Jacob swears simply and distinctly by the God whom Isaac feared, and whom even his father-in-law, Laban, should reverence and fear. Laban, indeed, also adheres to the communion with Jacob in his monotheism, and intimates that the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor designate two different religious directions from a common source or ground.

8. Ver. Gen 31:54 to Gen 32:4. The covenant meal, and the departure.Then Jacob offered Sacrifice.As Isaac prepared a meal for the envious and ill-disposed Abimelech, so Jacob for Laban, whom even this generosity should now have led to shame and repentance. The following morning they separate from each other. The genial blood-tenderness of Laban, which leads him to kiss both at meeting and parting should not pass unnoticed (see Gen 31:28; Gen 29:13, and the Piel forms). It is a pleasant thing that as a grandfather he first kissed his grandsons. Blessing, he takes his departure.Met him.Lit., came, drew near to him, not precisely that they came from an opposite direction. This vision does not relate primarily to the approaching meeting with Esau (Peniel relates to this), but to the dangerous meeting with Laban. As the Angel of God had disclosed to him in vision the divine assistance against his unjust sufferings in Mesopotamia, so now he enjoys a revelation of the protection which God had prepared for him upon Mount Gilead, through his angels (comp. 2Ki 6:17). In this sense he well calls the angels, Gods host, and the place in which they met him, double camp. By the side of the visible camp, which he, with Laban and his retainers, had made, God had prepared another, invisible camp, for his protection. It served also to encourage him, in a general way for the approaching meeting with Esau.Mahanaim.Later a city on the north of Jabbok (see V Raumers Palestine, p. 253; Robinson: Re searches, vol. iii. 2 app. 166), probably the one now called Mahneh. [For the more, distinct reference of this vision to the meeting with Esau, see KurtzGeschichte, p. 254, who draws an instructive and beautiful parallel between this vision and that at Bethel.A. G.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Jacob a fugitive even in his journey home. But the God of Bethel protects him now as the God of Mahanaim; and the angels who, as heavenly messengers, moved up and down the ladder at Bethel, now appear, as became the situation, a warlike host, or the army of God. Keil holds that he saw the angels in a waking state, not inwardly, but without and above himself; but whether with the eye of the body or of the spirit (2Ki 6:17) cannot be decided. At all events, in the first place he saw an objective revelation of God, with which was connected, in the second place, the vision-power [i.e., eine visionre stimmung, a power or disposition corresponding to the vision and enabling him to perceive it.A. G.].

2. The want of candor between Laban and Jacob at Haran leads finally to the violent and passionate outbreak on Mount Gilead. But such outbreaks have ever been the punishment for the want of frankness and candor. The fearful public terrors of war, correspond to the secrecies and blandishments of diplomacy.The blessing of a genuine and thorough frankness. Moral storms, their danger, and their salutary results.
3. The visions in which Jacob saw how God secured his rights against Labans injustice, prove that from his own point of view he saw nothing wrong in the transaction with the parti-colored rods. But those rods are thus seen to be merely a subordinate means. There is no sufficient ground for the conjecture of Keil, that it may be suspected that the dream-vision of Jacob (of the spotted rams) was a mere natural dream (see p. 212). It is evident that the vision-disposition pervades the night-life of Jacob, growing out of his oppressed condition and his unjust sufferings.Schrder: But Jacobs crafty course (Gen 30:37) is not therefore commended by God, as Luther and Calvin have taught. Jacob was still striving to bring about the fulfilment of the divine promise by his own efforts.

4. The alienation of the daughters of Laban from their father is not commendable, but is explained by his severity. On the other hand, they are bound to their husband in a close and lovely union. For the theft of the teraphim, see the Exegetical notes.

5. It is not a chance that we meet here in the idols of Laban the earliest traces of idolatry in the Old World, although they had doubtless existed elsewhere much earlier and in a grosser form. We can thus see how Polytheism gradually developed itself out of the symbolic image-worship of Monotheism (Rom 1:23). Moreover, the teraphim are estimated entirely from a theocratic point of view. They could be stolen as other household furniture (have eyes but see not). They could be hidden under a camels saddle. They are a contemptible nonentity, which can render no assistance.

Gen 31:23. The zeal for gods and idols is always fanatical.

6. The speech of Laban, and Jacobs answer, give us a representation of the original art of speaking among men, just as the speech of Eliezer did. They form at the same time an antithesis between a passionate and exaggerated rhetoric and phraseology on the one hand, and an earnest, grave, religious, and moral oratory on the other hand, exemplified in history in the antithesis of the heathen (not strictly classic) to the theocratic and religious oratory. The contrast between the speeches of Tertullus and Paul Act 24:2) is noticeable here. Labans eloquence agrees with his sanguine temperament. It is passionate, exaggerated in its terms, untrue in its exaggeration, and yet not without a germ of true and affectionate sentiment. Analysis of diffuse and wordy speeches a difficult but necessary task of the Christian spirit.

7. Pro 20:22, Rom 12:17, come to us in the place of the example of Jacob; still we are not justified in judging the conduct of Jacob by those utterances of a more developed economy (as Keil does). [This is true in a qualified sense only. The light which men have is of course an important element in our judgment of the character of their acts. But Jacob had, or might have had, light sufficient to know that his conduct was wrong. He might have known certainly that it was his duty, as the heir of faith, to commit his cause unto the Lord.A. G.]

8. The establishment of peace between Laban and Jacob has evidently, on the part of Laban, the significance and force, that he breaks off the theocratic communion between the descendants of Nahor and Abraham, just as the line of Haran, earlier, was separated in Lot.
9. At all events, the covenant-meal forms a thorough and final conciliation. Labans reverence for the God of his fathers, and his love for his daughters and grandsons, present him once more in the most favorable aspect of his character, and thus we take our leave of him. We must notice, however, that before the entrance of Jacob he had made little progress in his business. Close, narrow-hearted views, are as really the cause of the curse, as its fruits.
10. The elevated state and feeling of Jacob, after this departure of Laban, reveals itself in the vision of the hosts of God. Heaven is not merely connected with the saint on the earth (through the ladder); its hosts are warlike hosts, who invisibly guard the saints and defend them, even while upon the earth. Here is the very germ and source of the designation of God as the God of hosts (Zebaoth).

11. There are still, as it appears to us, two striking relations between this narrative and that which follows. Jacob here (Gen 31:32) pronounces judgment of death upon any one of his family who had stolen the images. But now his own Rachel, over whom he had unconsciously pronounced this sentence, dies soon after the images were buried in the earth (see Gen 35:4; Gen 35:18). But when we read afterwards, that Joseph, the wise son of the wise Rachel, describes his cup as his oracle (although only as a pretext), the conjecture is easy, that the mother also valued the images as a means of securing her desires and longings. She even ascribes marvellous results to the mandrakes.

12. The Mount of Gilead a monument and witness of the former connection between Mesopotamia and Canaan.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Contrasts: Jacobs emigration and return, or the two-fold flight, under the protection of the God of Bethel, and of Mahanaim.Laban the persecutor: a. of his own; b. of the heir of the promise.The persecutor: 1. His malicious companions; 2. those who flee from him; 3. his motives.The word of God to Laban: Take heed, etc., in its typical and lasting significance.The punishments of the want of candor: strife and war.The two speeches and speakers.The peaceful departure: 1. Its light side, reconciliation; 2. its dark aspect, separation.

First Section, Gen 31:4-16. Starke: Cramer: The husband should not always take his own way, but sometimes consult with his wife (Sir. 4:35).It is a grievous thing when children complain before God of the injustice of their parents.Children should conceal, as far as possible, the faults of their parents.Lisco: The human means which he used are not commanded by God, but are his own.Gerlach: Jacobs conduct, the impatient weakness of faith; still a case of self-defence, not of injustice.Schrder: A contrast: the face of your father, the God of my father.

Second Section, Gen 31:17-21. Starke: Although Jacob actually begins his journey to the land of Canaan, some suppose that ten years elapse before he comes to Isaac, since he remained some time at Succoth, Sichem, and Bethel (comp. Gen 33:17; Gen 35:6).The shearing of the sheep was in the East a true feast for the shepherdsan occasion of great joy (see Gen 38:12; 1Sa 25:2; 1Sa 25:8; 1Sa 25:36).

Section Third, Gen 31:22-25. Starke: Josephus. The intervention of the night, and the warning by God in his sleep, kept him from injuring Jacob.Bibl. Tub.: God sometimes so influences and directs the hearts of enemies that they shall be favorably inclined towards the saints, although they are really embittered against them.Hall: God makes foolish the enemies of his church, etc.Whoever is in covenant with God need have no fear of men.Schrder: Jacob moves under the instant and pressing danger of being plundered, or slain, or of being made a slave with his family and taken to Mesopotamia. Still the promiser (Gen 28:15) fulfils the promise to him. Thus, whatever may oppress us for a time, must at last turn to our salvation (Calvin).

Section Fourth, Gen 31:26-30. Starke: (It is the way of hypocrites when their acts do not prosper, to speak in other tones.)

Gen 31:29. He does not say that he has the right and authority, but that he has the power (comp. Joh 19:10). In this, however, he refutes himself. For if he possessed the power, why does he suffer himself to be terrified and deterred by the warning of God in the dream?Calwer Handbuch: He cannot cease to threaten.He would have injured him but dared not.Schrder: The images are his highest happiness, since to him the presence of the Deity is bound and confined to its symbol.

Section Fifth, Gen 31:31-35. Starke: Cramer: Gen 31:32. A Christian should not be rash and passionate in his answer. Gen 31:35. The womans cunning is preminent (Sir 25:17; Jdg 14:16).Calwer Handbuch: Gen 31:38. The ewes and the goats in their state were the objects of his special care.Falsehood follows theft.Mans cunning is ready; womans inexhaustible and endless (Val. Herberger).

Section Sixth, Gen 31:36-42. Starke: What is included in a shepherds faithfulness (Gen 31:38).Bibl. Wirt.: When one can show that he has been faithful, upright, and diligent, in his office, he can stand up with a clear conscience, and assert his innocence. Cramer: A good conscience and a gracious God give one boldness and consolation.Schrder: The persecution of Jacob by Laban ends at last in peace, love and blessing.Thus the brother line in Mesopotamia is excluded after it has reached its destination.

Section Seventh, Gen 31:43-53. Starke: (Different conjectures as to what Laban understood by the God of Nahor, whether the true God or idols).Cramer: When a mans ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him (Pro 16:7).Calwer Handbuch: Laban now turns again and gives way to the natural affections of a father. The circumstances which tended to calm his mind: 1. The seven days journey; 2. the divine warning; 3. the mortification resulting from his fruitless search; 4. Jacobs self-defence and the truth of his reproaches.His courage and anger gradually give way to fear and anxiety.Schrder: In the Hebrew, the word if occurs twice, pointing, as we may suppose, to the idea, may God so punish thee.(Luther: How can this fellow (Laban) so name the thing?)

Eighth Section, Gen 31:55 to Gen 32:2. Starke: Jacob has just escaped the persecutions of his unjust father-in-law, when he began to fear that he should meet a fiercer enemy in his brother Esau. Hence God confirms him in his faith, opens his eyes, etc.It is the office of the angels to guard the saints. (Two conjectures as to the double camp: one that some of the angels went before Jacob, others followed him; the other that it is the angel camp and the encampment of Jacob.)(Why the angels are called hosts: 1. From their multitude; 2. their order; 3. their power for the protection of the saints, and the resistance and punishment of the wicked; 4. from their rendering a cheerful obedience as became a warlike host.Calwer Handbuch: The same as Genesis 28 Probably here as there an inward vision (Psa 34:7).Schrder: Jacobs hard service, his departure with wealth, and the persecution of Laban, prefigure the future of Israel in Egypt.(Val. Herberger.) Whosoever walks in his way, diligent in his pursuits, may at all times say with St. Paul: He shall never be forsaken.The invisible world was disclosed to him, because anxiety and fear fill the visible world.Luther: The angels. In heaven their office is to sing Glory to God in the Highest; on the earth, to watch, to guide, to war.

[3]Gen 31:6.The full form of the pronoun, see Greens Grammar, 71, (2.)A. G.

[4]Gen 31:7., Hiphil from ; see Greens Grammar, 142, (3.)A. G.

[5]Gen 31:10.Heb., Beruddim, spotted with hail. Our word, grizzled, is from the French, grle, hail, and thus a literal translation of the Hebrew.A. G.

[6]Gen 31:15.The Hebrew form, the absolute infinitive after the finite verb, denotes continuance of the action.He has constantly devoured.A. G.

[7]Gen 31:19.. The word occurs fifteen times in the Old Testament; three times in this chapter, and nowhere else in the Pentateuch. It is always in the plural. It means, perhaps, to live well, or to nourish. In two passages (Judg. 17. and 18., and Hos 3:4), they are six times associated with the ephod. The use of them in the worship of God, is denounced as idolatry (1Sa 15:23), and hence they are classed with the idols put away by Josiah, 2 Kings 23. MurphyA. G.

[8]Gen 31:29.Heb., There is to God my hand.A. G.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

This Chapter relates some very extraordinary events, which occurred in the Patriarch Jacob’s journey towards Canaan, after his separation from Laban. He is first met by an host of angels. He then sends messengers to his brother Esau, who dwelt in Seir, to enquire after his welfare, and to inform him of his own. The messengers return with an account that Esau is coming against him, and with him an army of 400 men: Jacob is greatly distressed with the intelligence, and hath recourse to God by prayer: he sends over the brook Jabbok all his family and household, and is left alone: an angel wrestles with him, until the breaking of the day: Jacob prevails, and obtains a blessing in consequence, the Lord puts a perpetual testimony of honour upon the Patriarch, in changing his name from Jacob to Israel.

Gen 32:1

Perhaps this meeting was like that mentioned, Gen 28:12 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Jacob the Aspiring

Gen 32:1

We are accustomed to think of Jacob as a character of lights and shadows mingling without reason.

I. As commonly understood, the portrait of this man does present an inconsistency. This apparently bad man has a beautiful dream, so beautiful that it has become immortal. What the best men of the past had not seen this fraudulent youth beholds.

II. Why did the artist give such a vision to such a man? The previous life of Jacob had not been that prosaic thing which the popular view would have us believe. This dream of the night was in the first instance a dream of the morning, and the vision which Jacob saw in the desert was the vision which had followed him amid the haunts of men. Jacob, then, appears from the very outset as a mentally aspiring man. He wanted to be the cleric of the family, the ecclesiastic of the clan.

III. But in Jacob’s Bethel dream there is a penal as well as a pleasurable element. He pronounced the spot of the vision to be a ‘dreadful place’. The dream had a retributive as well as a rewarding function. To be a Churchman in those days was to be a power; it was to wield an influence far beyond the strength of the secular arm. Jacob felt what many a young man now feels the social uplifting involved in the clerical office. This was the bane of his dream, and this was the feeling which the vision reproved.

IV. The effect of Jacob’s dream in one word was ‘Peniel’. He never would have wrestled at Peniel if he had dreamed at Bethel! This dream gave him a conscience. It told him that to be an angel of God was a very serious thing.

V. There is a curious suggestion in the picture of this conflicting period of Jacob’s life. The angel with whom he is struggling is represented as saying ‘Let me go! for the day breaketh’. Jacob found it easier to be good by night than by day. But his greatest glory is reserved for his hour of greatest solitude the hour of death. There the angel of the struggle appears once more. He is still the angel of ministration, but he is no longer a mere helper to Jacob he is inciting Jacob to bless others. The dying man becomes for the first time the universal benefactor.

G. Matheson, Representative Men of the Bible, p. 152.

The Season for Divine Help

Gen 32:1

I. The important word here is the word ‘met’. It is distinctly implied that no supernatural help came to Jacob at the beginning. He went out on his own way and on the strength of his own resources; it was only in the middle of his journey that he encountered the angels of God. And I believe this is typical of the life of every man. We are most of us under a mistake on this point. We often see young people waiting for a special call to some mission for a manifest intervention of God that says, ‘This is the way; walk ye in it’. The special call does not come at the outset; they must start without it. There is a great difference between not having a special call to go and having a special call not to go. The latter case is a very common one, and it should certainly be taken as a prohibition. Many a man has a family dependent on him for bread. Many a woman has an aged mother to nurse. Many a youth has an ancestral taint of delicacy which incapacitates for active service. All these hear a voice which says, ‘Do not work today in my vineyard’. Sometimes a man has no prohibition, but simply an inability to see the full length of the way. In extreme youth I was offered in a crowded town an appointment which involved weekly preaching at two services. I had only twelve sermons, and I did not see where the thirteenth was to come from. I was tempted to decline. But I asked myself the question, ‘Are you adequate to the twelve?’ and I answered ‘yes’. Then I said to myself: ‘God’s presence will not reveal itself till your own power is exhausted. He has given you twelve talents to begin with. Do not bury them, do not lay them up in a napkin; go in your own strength as far as you can; and on the way He will meet you and light your torch anew.’ The experience was abundantly realized. If there is a multitude to be fed in the wilderness, it is no proof of your disqualification that you have only five loaves. You have five; and that is your call to a beginning. You have probably material for ten people. Minister to the ten! Do not let the eleventh frighten you beforehand! Take each case as it comes! Break the bread as far as it will go! Refuse to paralyse yourself by looking forward! Keep the eleventh man in abeyance until you have come up to him; and then the angels will meet you with their twelve baskets, and the crowd will greet you with their blessings, and the limit will expand into an overflow.

G. Matheson, Messages of Hope, p. 27.

St. Michael and All Angels

Gen 32:1

I. All the Company of Heaven. It is not the custom in this day to think as much about this unseen holy existence as men did in days that are gone. It is impossible for us to read the Holy Scriptures without constantly observing that those who lived in the days of the writers of these sacred books very fully believed in the existence near about them of endless holy beings belonging to God’s unseen kingdom, holy souls serving God either in worship or in ministration to the sons of men. In the book of Genesis we read of Jacob and the angels. Passing on to a later stage we read of the ministration by Angels in the times of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha, and, not to multiply instances, we can readily recall the words of the Hebrew Psalmist when he speaks of the angel of God tarrying round about those of the sons of men who fear God. Passing to the New Testament, we can think of the appearance of angels to minister to One no less great than the Son of Man at the end of His temptation, to minister to Him in the Garden of Gethsemane when His mind was overwrought with the greatness of the thoughts which pressed upon Him then; and we read of angels, too, appearing on the Resurrection day with their message of explanation of the things which the faithful Disciples saw. But in our own day we do not perhaps realize quite so fully that there is ever about us, above us, this great realm of unseen beings under the government of God, pure and holy souls, servants of the same God Whom we serve, and it may be that perhaps in thinking too seldom of them we miss an uplifting thought that we might otherwise have to help us in our religious life. May we not endeavour, acting upon the suggestion which comes to us at this time through the occurrence of Michaelmas Day, the feast of St. Michael and all Angels, to see whether we cannot put some more thought about the great realm unseen into our minds?

II. Joy amongst the Angels. Not only may we in our times of worship have our thoughts uplifted and imaginations warmed, our conception extended, by thinking of all the inhabitants of this great unseen world over which our God rules, but we can go out from our worship into the world of our daily duties in which we meet as men and women. We know well, as Christian men and women held down by their human infirmities, by the sins which they are continually committing, we can go out with the thought that not only may we in church worship be linked with the holy angels of God, but we can go out with the thought that these angels are with us during the life we live day by day, taking cognizance of all the efforts we make to win other souls to God, and we go out with the assurance that there is joy in the presence of these angels of God when through the effort of ourselves or through the effort of any other believer in the Lord one sinner only repenteth. Let us be encouraged at this time by the thought of the greatness of the realm to which we belong. God, in calling us into His service and making us His sons, has not made us members of a small concern, not united us into a tiny family, but has given us a great birthright, made us members of an immense kingdom. We profess in our creed our belief in Him as ‘Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible,’ and as members of that great kingdom, as members of that immense family over which God rules and shows His love, let us go forward inspirited and ennobled, determined that, so far as our influence reaches, other souls shall get to know the greatness of this inheritance which has become ours. So may we be strengthened to be more happy and joyful in our own lives, more useful to those who are about us in the world, and thereby bring more honour, praise, and glory to our God.

Jacob, a Prince with God

Gen 32:1-32

Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. Why are the names of men changed? Sometimes it is just the fashion of the times; sometimes it is for safety in time of peril, as when John Knox signed himself John Sinclair (his mother’s name); but in the Bible change of name indicates change of character, or a new and true appreciation of what a man really is. Abram becomes Abraham, Simon becomes Peter, Saul becomes Paul. In the clear light of heaven there is to be a new name given to every one that overcometh.

References XXXII. 1. R. W. Winterbotham, Sermons, p. 461. XXXII. 1-2. A. Maclaren, Christ in the Heart, p. 195. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi. No. 1544. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Genesis, p. 214. XXXII. 7, 11, 24, 28. J. Clifford, Daily Strength for Daily Living, p. 39. XXXII. 9, 12. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Genesis, p. 222. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. lii. No. 3010.

Remembrance of Past Mercies

Gen 32:10

Jacob’s distinguishing grace… was a habit of affectionate musing upon God’s providences towards him in times past, and of overflowing thankfulness for them. Not that he had not other graces also, but this seems to have been his distinguishing grace. All good men have in their measure all graces; for He, by whom they have any, does not give one apart from the whole: He gives the root, and the root puts forth branches. But since time, and circumstances, and their own use of the gift, and their own disposition and character, have much influence on the mode of its manifestation, so it happens, that each good man has his own distinguishing grace, apart from the rest, his own particular hue and fragrance and fashion, as a flower may have. As, then, there are numberless flowers on the earth, all of them flowers, and so far like each other; and all springing from the same earth, and nourished by the same air and dew, and none without beauty; and yet some are more beautiful than others; and of those which are beautiful, some excel in colour and others in sweetness, and others in form; and then, again, those which are sweet have such perfect sweetness, yet so distinct, that we do not know how to compare them together, or to say which is the sweeter; so is it with souls filled and nurtured by God’s secret grace

J. H. Newman.

References. XXXII. 10. J. Baldwin Brown, Aids to the Development of the Divine Life, No. vii. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx. No. 1787. XXXII. 11, 12. Ibid. vol. xlix. No. 2817. XXXII. 12. Ibid. vol. xxxiii. No. 1938; ibid. Evening by Evening, p. 109. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 1874, p. 235.

The Name of God

Gen 32:24 ; Gen 32:29

Among simple and primitive folk people are named after what they are, and therefore to tell their name is to tell their nature. Thomas means a twin, Peter means a rock, and in old days, or among primitive tribes in our own day, a man would not be called Thomas unless he were a twin, nor Peter unless there were something about him, or the circumstances of his birth, reminding of a rock. So are the names of God in the Old Testament. They are the revelations of His nature, or aspects of His character. ‘God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord: And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by My name Jehovah was I not known unto them.’ Thus there comes to Moses a deeper insight into the Divine nature than was attained by his forefathers. To them God was known only as power, God Almighty; to Moses He becomes known as the Eternal Unity, the Supreme One. Once more and this, surely, is the most beautiful of all the names revealed to those men of olden time ‘And the Lord descended in the cloud’… ‘and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.’

I. To us as much as to any Patriarch or Prophet, both to us and to our children as much as to the men who lived three thousand years ago, there is nothing in all the world and in all our life so important as the name of God. In every supreme crisis of our lot, when in the presence of wrong, or of shipwreck, or grief, or misfortune, or death, when we feel our littleness and weakness amid the great forces which move the world, the one thing we need to know is the name or character of God. If His name be Father and His heart eternal kindness, then there is light in the darkness, however dark it be.

II. The Story of Jacob’s Midnight Wrestling. Jacob had travelled a long way since that dark day of the cheated birthright and the stolen blessing. He had travelled a long way since the dream of the angels on the ladder and the sound of God’s voice above. His heart had been softened and ripened by the experiences of life, by Rachel and by the children; and he had grown rich in something more than in flocks and herds, in camels and in goats, in friendships, in affections, in the cherished treasures of the heart; and the man was changed, deepened in insight and in character; and here, in this matter, sees he is face to face with the consequences of the sin of his youth. To-morrow perhaps the pitiless vengeance of the desert chieftain may fall not only on him, but on all whom he loves. The sense of security and comfort fell away from Jacob, as once and again it falls from you and from me. His life was stripped bare by his own conscience, and in that hour of suspense and of terror, when the evil of his own deed seemed coming back to judgment, in that hour of midnight silence and solitude, he felt the unseen presence with him which is the only stay of man in his extremity and in his agony. He cried, Tell me, I pray Thee, thy name. Tell me, thou unseen visitor to my soul. Art thou mercy or art thou judgment? Art thou love or fear. Art thou truly my God and my safety, or dost thou disregard my cry and look down unmoved as these stars in the midnight sky while I am delivered to the fate I have deserved.

III. There are Secret Wrestlings of the Soul which can only be told in Parable. The anguish of them refuses the poor interpretation of our common speech. So the wrestling of Jacob by the ford Jabbok is pictured to us. ‘There wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.’ It is not possible to come out of such a struggle without some change of character, some mark or scar which shall remain with us all our earthly days, and so we read and interpret the meaning of that touch of the unseen visitor which made Jacob from that day forward halt upon his thigh.

IV. It is not to the Wise and Learned only or chiefly, it is not to the reason and intellect that God oftenest tells the secret of His name. It is for those who wrestle and strive with Him, those who struggle and pray, for light and beauty and the presence divine; to those stricken with their own sins and sorrows, or the sins and sorrow of the world, or they who are bewildered with the evidence of their own ill-doing, or pity for the ill-doing of others, who cry out to Him in their loneliness, ‘Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name’. And these it is who all their life afterward can catch amid the disasters and the distresses of life, amid the ruin of hopes and the separations of love, the music of a finer harmony, the music of the everlasting chime. These it is who can behold, not indeed unmoved, but confident in a righteous purpose and a final recompense, who can behold in faith the catastrophes of the human lot which make up so much of human history.

References. XXXII. 24. Bishop Boyd Carpenter, Penny Pulpit, No. 608. Archbishop Magee, Penny Pulpit, No. 1708. XXXII. 24, 26, 30. J. T. Bramston, Fratribus, p. 58. XXXII. 32. D. Wilton Jenkins, Christian World Pulpit, vol. p. 170.

Wrestling with God

Gen 32:26

This passage has been for ages, not only the locus classicus but also the chief resources of inspiration, for persevering and persistent prayer. Many of us can remember to what an extent the old divines loved to linger with extraordinary affection upon the incident of Jacob at Penuel, and how eloquently they expounded the lesson of every detail of the narrative.

I. Now there is a certain mastery that every man has to acquire and win if he is to rise to the height of his being and attain his full development. He will have to be master of his circumstances and prove master of his fate, but more especially he will have to master himself, and not only so, but the highest spiritual blessings are reserved only for those who do obtain the victory over self, and who by means of conflict gain supremacy over their lower nature. In the respect in which God envelopes and encircles our lives and is in all our environment and has permitted our limitations and our disabilities, there is no reason why any man who has to fight against great odds should not suppose that he is wrestling with God, and only realize the higher blessings as he wins them and wrests them from his opponent. In this sense a man prevails with God.

II. Further, this self-mastery is a condition of our mastery and effective influence over others. Our impression is that we have more difficulty with regard to other wills and other men’s actions. But, after all, the surest key to the hearts of other men is to know how to find our way to our own darker recesses of being.

III. This triumph is one of prayer and faith. In Hosea we read that ‘he had power over the angel and prevailed, he wept and made supplication to him’ (12:4). This wrestling was a distinct triumph of prayer and prayer’s supreme effort. The incident is that of the clashing of wills, and it ended, as all true prayer does, in the complete surrender to the Divine and the cheerful acceptance of God’s purpose and plan.

J. G. James, Problems of Prayer, p. 193.

References. XXXII. 26. J. T. Bramston, Sermons to Boys, p. 66. W. H. Aitken, Mission Sermons (3rd Series), p. 38. F. W. Farrar, The Fall of Man, p. 236. XXXII. 28-29. F. W. Robertson, Sermons (1st Series), p. 36. XXXII. 28. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. lii. No. 2978; ibid., vol. xlii. No. 2486. XXXII. 29. Bishop Thorold, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi. p. 145.

The Defeat Under Sin

Gen 32:31

The battle had been severe, mysterious, lifelong. From that battle Jacob came out victorious decidedly and completely victorious. Nevertheless, his own thigh was put out of joint by the power which he was defeating. And long after he was doomed to feel the loss and the damage which he had there sustained. ‘The sun rose’ upon Jacob; but still ‘he halted upon his thigh’.

In the great conflict with sin the issue is quite safe at last to all those who engage in it with an honest purpose and a true heart. Still, none come off without many a scar. You may ‘bruise the head’ of the serpent which is in you; but it will not be till that serpent has ‘bruised your heel’. You may wrestle and prevail; but there will be touches of the enemy which will leave their long and bitter memories. Reverses, disasters, defeats, there will be all along in the spiritual warfare, even to the very gate of heaven. The way to heaven is made up of falling down and rising up again. The battle is no steady, onward fight; but rallies and retreats retreats and rallies.

I. Reasons for Defeat. Let us endeavor to see the reasons of these defeats under sin, which recur, again and again, in a regenerate man. Perhaps many of us are not sufficiently alive to the truth that the old sin of the character continues, and continues with unabated force, in the heart of a child of God.

( a ) Ingenuity of the enemy. Sometimes, by an ingenious stratagem of the enemy, an entirely new temptation, or an old temptation in a perfectly new form, suddenly presents itself. You had been looking for danger on the one side, when at once it rises up before you on the other. Had you only been looking for it in that direction it would have been nothing. It is its unexpectedness which gives it its influence and its success.

( b ) A reduction of grace. All sin in a believer must arise from the reduction of grace. And whence that reduction of grace? From grieving the Holy Ghost. And whence the grieving of. the Holy Ghost? An omission of something or other; prayer, the means of grace, some safeguard. And whence that omission? Carelessness. And whence that carelessness? Pride, always pride; self-confidence, self-exaltation.

( c ) Empty places. Another secret in your failures lies in empty places. You can never simply expel a sin, you must introduce the opposite to the sin, and so occupy the ground. You can do nothing by a vacuum. Therefore it is that you are overcome. You must fill the heart with good; then there will not be room for the sin.

II. Defeat as Training Yet defeat is part of your training. It may be converted into a positive good to your soul. God can and will overrule guilt to gain. Let me see how.

( a ) Sorrow for sin. There is no sorrow for sin compared to the sorrow after a fall. It is not the sins which we did before the grace of God, but the sins after we have tasted peace, which make the bitterness of repentance. All the great recorded sorrows for sins are sorrows after falls. Therefore God has allowed this defeat to teach you repentance.

( b ) Humbling required. Depend upon it, you wanted humbling. God saw that you would never be what you wished to be, that you would never be what He wanted you to be, that you would never do what He wanted you to do for him, till you were humbled. He saw that nothing would humble you but sin. Other things had been tried and had failed. Therefore, God, as He is wont, took up His severest method, and let you fall, to humble you.

( c ) And punishment. Only go lower, consent to humiliation, accept that sin as a punishment. Yield yourself to the penitential feeling which is stealing over you. And thank God that He still loves you well enough to give you that miserable sense of sin, and shame, and nothingness.

( d ) Restoration. Fourthly, get up from your fall as quickly as you can; the danger does not lie in the depth of a fall, but in the length of the time that we lie fallen. The deepest water will not drown us if we do not stay in it; and the shallowest water will destroy life if we do.

( e ) Union with Christ. Fifthly, look more to your union with the Lord Jesus Christ. You see what you are, and what you are without Christ.

You may ‘halt’; but ‘the sun’ will ‘rise’ upon your ‘halting’. You may cross over the last passage more as a poor, forgiven sinner crosses but your crossing will be a safe one.

Reference. XXXII. 31. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons (6th Series), p. 33.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

XXVIII

JACOB’S MEETING WITH ESAU

Gen 32:1-34:31

Our last discussion closed with the thirty-first chapter of Genesis, and we had just finished our discussion of Jacob’s meeting with his uncle Laban. In this discussion we take up the thirty-second chapter, which deals with Jacob’s meeting with Esau, his brother, his inveterate enemy, and the method which was pursued by Jacob in appeasing Esau’s wrath. “And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And Jacob said when he saw them, This is God’s host, and he called the name of that place Mahanaim,” or as the margin has it, “The two hosts or companies.” This vision was an encouraging revelation to Jacob. He saw a heavenly band on earth; hence the name, “Mahanaim,” or “two companies.” That upper band had been with him all the time, but invisible. Here he is permitted to see them. In view of apprehended troubles ahead of him, this vision greatly assures him of safety. The psalmist later expressed the general truth: “The angel of Jehovah encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them” (Psa 34:7 ). In the same way Jehovah opened the eyes of the faithful young man with Elisha: “And he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha” (2Ki 6:17 ). So, when our faith is bright enough we can see the presence of attending angels.

In Gen 32:3 we learn that Jacob sent messengers forward into the country of Esau to find out the plan of his brother. It had been twenty years since Jacob had seen his brother, on that occasion when through the duplicity of his mother and himself he had secured the blessing of the birthright from his old, blind father, when Esau had determined to kill him and his mother had sent him away from home secretly. Jacob was naturally very anxious to know what Esau’s reception would be and so he sent these messengers. And in order to excite the attention of his brother to his wealth and possessions, Jacob directed the messengers as follows: “Thus shall ye say unto my lord Esau: Thus saith thy servant Jacob, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now: and I have oxen, and asses, and flocks, and men-servants, and maidservants: and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favour in his sight.”

When the messengers returned to Jacob they brought back the news that the wrath of Esau had not abated during these twenty years. “We came to thy brother Esau, and moreover he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him.” And Jacob was afraid. So he began to make preparation for his meeting with his brother. His first step was to divide his herds and his people into three companies, in order that they might not all be destroyed at one stroke from the warlike band of his brother. But notice that in his preparation, he made no effort to resist the onslaught of his brother’s men. He had a stronger shield than physical forces, the shield of faith in God’s promises to him, and the accompanying angel host. And his next step and best step of all was his earnest prayer. Let us notice that prayer: “O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac.” Do you notice how that prayer leads? He states the fact that Jehovah was the God of his father and his grandfather, and he had made promises to both of them. Then he pleads the fact that God had commanded him, therefore the Lord ought to protect him in his obedience. He pleads the Lord’s promise: Who said, “I will do thee good.” Notice another element of power in his prayer: “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shown thy servant.” There is humility in the prayer, pleading the promise, pleading the command, pleading the triple blessing pronounced upon Abraham, Isaac, and himself, and then acknowledging, that, personally, he was not worthy of any of it: “With my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I have become two companies.” Let us see what he is going to ask for. He knows how to make a request. He did not commence by praying that the Lord would bless the dwellers in the steppes of Asia and on the islands of the sea, and then pray all around the world. He says, “Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him lest he come and smite me, the mother with the children. 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.” That is his step so far. Now he is going back to his worldly wisdom again. He is like Mohammed, who said, “Tie your camel and pray the Lord that he may not get away.” Don’t turn the camel loose and then pray that he may not escape. As the old British general said to his soldiers, “Pray to the Lord and keep your powder dry.” Don’t simply pray and leave God to do everything, but do what you can do.

Let us see the next step he takes. “He took a present for his brother Esau: first, two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats; second, two hundred ewes and twenty rams; third, twenty milk camels and their colts; fourth, forty cows and ten bulls; fifth, twenty she-asses and ten foals.” Notice how he makes that work: “And he said unto his servants, Pass over before me, and put a space betwixt drove and drove.” When the first drove meets Esau, he will say, “Who are you, and what is this?” They will say, “We are Jacob’s servants, and this is a present to his brother Esau.” After awhile Esau meets the second drove, and receives the same answer to his question. Imagine in your mind the effect of these repeated answers. Imagine his feelings after he had met these five successive droves, Jacob’s wisdom, viz.: that he must not be content with making a small impression:

Many drops of water, drop, drop, drop,

…..will wear away a rock.

And yet again present a thing to a man’s mind; wait a while and present it again. Maybe the first impression glances off, but after awhile one will stick. It does not seem to me that the maddest man in the world could have remained mad until he got through meeting these herds.

We now come to Jacob’s last step. Here was the brook Jabbock, flowing into the Jordan. Jacob sends all his family and property across that brook and is left alone. He is going to have a big battle and he is going to fight this battle out with God. From no scripture have I ever gained more spiritual power than that. I never went out as an agent or undertook any enterprise that I did not separate myself from all humankind, and go off alone with God, and just like a little child, state the whole case, prostrate myself before him; and if I win the divine favor I am not afraid of anything. And a man wrestled with him till the rising of the dawn. The prophet Hosea calls him an angel (Hos 12:4 ), and a little later Jacob calls him God, and he was a manifestation of the Logos, the Son of God. When he saw that he prevailed not against Jacob, he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh and it was out of joint. He said to Jacob, “Turn me loose, for the dawn is coming.” Jacob said, “I will not let thee go, unless thou bless me.” He could stand on but one foot, but he would not turn loose. The Hoosier Schoolmaster by Edward Eggleston has a remarkable lesson about a bulldog that belonged to “Old Man Mean’s” boys which had this virtue, viz.: whenever he took hold he would not turn loose. You might kick him and scold him, but he held his grip. That taught a lesson to the schoolmaster. I think the dog and the schoolmaster both might credit Jacob with the original idea. What a marvelous secret of success that is: “I will not let thee go unless thou bless me.” Anybody that knocks tentatively at the door of prayer and runs off before anybody comes, making but one petition, will never succeed. You have heard me state before, and I will restate it now, how that idea of persistence got hold of me when I was four years old. I slept with my eldest brother and he taught me history lessons in child stories. One night he told me the history of the g Battle of Marathon, where one hundred thousand Persians were assailed by ten thousand Greeks under Miltiades; how the Greeks broke the ranks of the Persians, and followed them into the sea; how the Persians got into their boats, and the Greeks grabbed the boats with their hands until the Persians cut their hands off; and then how they caught bold with their teeth until the Persians cut their heads off. And when my brother got that far, I jumped up in the bed and yelled out, “Hurrah for the Greeks!” until I woke up the whole house. There is the secret of prayer. As David Crockett said, “Be sure you are right, and then go ahead.” “And the angel said to Jacob, What is thy name? and he says, Jacob,” which means supplanter, a crafty fellow, and the angel says, “Thy name shall no more be called supplanter, but Israel, for thou hast striven with God and with men and has prevailed,” power with God and man. One of the greatest revival sermons ever preached in Waco was preached by A. B. Earle, an evangelist, on that text: “Israel, power with God and man.” One of my examination questions is: Analyze Jacob’s power with God and with man. With God: humility, pleading of commandment, then the promise, then his faith which took hold, then his importunity: “I will not let thee go unless thou bless me.” His power with men appears from the way he got at Esau. He took every step that wisdom could suggest to placate and disarm the adversary of hostility. Some men have a way of looking at you that conveys an insult, and others with a shrug of the shoulders. Shakespeare tells how the’ followers of Montague and Capulet would insult each other, one by twisting his mustache and the other by letting his hand rest on his sword. They would begin, “Did you twist your mustache?” “I twisted my mustache.” “Did you touch your sword?” “I touched my sword,” until finally they got to fighting. Jacob had none of that. He was never going to have a controversy for which he was responsible. His power with man consisted in this also, that he never violated a contract. You can find no evidence in the Bible that Jacob ever went back on a compact made with men.

“Jacob called the name of the place Peniel,” i.e., “the face of God.” “I have seen God face to face, and my soul was delivered.” The sun rose upon him as he passed over Peniel, and he limped on his thigh. Therefore, the children of Israel eat not the sinew of the hip. Look at the effect of that upon Esau: Present after present, and Jacob coming to meet him, limping, without a weapon in his hand. There are two things I want to say about this. One is that all the second-blessing people and sanctificationists make this an example in which their second blessing was received, sinless perfection. And they used to go by the name of “Penielists.” Unquestionably it was a tremendous upward step in the spiritual life of Jacob. But he needed more of God’s discipline before he would be perfectly holy, and we will come to some of it after awhile. I ask you to read the best spiritual interpretation of this incident of Jacob’s life that I know, Charles Wesley’s great hymn. Every time I teach Genesis I have the class bring out that hymn, which you will find in the old-time Methodist hymnbook:

Come, O thou traveller unknown, whom still I hold but cannot see,

My company before is gone, and I am left alone with thee.

With thee all night I mean to stay and wrestle till the break of day.

My prayer hath power with God, the grace unspeakable I now receive

Through faith I see thee face to face and live.

In vain I have not wept and strove; thy nature and thy name is love.

I have a remark for you preachers: Get as many commentaries as you can on that wrestling of Jacob. Every time you see it mentioned in literature, buy what is said, and read and study it profoundly. You are looking for power; that is what you preachers ought to be looking for, power with God and men. Right in that incident of Jacob’s life power can be found. There are a great many things in the Bible you can go over hurriedly. They are parts that hold the rest together, but this is a passage to spend the night on.

But we will go on, however. Jacob has the matter settled with God, and has done everything he can do to get God on his side, and has succeeded. As Saul’s name was changed to Paul, and Abram’s name was changed to Abraham, so Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, as Simon’s name was changed to Peter, Cephas, a stone. Great events of life justify a change of name. “Jacob lifted up his eyes and beheld Esau coming with his four hundred men.” Now we see the last step that Jacob took. First he takes the two concubines and their four sons, as the least beloved, and puts them ahead; then Leah and her six sons and daughter as next most beloved, and puts them next; and last he puts Rachel and Joseph in the rear, furthermost from danger. I don’t blame him for his preference, but Jacob is not going to skulk in the rear. He goes in front, limping as God had lamed him. But as Paul says, “When I am weak, then am I strong.” He is now going to rely upon God altogether. When Esau saw him all of his enmity had banished and he ran to meet him and embraced him and fell upon his neck and kissed him and they wept. They had not met for twenty years. Then Esau saw the women and children and asked an introduction. Each woman with her children came up and was introduced in order; so Esau became acquainted with the family and Jacob won out completely.

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy, and shall break

In blessing on your head.

I hope that when trouble comes and takes to itself the form of a cloud and gathers thick and thunders loud, you will be as humble before God and as courageous before man as Jacob was, and come out of it as well.

Esau proposes to accompany him. Jacob said no; that he had a great many young cattle and children, and they could not go fast like the soldiers, and he does not think it wise to keep too long in the company of that force of border men. In Ivanhoe we have an account of the wisdom of Wamba, the son of Witless, when he saw Richard the Lion-Hearted, “hail fellow well met,” with Robin Hood’s crowd of thieves. It all went off very well, but he was afraid if they kept on, directly some controversy would arise, and so he got off into a thicket and blew a horn, and everybody got up. Thus the wise son of Witless warned Richard that he had better separate from the thieves.

Jacob moved down into the valley of the Jordan, a hot, rank place, and full of sinkholes. He did not stay long. Next he came to Shechem and pitched his tent before that city. Although all the country belonged to him as it did to Abraham, he bought a piece of land. There occurs the incident which is self-explanatory, recounted in the thirty-fourth chapter, and upon which I need to comment very little. Dinah wanted to go to a parties will call it that that the Shechemites were giving. It is a characteristic of girls that they do like to go to parties, but it is not best for a young girl, unchaperoned, to go, among strange wild people. But this heathen loved her and came to Jacob and proposed to marry her, and Jacob would have consented under the circumstances, but an expedient was resorted to that they should become Jews. So the males were circumcised. But Simeon and Levi and their followers came and killed all the men and took possession of the property, and merged the two tribes into one, a most horrible transaction, yet it is customary for brothers to slay those who ruin their sisters, at least it used to be so regarded in the South. Jacob did not approve of it and felt that it was an awful wrong, especially after a covenant had been made and marriage had been proposed and accepted, and they had even agreed to turn Jews. When the old man comes to die you will hear from him on this.

QUESTIONS 1. What assurance of safety did God give Jacob in view of his apprehended trouble in meeting Esau, what name did Jacob give the place and why?

2. Cite a passage in the psalms on this, “id an incident in the life of Elisha on this point.

3. What initiative step did Jacob take toward reconciliation with Esau?

4. What plan did Jacob then adopt for meeting his brother?

5. What report did the messengers make to Jacob?

6. What are the elements of power in his prayer?

7. What was his request and how does he co-operate in bringing it about?

8. Give the sayings of Mohammed and of the British general on this point.

9. What present did he send Esau and what was the plan of presentation?

10. What was his last battle before meeting Esau?

11. Who wrestled with Jacob and what is the key to Jacob’s power?

12. How was the lesson of persistence impressed upon the expositor’s mind?

13. What new name was given Jacob here, and why?

14. Analyze Jacob’s power with God and his power with men.

15. What name did Jacob give to the place where he wrestled, and its meaning?

16. What effect of this fight went with Jacob through life and what custom practiced by the children of Israel in memory of the event?

17. What modern claim is based upon this experience of Jacob’s and what is the fallacy of this claim?

18. What matchless hymn was suggested by this event in Jacob’s life?

19. What advice here is especially adapted to preachers?

20. Cite several instances in Scripture of the change of the name and the justification for such change.

21. How did Jacob shield Rachel from danger in this plan of meeting Esau?

22. What position did Jacob take and what was the effect of all this on Esau?

23. How did Jacob evade Esau’s proposal to accompany him on the journey?

24. Where did Jacob stop after this meeting with Esau and why so named?

25. Where did he stop next and what trouble did Jacob have here? Cite the dying testimony of Jacob relative to this incident.

26. What part of Jacob’s character was inherited from Isaac? What is attributable to divine discipline?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Gen 32:1 And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

Ver. 1. Angels of God met him. ] Sensibly and visibly, as servants meet their masters, as the guard their prince. Oh, the dignity and safety of the saints! who are in five respects, say some, above the angels. (1.) Our nature is more highly advanced in Christ. (2.) The righteousness whereby we come to glory is more excellent than theirs; which, though perfect in its kind, is but the righteousness of mere creatures, such as God may find fault with, Job 4:18 such as may need mercy; therefore the cherubims are said to stand upon the mercy seat, and to be made of the matter thereof. (3.) The sonship of the saints is founded in a higher right than theirs – viz., in the Sonship of the second Person in Trinity. (4.) They are members of Christ, and so in nearer union than any creature. (5.) They are the spouse, the bride; angels only servants of the Bridegroom, and “ministering spirits, sent out (as here) to minister for them that shall be heirs of salvation”. Heb 1:14 They meet us still, as they did Jacob: they minister many blessings to us, yet will not be seen to receive any thanks of us: they stand at our right hands, Luk 1:11 as ready to relieve us as the devils to mischief us. Zec 3:1 If Satan, for terror, show himself like the great “leviathan”; or, for fraud, like a “crooked” and “piercing serpent”; or, for violence and fury, like “the dragon in the seas”; yet the Lord will smite him by his angels, as with his “great, and sore, and strong sword”. Isa 27:1 Angels are in heaven as in their watch tower whence they are called watchers, Dan 4:13 , to keep the world, the saints especially, their chief charge, in whose behalf, they “stand ever before the face of God,” Mat 18:10 waiting and wishing to be sent upon any design or expedition, for the service and safety of the saints. They are like masters or tutors, to whom the great King of heaven commits his children: these they bear in their bosoms, as the nurse doth her babe, or as the servants of the house do their young master, glad to do them any good office; ready to secure them from that roaring lion, that rangeth up and down, seeking to devour them. The philosopher told his friends, when they came into his little and low cottage, E , The gods are here with me. The true Christian may say, though he dwell never so meanly, God and his holy angels are ever with him, &c.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Genesis

MAHANAIM: THE TWO CAMPS

Gen 32:1 – Gen 32:2 .

This vision came at a crisis in Jacob’s life. He has just left the house of Laban, his father-in-law, where he had lived for many years, and in company with a long caravan, consisting of wives, children, servants, and all his wealth turned into cattle, is journeying back again to Palestine. His road leads him close by the country of Esau. Jacob was no soldier, and he is naturally terrified to meet his justly incensed brother. And so, as he plods along with his defenceless company trailing behind him, as you may see the Arab caravans streaming over the same uplands to-day, all at once, in the middle of his march, a bright-harnessed army of angels meets him. Whether visible to the eye of sense, or, as would appear, only to the eye of faith, they are visible to this troubled man; and, in a glow of confident joy, he calls the name of that place ‘Mahanaim,’ two camps. One camp was the little one of his down here, with the helpless women and children and his own frightened and defenceless self, and the other was the great one up there, or rather in shadowy but most real spiritual presence around about him, as a bodyguard making an impregnable wall between him and every foe. We may take some very plain and everlastingly true lessons out of this story.

1. First, the angels of God meet us on the dusty road of common life. ‘Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.’

As he was tramping along there, over the lonely fields of Edom, with many a thought on his mind and many a fear at his heart, but feeling ‘There is the path that I have to walk on,’ all at once the air was filled with the soft rustle of angel wings, and the brightness from the flashing armour of the heavenly hosts flamed across his unexpecting eye. And so is it evermore. The true place for us to receive visions of God is in the path of the homely, prosaic duties which He lays upon us. The dusty road is far more likely to be trodden by angel feet than the remote summits of the mountain, where we sometimes would fain go; and many an hour consecrated to devotion has less of the manifest presence of God than is granted to some weary heart in its commonplace struggle with the little troubles and trials of daily life. These make the doors, as it were, by which the visitants draw near to us.

It is the common duties, ‘the narrow round, the daily task,’ that not only give us ‘all we ought to ask,’ but are the selected means and channels by which, ever, God’s visitants draw near to us. The man that has never seen an angel standing beside him, and driving his loom for him, or helping him at his counter and his desk, and the woman that has never seen an angel, according to the bold realism and homely vision of the old German picture, working with her in the kitchen and preparing the meal for the household, have little chance of meeting such visitants at any other point of their experience or event of their lives.

If the week be empty of the angels, you will never catch sight of a feather of their wings on the Sunday. And if we do not recognise their presence in the midst of all the prose, and the commonplace, and the vulgarity, and the triviality, and the monotony, the dust of the small duties, we shall go up to the summit of Sinai itself and see nothing there but cold grey stone and everlasting snows. ‘Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.’ The true field for religion is the field of common life.

And then another side of the same thought is this, that it is in the path where God has bade us walk that we shall find the angels round us. We may meet them, indeed, on paths of our own choosing, but it will be the sort of angel that Balaam met, with a sword in his hand, mighty and beautiful, but wrathful too; and we had better not front him! But the friendly helpers, the emissaries of God’s love, the apostles of His grace, do not haunt the roads that we make for ourselves. They confine themselves rigidly to ‘the paths in which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.’ A man has no right to expect, and he will not get, blessing and help and divine gifts when, self-willedly, he has taken the bit between his teeth, and is choosing his own road in the world. But if he will say, ‘Lord! here I am; put me where Thou wilt, and do with me what Thou wilt,’ then he may be sure that that path, though it may be solitary of human companionship, and leading up amongst barren rocks and over bare moorlands, where the sun beats down fiercely, will not be unvisited by a better presence, so that in sweet consciousness of sufficiency of rich grace, he will be able to say, ‘I, being in the way, the Lord met me.’

2. Still further, we may draw from this incident the lesson that God’s angels meet us punctually at the hour of need.

Jacob is drawing nearer and nearer to his fear every step. He is now just on the borders of Esau’s country, and close upon opening communications with his brother. At that critical moment, just before the finger of the clock has reached the point on the dial at which the bell would strike, the needed help comes, the angel guards draw near and camp beside him. It is always so. ‘The Lord shall help her, and that right early.’ His hosts come no sooner and no later than we need. If they appeared before we had realised our danger and our defencelessness, our hearts would not leap up at their coming, as men in a beleaguered town do when the guns of the relieving force are heard booming from afar. Often God’s delays seem to us inexplicable, and our prayers to have no more effect than if they were spoken to a sleeping Baal. But such delays are merciful. They help us to the consciousness of our need. They let us feel the presence of the sorrow. They give opportunity of proving the weakness of all other supports. They test and increase desire for His help. They throw us more unreservedly into His arms. They afford room for the sorrow or the burden to work its peaceable fruits. So, and in many other ways, delay of succour fits us to receive succour, and our God makes no tarrying but for our sakes.

It is His way to let us come almost to the edge of the precipice, and then, in the very nick of time, when another minute and we are over, to stretch out His strong right hand and save us. So Peter is left in prison, though prayer is going up unceasingly for him-and no answer comes. The days of the Passover feast slip away, and still he is in prison, and prayer does nothing for him. The last day of his life, according to Herod’s purpose, dawns, and all the day the Church lifts up its voice-but apparently there is no answer, nor any that regarded. The night comes, and still the vain cry goes up, and Heaven seems deaf or apathetic. The night wears on, and still no help comes. But in the last watch of that last night, when day is almost dawning, at nearly the last minute when escape would have been possible, the angel touches the sleeping Apostle, and with leisurely calmness, as sure that he had ample time, leads him out to freedom and safety. It was precisely because Jesus loved the Household at Bethany that, after receiving the sisters’ message, He abode still for two days in the same place where He was. However our impatience may wonder, and our faithlessness venture sometimes almost to rebuke Him when He comes, with words like Mary’s and Martha’ s-’Lord, if Thou hadst been here, such and such sorrows would not have happened, and Thou couldst so easily have been here’-we should learn the lesson that even if He has delayed so long that the dreaded blow has fallen, He has come soon enough to make it the occasion for a still more glorious communication of His power. ‘Rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.’

3. Again, we learn from this incident that the angels of God come in the shape which we need.

Jacob’s want at the moment was protection. Therefore the angels appear in warlike guise, and present before the defenceless man another camp, in which he and his unwieldy caravan of women and children and cattle may find security. If his special want had been of some blessing of another kind, no doubt another form of appearance, suited with precision to his need, would have been imposed upon these angel helpers. For God’s gifts to us change their character; as the Rabbis fabled that the manna tasted to each man what each most desired. The same pure heavenly bread has the varying savour that commends it to varying palates. God’s grace is Protean. It takes all the forms that man’s necessities require. As water assumes the shape of any vessel into which it is put, so this great blessing comes to each of us, moulded according to the pressure and taking the form of our circumstances and necessities. His fulness is all-sufficient. It is the same blood that, passing to all the members, ministers to each according to the needs and fashion of each. And it is the same grace which, passing to our souls, in each man is shaped according to his present condition and ministers to his present wants.

So, dear brethren, in that great fulness each of us may have the thing that we need. The angel who to one man is protection, to another shall be teaching and inspiration; to another shall appear with chariots of fire and horses of fire to sweep the rapt soul heavenward; to another shall draw near as a deliverer from his fetters, at whose touch the bonds shall fall from off him; to another shall appear as the instructor in duty and the appointer of a path of service, like that vision that shone in the castle to the Apostle Paul, and said, ‘Thou must bear witness for me at Rome’; to another shall appear as opening the door of heaven and letting a flood of light come down upon his darkened heart, as to the Apocalyptic seer in his rocky Patmos. And ‘all this worketh that one and the self-same’ Lord of angels ‘dividing to every man severally as He will,’ and as the man needs. The defenceless Jacob has the manifestation of the divine presence in the guise of armed warriors that guard his unwarlike camp.

I add one last word. Long centuries after Jacob’s experience at Mahanaim, another trembling fugitive found himself there, fearful, like Jacob, of the vengeance and anger of one who was knit to him by blood. When poor King David was flying from the face of Absalom his son, the first place where he made a stand, and where he remained during the whole of the rebellion, was this town of Mahanaim, away on the eastern side of the Jordan. Do you not think that to the kingly exile, in his feebleness and his fear, the very name of his resting-place would be an omen? Would he not recall the old story, and bethink himself of how round that other frightened man

‘Bright-harnessed angels stood in order serviceable’

and would he not, as he looked on his little band of friends, faithful among the faithless, have his eyesight cleared to behold the other camp? Such a vision, no doubt, inspired the calm confidence of the psalm which evidently belongs to that dark hour of his life, and made it possible for the hunted king, with his feeble band, to sing even then, ‘I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for Thou, Lord, makest me dwell in safety, solitary though I am.’

Nor is the vision emptied of its power to stay and make brave by all the ages that have passed. The vision was for a moment; the fact is for ever. The sun’s ray was flashed back from celestial armour, ‘the next all unreflected shone’ on the lonely wastes of the desert-but the host of God was there still. The transitory appearance of the permanent realities is a revelation to us as truly as to the patriarch; and though no angel wings may winnow the air around our road, nor any sworded seraphim be seen on our commonplace march, we too have all the armies of heaven with us, if we tread the path which God has marked out, and in our weakness and trembling commit ourselves to Him. The heavenly warriors die not, and hover around us to-day, excelling in the strength of their immortal youth, and as ready to succour us as they were all these centuries ago to guard the solitary Jacob.

Better still, the ‘Captain of the Lord’s host’ is ‘come up’ to be our defence, and our faith has not only to behold the many ministering spirits sent forth to minister to us, but One mightier than they, whose commands they all obey, and who Himself is the companion of our solitude and the shield of our defencelessness. It was blessed that Jacob should be met by the many angels of God. It is infinitely more blessed that ‘ the Angel of the Lord’-the One who is more than the many-’encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.’

The postscript of the last letter which Gordon sent from Khartoum closed with the words, ‘The hosts are with me-Mahanaim.’ Were they not, even though death was near? Was that sublime faith a mistake-the vision an optical delusion? No, for their ranks are arrayed around God’s children to keep them from all evil while He wills that they should live, and their chariots of fire and horses of fire are sent to bear them to heaven when He wills that they should die.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 32:1-2

1Now as Jacob went on his way, the angels of God met him. 2Jacob said when he saw them, “This is God’s camp.” So he named that place Mahanaim.

Gen 32:1

NASB, NKJV,

NRSV, TEVmet”

NJB, JPSOA”encountered”

This VERB (BDB 803, KB 910, Qal IMPERFECT ) denotes a chance encounter (cf. NIDOTTE, vol. 3, p. 575, e.g., Exo 23:4; Num 35:19; Num 35:21; Jos 2:16; 1Sa 10:5; Amo 5:19).

One wonders if this brief and ambiguous verse is somehow linked to the wrestler of Gen 32:22-32. The wrestler is obviously an angel or spiritual being of some kind that had the power (from YHWH) to bless Jacob and change his name. The problem lies in

1. this ambiguous opening verse

2. the wrestler’s inability to defeat Jacob in a protracted physical contest

“the angels of God” He had seen the angels as he left Canaan (cf. Gen 28:12), now on his return, they appeared again (cf. 2Ki 6:16-17; Psa 34:7). They represented YHWH’s presence and protection. It would have reminded him of his conditions and God’s promises of chapter 28. This chapter is a mixture of fear and trust. Jacob contends with these two options!

“met” This VERB (BDB 803, KB 910, Qal IMPERFECT) means to “meet” or “encounter.” The Anchor Bible Commentary (p. 254) links these angels to Gen 32:24-32. This does allow one to see the chapter as beginning and ending with a divine encounter.

Gen 32:2 “God’s camp” The term “camp” (BDB 334) implies a place of encampment or rest on a journey. It can denote an armed military camp (cf. Jos 6:11; Jos 6:14; 1Sa 4:3; 1Sa 4:6-7; 1Sa 17:53; 2Ki 7:16) or army (cf. Exo 14:24). This is one of several Hebrew military terms translated “hosts.”

“Mahanaim” This word literally means “two camps” or “two hosts” (BDB 334, dual form). These two camps can refer to

1. Laban and Jacob

2. the angels and Jacob

3. Esau and Jacob

4. Jacob’s divided family groups

In light of the immediate context, #2 fits best. In light of the larger context, #4 fits Jacob’s character of trying to trust in his own resourcefulness.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

angels of God. Compare Psa 34:7, to assure him of God’s presence with him, and of His protection.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Shall we turn in our Bibles to Genesis chapter thirty-two?

Now in the thirty-first chapter we had the parting of Laban, Jacob’s uncle as he kisses his grandchildren goodbye, as he sets up the stone and as he gives a heavy-duty charge to Jacob saying, “you take care of my girls and my grandkids. And if you do anything wrong, may God watch over you and take care of you”.

And so Laban departed with his host and returned back to Padanaram.

And Jacob [chapter thirty-two] went on his way, and the angels of God met him ( Gen 32:1 ).

So he’s just left the host of Laban and he starts on his way again towards Esau. And the angels of God met him. No doubt this was very encouraging to Jacob at this point to meet the angels of God. Now it is interesting, it doesn’t tell us in what form or whatever. We do know that angels did in many cases take on human form in the Old Testament. In what form the angels met him here is not declared, just that the angels of God met him. Angels, it seems, are able to materialize and to speak to people.

Actually in the book of Hebrews, we are told to be careful to entertain strangers. You might be entertaining angels without even knowing it. Now to my knowledge, I have never seen an angel in my whole life. My wife gets upset when I say that but I mean, really, truly angel. She’s an angel but not a really truly one, I don’t think.

There is a pastor up in Boise, Idaho that declares that Gabriel’s been visiting him over a period of time. From the things that Gabriel has supposedly told him, I doubt that it’s Gabriel. Now we are told that we are not to believe every spirit but to “try the spirits if they be of God” ( 1Jn 4:1 ). And we are told that Satan is able to transform himself into an angel of light in order to deceive. And Paul says, “If an angel of heaven preaches any other gospel than that which you’ve already received, let him be accursed” ( Gal 1:8 ).

So if an angel would come along and say, “Hey, God loves everybody and it doesn’t matter what you might do, God will accept you and receive you, you don’t need to pray, you don’t need to come by Jesus Christ”; hey, let that angel be accursed. The angels of God would not reveal or say anything that would be contrary to the already revealed word of truth that we have in the Bible. So though I’ve never seen an angel, I’m open. I would-I would enjoy the experience very, very much, I’m sure.

There are angels, the Scriptures said, “who have been given charge over us to keep us in all of our ways”, ( Psa 91:11 ), sort of guardian angels. I do believe in them. Mine has been with me on several occasions and has helped me out. I’m very conscious and aware of my angel’s presence with me on occasion and of his help. And there have been occasions when I turned and said, “thanks, buddy. Appreciate that one”, you know, that was really you know, I don’t know how I got out of it myself. But except that the angels of the Lord delivered me and it was very obvious that it was just the hand of the Lord that delivered.

So Jacob met the angels.

And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God’s host ( Gen 32:2 ):

He just saw Laban’s host; they were a rough host. But “this is God’s host:”

and he called the name of that place Mahanaim ( Gen 32:2 ).

“Mahanaim” means the place of two hosts. So it was the host of Laban and the host of angels.

And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom. And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall you speak unto my lord Esau; [Tell him] Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now: And I have oxen, and asses, and flocks, and menservants, and womenservants: I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight. 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 ( Gen 32:3-6 ).

So the reception committee with Esau was on their way. So it was the third host now. There was the host of Laban, that was very uncomfortable. There was the host of angels, that was comfortable. There is now the host of Esau coming with four hundred men and that again is uncertain. But it seems to be uncomfortable at the moment because the last time he saw Esau, Esau was threatening to kill him. Why would he want to bring four hundred men with him unless he intended him harm? And so the news is disrupting to Jacob. He doesn’t like the news that he hears of the four hundred men that Esau is bringing with him.

Notice, Jacob in his message to Esau is pointing out his own wealth in order to cause Esau to be comfortable not thinking that Jacob is coming back to claim his inheritance. Coming back to claim his birthright. Coming back to take away from Esau or to try to take from Esau. I don’t need anything. I’m very rich. I have servants, menservants, maidservants, cattle, oxen, the whole thing, and I’m returning now and the addressing of him as “lord”. Though his father said, “And your brother shall be your servants”, yet Jacob is addressing him as the lord.

Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed: and he divided the people that were with him, the flocks, the herds, the camels, into two bands; and he said, If Esau comes to one company, and smites it, then the other company which is left escape ( Gen 32:7-8 ).

He immediately began to prepare. The first thing was just to divide the whole company into two bands. Figuring if Esau strikes one, while they are fighting and all, it would give the other band an opportunity to escape.

And then Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, the LORD which said unto me, Return to thy country, and to your family, and I will deal well with you ( Gen 32:9 ):

Now Jacob as he begins to pray is immediately reminding the Lord of what the Lord said to him. How oftentimes in prayer I remind the Lord of what He said. Lord, You said, “Where two or three are gathered together” or “where two or three agree” ( Mat 18:20 ). Now the Lord knows He said that and I know He said it but I just like to remind Him that He said it every once in a while, you know. I like to remind the Lord of His promises.

Now Lord, “You promised if we ask anything” and just remind Him that “Lord, this is what You said. I didn’t say this, Lord, You said this”. And so Jacob is doing much the same thing. He’s reminding the Lord of what the Lord said. “Lord, You’re the One that said return and I will deal well with you. Now Lord, I’m returning and here comes my brother” and the acknowledgment in verse ten.

I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which you have showed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I have become two bands ( Gen 32:10 ).

He is returning now to the area where Jabbok enters into the Jordan river and as he looks down into the valley and he sees the Jordan river before him, he remembers twenty years earlier when he was fleeing from his brother. All he had was just a walking stick, just my staff. Coming back now twenty years later, God has been so good and blessed him so abundantly that he’s had to divide his whole group into two companies of people. Two bands. “Lord, I don’t deserve anything. I’m not worthy the least of Your mercies. You’ve blessed me abundantly. When I passed over Jordan, all I had the staff. Now I’ve become two bands”.

Now to give you a little idea of how large a group he had with him, in his present to Esau he sent to him five hundred and fifty animals. Now that was just a small part of one of the bands of animals. So I mean, this was a big drive of cattle, and sheep, servants and all that Jacob is coming back with; a wealthy man. And he attributes the wealth unto God. “I’m not worthy, I’m not deserving. And yet, look what You’ve done”. And then his real request.

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. And you said,[again reminding God what He said] I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude ( Gen 32:11-12 ).

I do think that there’s tremendous value in the promises of God’s scripture and as we remind ourselves of what God has said; “Lord, You have said I will supply all your needs according to my riches in glory by Christ Jesus”( Php 4:19 ). The Lord likes you to take Him at His word. Stand upon His promises.

The real prayer is “deliver me from the hand of Esau”. Now the honest confession, “I am afraid”, and it’s an honest confession. It may be a negative confession but it’s honest. And I think an honest, negative confession is probably better than a dishonest, positive confession. “Oh, I’m not afraid, everything’s all right”. And you’re trembling; that isn’t honest. Jacob is honest with God. “I’m afraid that he’s going to come and kill me.” Very negative confession but it was true. Jacob was afraid. And it’s best to be honest. Honest especially when you’re talking with God.

It’s who do you think you’re kidding when you’re not really honest with God? He knows your heart, He knows what’s in your heart. You’re not fooling God at all. So it’s best to be honest with God, totally honest and open. I love a frankness with God. I love being just blunt and frank when I talk with God. I love to tell Him exactly how I feel.

I’m more open with God, I think, than I am with anybody else because I know that I might as well be. I know it’s ridiculous for me not to be open with God. I know that there is not any hiding of anything from God. That everything is open and naked before Him. And thus, any endeavor of mine to disguise or to color or to in anywise alter the true feelings of my heart are just absolute folly. It’s just deceiving myself. And so a great openness with God, a great honesty.

“Lord, I am afraid. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Lord, I’m just really disturbed over this thing. But God, I’m angry, I’m mad, I can’t stand what they’re doing, Lord.” And just be honest with God about your emotions, about your feelings and then God can deal with them.

As long as I’m trying to cover and, you know, try to fool God and say, “Oh, it’s all right, Lord, everything’s okay, I feel great. Oh, it doesn’t bother me, no, no”. Then I’m not, then God can’t deal with the real issues of my life, until I get just really frank with Him and honest in my dealings with God.

Jacob was honest. And then he reminded as I said God of His promise, “You said ‘I will surely do thee good and make thy seed as the sand of the sea.’ Now Lord, how can my seed be as the sand of the sea if Esau wipes us all out?” You see, that’s the idea, “You made the promise that I’m, you know, my descendants are going to be unnumbered and Lord, that’ll never be if Esau comes and wipes me out”.

And so he lodged there that same night; and he took of that which came to his hand a present for Esau his brother; two hundred she goats, twenty he goats, two hundred ewes, twenty rams, thirty milch camels with their colts, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty she asses, ten foals. And he delivered them into the hand of his servants, every drove by themselves; and he said to his servants, Pass over before me, and put a space between the droves and drove. And he commanded the foremost, saying, When Esau my brother meets you, and asks you, saying, Who are you? and where are you going? Who do these animals belong to? Then you shall say, They are of thy servant Jacob’s; it is a present sent unto my lord Esau: and, behold, he is behind us. And so he commanded the second, the third, and all that followed the droves, saying, On this manner shall you speak unto Esau, when you find him. And say moreover, Behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will appease him with the present that goes before me, and afterward I will see his face; peradventure he will accept me ( Gen 32:13-20 ).

So Jacob prays and then he does his best to set things up. Now as I told you, one of Jacob’s problems was that he felt that God couldn’t do His work without his help. In other words, Jacob always was trying to help God out. Jacob wasn’t a man to just trust the Lord alone. He was the kind of a fellow who would pray and then do his best to set things up. He was a very wise man and a very clever man.

And he always was scheming, always conniving, always manipulating people, and this is just another one of Jacob’s manipulations, having prayed, rather than just leaving it there with God. Then he does his best to help God work out the situation by setting up this whole appeasement program, sending out the servants with all of these droves of cattle and sheep and rams and goats and so forth. So that by the time Esau gets to him, he’s sort of just overwhelmed by all of the presents that he has received from Jacob. And he is hoping that the anger of Esau will surely be appeased by all of these gifts.

You say, “Well, God wants us to do something, doesn’t He?” Yes, I do not believe that faith is really passive. I think that faith is active and I believe that God does expect us to use our heads and use the wisdom that He has given to us. But I do believe that God wants us to be trusting in Him in His ability to do His work. I think that too many times we get into problems where we shouldn’t really get involved at all where we’re trying to help God out and God doesn’t need my help.

And so he went the present over before him: and he stayed that night in the company. And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two womenservants, [that is, Bildad and Zilpah] and his eleven sons, and he passed over the ford Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent over all that he had. And Jacob was left alone ( Gen 32:21-24 );

I really feel that he sent them all away so he could get a good night’s sleep. Others think that he sent them away so he could spend the night in prayer. That doesn’t sound like Jacob. He’s a practical man and as I say, he really is trusting in himself more than God at this particular point. Yes, he takes God into account, he asked God to help him but then he does his best to help himself.

And so I think that he knew that this has been a rough day. It’s been an emotional day. Laban is upset and I can’t go back that direction. Esau is coming; I don’t know what his attitude is. And so he thinks, I better get a good night’s sleep. Get all these little kids out of here, because you remember all and they were eleven boys and how many girls; we don’t know. There were girls also and they were all under thirteen years of age.

So a lot of racket, you know, and a lot of cutting up and a lot of playing and a lot of movement in the night. And Jacob felt he needed a good night’s rest. And so Jacob was left alone but rather than getting a good night rest,

there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him ( Gen 32:24-25 ),

That is, this angel that was wrestling with Jacob, Jacob would not give up. He could not prevail against Jacob. Jacob was a strong, iron-willed man, and that was Jacob’s weakness was his strength. He was so strong; he was prone to trust and rely upon himself rather than to trust in the Lord completely. And so here is a night in which he really needs rest more than any other night, and rather than being able to get rest, the Lord sends an angel to wrestle with him all night long. But he still wouldn’t give up. He still wouldn’t surrender. And so when the angel saw that he would not surrender,

he touched the hollow of his thigh; and it went out of joint, as he wrestled with him ( Gen 32:25 ).

He deliberately crippled Jacob. Using the divine power, he crippled this man. Now Jacob’s one thought was always he could flee. He set things up so that Esau would meet the other company. If Esau was still angry and started to smite the company, then he could flee. And always in the back of his mind, if all else fails, run.

Now the Lord has closed out that door of escape. He’s crippled, how can he run? And so the angel touched the hollow of his thigh, the thing shriveled, he became a cripple. God shut him off from escaping now. And this is what finally brought Jacob to the place of giving up. “That’s it, I’ve had it”. Jacob finally surrendered. That which God was wanting him to do all along, surrender his life, surrender his will unto the Lord finally came with the crippling. It took the crippling to do it. That’s tragic. Sometimes a person’s greatest strength can be their greatest weakness.

But Paul the apostle, he was another Jacob in a sense. The guy with an iron will. When Paul wanted to do something, it was almost impossible to stop him. He was preaching in Lystra and the people got angry and they stoned him. They thought they killed him. They dragged him out of town, even as friends thought he was dead and Paul himself doesn’t know if he was dead or alive. And his friends were gathering around his body weeping over Paul. Oh, the great soldier of the cross. What a loss you know to the kingdom of God. And pretty soon, Paul began to move, stood up, shook himself. Let’s go back into town. Man, how do you stop a guy like that? You don’t. That iron will.

But it also became a problem. For Paul was in Galatia and he intended to go over into Bithynia with the Gospel. He had a desire to get into Asia there. “Oh, I want to go into Asia and preach”. God didn’t want him to go to Asia. But Paul was determined to go to Asia.

So God had to make Paul so sick he couldn’t get out of bed until He got Paul’s attention. Paul said, “Where is it You wanted me to go, Lord? Over to Greece? Oh, but I wanted to go to Asia, Lord”. “Greece, Paul”. But he was so sick he couldn’t go on into Asia. The Lord just put-had, but he had to put him in bed; he had to, you know; that’s sad. But Paul probably could never have endured all of the things that he endured unless he had that great will. It was a great strength but yet so many times the natural abilities are the very things that get in our way in our attempt to serve God.

And God has to deal and bring us to a dependence upon Him in all things. He doesn’t want me to depend upon my natural abilities. He wants me to depend totally upon Him. And with Jacob, it took the crippling in order to bring Jacob to the place of surrender, in order that God might really do all for Jacob He wanted to do. He couldn’t do it as long as he was this clever, conniving kind of a guy. God couldn’t do what He was wanting to do. And so He brings him to the place of weakness. Brings him to a crippling situation.

Jacob is surely not a good example for us. It’s just a good illustration and demonstration of what God has to do to some people to bring them into a complete surrender of themselves to God, so that then God can take them and begin to work through them. And they have that understanding, that deep understanding that I have to depend upon the Lord. And so the angel crippled him. And Jacob, at this point, defeated according to Hosea, began to weep and plead with the angel.

You know, you have to hear a person’s tone of voice many times to know what they’re really saying. You cannot put the tone of voice in words on a page. You’ve got to hear it. And as we read the words on the page, it sounds like Jacob is demanding, coming from a position of victory or power saying, “I’ll not let you go except you bless me”.

As the day was breaking,

The angel said, Let me go, the day is breaking. And Jacob said, I will not let you go ( Gen 32:26 ),

It sounds like he’s coming from a position of power and all. Not so. Hosea says he was at this point broken. He was weeping. He was crying. He was pleading. He was actually saying in essence, “please don’t go without blessing me. I can’t let you go”.

unless you bless me ( Gen 32:26 ).

I’ve had it. I’m destroyed. I can’t run. I’ve had it. Please don’t go without first of all blessing me.

And so the angel said unto him, What is your name ( Gen 32:27 )?

Reminding him of his character. For his name was a reflection of his character.

My name is Jacob ( Gen 32:27 ).

“My name is heel catcher because I caught my brother’s heel and I’ve been at everybody’s heel. I’ve been clever. I’ve been able to get by because of my dogged determination. I don’t give up. I’m a self-governed man. I’m the master of my destiny. I’m the master of every situation. My name is Jacob.”

Your name ( Gen 32:28 )

And here’s the blessing; the blessing is just the change of a name.

Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel ( Gen 32:28 ):

But the name change indicates the change of nature. You’re no longer to be a self-governed, clever heel catcher; but you’re now to be a man whose life is governed by God, Israel. And it indicates the change of character. Actually it is the new birth; it’s being born again. No longer being mastered by self, by the flesh. And now being mastered by the spirit of God. Living now a life after the Spirit. What a beautiful blessing. The greatest blessing he could ever receive. It was the blessing that was to last the rest of his life.

God wants to bless you. He wants to change your nature from a self-governed, independent, self-sufficient individual into a person who is relying and trusting in God whose life is governed by the spirit of God. And so the change in Jacob, the blessing was the change of nature that God gave to him.

for as a prince thou hast power with God and with men, and hast prevailed ( Gen 32:28 ).

God is changing your nature, making you a prince. Giving you power with God and power with men.

And Jacob said to him, What is your name? And he said, Why do you ask me my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for he said I have seen God face to face ( Gen 32:29-30 ),

“Peniel” means the face of God.

and my life is preserved. And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he [was limping or] halted upon his thigh ( Gen 32:30-31 ).

He was crippled. The crippling was an experience that lasted.

Therefore the children of Israel eat not 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 ( Gen 32:32 ). “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Gen 32:1. And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

When he left the promised land, he had a vision of angels, ascending and descending upon the ladder, as if to bid him farewell. Now that he is going back, the angels are there again to speed him on his way home to the land of the covenant, the land which the Lord had promised to give to Abraham and his seed.

Gen 32:2. And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is Gods host: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim.

The marginal reading is Two hosts, or, camps. The angels of the Lord were encamping round about the man who feared him, though shore had been much in his character and conduct which the Lord could not approve.

Gen 32:3. And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother into the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

After a visit from angels, afflictions and trials often come. John Bunyan wrote, as I have often reminded You, The Christian man is seldom long at ease, When one troubles gone, another doth him seize; and though the rhyme is rather rough, the statement is perfectly true. Full often, we are hardly out of one trial before we are into another.

Gen 32:4-5. 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: And I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and menservants, and women servants: and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight.

It is very proper, when we have offended other people, and especially if we feel that we have done them wrong, as Jacob had done to Esau, that we should use the humblest terms concerning ourselves, and the best terms we can about those whom we have offended. Yet I must say that I do not like these terms that Jacob uses; they do not seem to me to be the right sort of language for a man of faith: My lord Esau, Thy servant Jacob saith thus. What business had Gods favored one to speak thus to such a profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright? Surely, there was more of the Jacob policy than there was of the Israel faith in this form of speech.

Gen 32:6-7. And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and alas he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed:

Four hundred men with him! That must mean mischief to me, and my company. Surely, he is coming thus to avenge himself for the wrong I did him, long ago. My brothers heart is still hot with anger against me. So, Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.

Gen 32:7-8. And he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands; and said, If Esau come to the one company, and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape.

This man Jacob was always planning, and scheming; he was the great progenitor of the Jews, who are still preeminent in bargaining. See how he plots and arranges everything to the best advantage. I blame him not for this, yet, methinks, he is to be blamed that he did not pray first. Surely, it would have been the proper order of things if the prayer had preceded the planning; but Jacob planned first, and prayed afterwards. Well, even that was better than planning, and not praying at all; so there is something commendable in his action, though not without considerable qualification.

Gen 32:9. And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the LORD

Jacob uses that August name Jehovah the Lord

Gen 32:9-10. Which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred and I will deal well with thee; 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.

Not even one servant had he with him when he fled away across the river, he was alone and unattended, and now he was coming back at the head of a great family, with troops of servants, and an abundance of cattle, and sheep, and all things that men think worth having. How greatly God had increased him, and blessed him! He remembers that lonely departure from the home country, and he cannot help contrasting it with his present prosperity.

Gen 32:11-13. 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. 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. And he lodged there that same night; and took of that which came to his hand a present for Esau his brother;

There he is, planning again! And this time, perhaps, since he has prayed over the matter, he is planning more wisely than he did before, intending now to try to appease his brothers anger by a munificent present for Esau his brother.

Gen 32:14-16. Two hundred she goats, and twenty he goats, two hundred ewes, and twenty rams, Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine, and ten bulls, twenty she asses, and ten foals. 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 apace betwixt drove and drove.

In order that there might be time for his brother to look at the present in detail, and see it piece by piece, and so be the more struck with the size of it. This was true Oriental policy, and crafty Jacob always had more than enough of something and planning even when it was not done with wisdom; but, in this case, I think it was a wise arrangement, for which he is to be commended.

Gen 32:17-19. 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? Then thou shalt say, They be thy servant Jacobs; it is a present sent unto my lord Esau: and, behold, also he is behind us. 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.

What care he takes about the whole affair! We cannot blame him, under the circumstances, yet how much grander is the quiet, noble demeanour of Abraham, who trusts in God, and leaves matters more in his hands! Yet, alas! even he tried plotting and scheming more than once, but failed every time he did so.

Gen 32:20-24. 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. So went the present over before him: and himself lodged that night in the company. And he rose up that night, and took his two womenservants, and his two women servants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent over that he had. And Jacob was left alone;

This was a very anxious time for him, the heaviest trial of his life seemed impending. He was dreading it more than he need have done, for God never meant the trouble he feared to come upon him at all. He was trembling under a dark cloud that was to pass over his head without bursting. No tempest of wrath was to break out of it upon him. However, we must admire Jacob in this one respect, that, with all his thought, and care, and planning, and plotting, he did not neglect prayer. He felt that nothing he could do would be effectual without Gods blessing. He had not reached the highest point of faith, though he had gone in the right direction a great deal further than many Christians. He now resolved to have a night of prayer, that he might win deliverance: Jacob was left alone;

Gen 32:24. And there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

I suppose our Lord Jesus Christ did here, as on many other occasions preparatory to his full incarnation, assume a human form, and came thus to wrestle with the patriarch.

Gen 32:25. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh;

Where the column of the leg supports the body, and if that be disjointed, a man has lost all his strength. It was brave of Jacob thus to wrestle, but there was too much of self about it all. It was his own sufficiency that was wrestling with the God-man, Christ Jesus. Now comes the crisis which will make a change in the whole of Jacobs future life: He touched the hollow of his thigh.

Gen 32:25. And the hollow of Jacobs thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.

What can Jacob do now that the main bone of his leg is put out of joint?

He cannot even stand up any longer in the great wrestling match; what can he do?

Gen 32:26. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.

It is evident that, as soon as he felt that he must fall, he grasped the other Man with a kind of death-grip, and would not let him go. Now, in his weakness, he will prevail. While he was so strong, he won not the blessing; but when he became utter weakness, then did he conquer.

Gen 32:27. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.

That is, a supplanter, as poor Esau well knew.

Gen 32:28. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel:

That is, a prince of God.

Gen 32:28. For as a prince hast thou power with God and with men and hast prevailed.

Jacob was the prince with the disjointed limb, and that is exactly what a Christian is. He wins, he conquers, when his weakness becomes supreme, and he is conscious of it.

Gen 32:29. 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.

There are limits to all human intercourse with God. We must not go where vain curiosity would lead us, else will he have to say to us, as he did to Jacob, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?

Gen 32:30. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.

How he must have trembled to think that he had the daring perhaps his fears made him call it the presumption actually to wrestle with God himself, for he was conscious now that it was no mere angel, but the Angel of the covenant, the Lord himself, with whom he had wrestled.

Gen 32:31. And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.

The memorial of his weakness was to be with him as long as he lived. People would ask, How came the halting gait of that princely man? And the answer would be, It was by his weakness that he won his princedom, he became Israel, a prince of God, when his thigh was put out of joint. How pleased would you and I be to go halting all our days with such weakness as Jacob had, if we might also have the blessing that he thus won!

Gen 32:32. 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 Jacobs thigh in the sinew that shrank.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

This is unquestionably one of the great chapters of the Bible, and it is significant how constant and powerful is its appeal to all who live on the principle of faith. It gives the account of the third direct communication of God to Jacob.

As he returned to his own land, the same conflicting principles which have been evident throughout are still manifest. His going at all was in direct obedience to the distinct command of God. There was really no other reason to return. He might still have stayed with Laban and outwitted him for his own enrichment. Nevertheless, the manner of his going was characterized by independence and confidence in his own ability. This is seen in the account of the elaborate and carefully calculated preparation he made for meeting Esau. He was ready to placate Esau with presents, and prepared a list of them. However, they were to be used only if Esau was hostile.

This coming back into the land was an event of great importance which Jacob seems to have recognized. When all his own arrangements were made he voluntarily stayed behind and went down to the Jabbok, quite evidently for some dealing with God. Then and there, in the quiet and stillness of the night, God met with him in the form of a man. Wrestling with him, God demonstrated his weakness to Jacob, finally appealing to his spiritual consciousness by crippling him in his body. This is certainly a story of Jacob’s victory, but it was a victory won when, conscious of a superior power, he yielded and, with strong crying and tears, out of weakness was made strong. Jacob’s limp was a lifelong disability, but it was also the patent of his nobility.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Jacob Fears to Meet Esau

Gen 32:1-12

Before we encounter our Esaus we are sure to meet Gods angels. If only our eyes are not holden we shall perceive them. The world is full of angel help! There are more for us than against us! The Captain of the Lords hosts is as near us as He was to Joshua, and His squadrons await our cry. Thinkest thou, said our Lord, that I cannot beseech my Father, and He shall even now send more than twelve legions of angels! In times of trial we betake ourselves to God, and are justified in claiming His protection, so long as we can show that we are on His plan and doing His will. It was the news brought by his messengers of Esaus approach that elicited from Jacob this marvelous prayer; but his prayer did not prevent him making what plans he could for the safety of his dear ones.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Gen 32:1-2

I. Notice first the angels themselves. (1) Their number is very great. (2) They are swift as the flames of fire. (3) They are also strong: “Bless the Lord, ye His angels that excel in strength.” (4) They seem to be all young. (5) They are evidently endowed with corresponding moral excellences.

II. The ministry of angels has these characteristics. (1) It is a ministry of guardianship. (2) It is a ministry of cheerfulness. (3) It is a ministry of animation. (4) It is a ministry of consolation. (5) It is a ministry of fellowship and convoy through death to life and from earth to heaven.

III. The whole subject shows in a very striking manner (1) the exceeding greatness of the glory of Christ; (2) the value and greatness of salvation.

A. Raleigh, Quiet Resting-places, p. 182.

Jacob called the name of that place Mahanaim (i.e., two camps). One camp was the little one containing his women and children and his frightened and defenceless self, and the other was the great one up there, or rather in shadowy but most real spiritual presence round about him as a bodyguard, making an impregnable wall between him and every foe. We may take some plain lessons from the story.

I. The angels of God meet us on the dusty road of common life. “Jacob went on his way and the angels of God met him.”

II. God’s angels meet us punctually at the hour of need.

III. The angels of God come in the shape which we need. Jacob’s want was protection; therefore the angels appear in warlike guise, and present before the defenceless man another camp. God’s gifts to us change their character; as the Rabbis fabled that the manna tasted to each man what each most desired. In that great fulness each of us may have the thing we need.

A. Maclaren, Christ in the Heart, p. 195.

References: Gen 32:1.-S. Baring-Gould, Preacher’s Pocket, p. 1. Gen 32:1, Gen 32:2.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1544. Gen 32:1-32.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. v., p. 101.

Gen 32:1, Gen 32:24

Every man lives two lives-an outward and an inward. The one is that denoted in the former text: Jacob went on his way. The other is denoted in the latter text: Jacob was left alone. In either state God dealt with him.

I. The angels of God met him. We do not know in what form they appeared, or by what sign Jacob recognised them.

In its simplicity the angelic office is a doctrine of revelation. There exists even now a society and a fellowship between the sinless and the fallen. As man goes on his way, the angels of God meet him.

II. Are there any special ways in which we may recognise and use this sympathy? (1) The angelic office is sometimes discharged in human form. We may entertain angels unawares. Let us count common life a ministry; let us be on the look-out for angels. (2) We must exercise a vigorous self-control lest we harm or tempt. Our Saviour, has warned us of the presence of the angels as a reason for not offending His little ones. Their angels He calls them, as though to express the closeness of the tie that binds together the unfallen and the struggling. We may gather from the story two practical lessons. (a) The day and the night mutually act and react. A day of meeting with angels may well be followed by a night of wrestling with God. (b) Earnestness is the condition of success. Jacob had to wrestle a whole night for his change of name, for his knowledge of God. Never will you say, from the world that shall be, that you laboured here too long or too earnestly to win it.

C. J. Vaughan, Last Words at Doncaster, p. 197.

Reference: Gen 32:2.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xvi., p. 90.

Gen 32:7, Gen 32:11, Gen 32:24, Gen 32:28

From this description of a day and a night in the life of Jacob we learn three things. (1) This is a crisis, a turning-point in his career. His experience at the ford of Jabbok is his “conversion” from the craft and cunning and vulturous greed of years to the sweet subjection of his will to the Eternal, and consequent victory over himself and his brother. (2) God is in this crisis from first to last and at every moment of these twenty-four hours. (3) The crisis closes in the victory of the patient and loving Lord over the resisting selfishness of Jacob. Note these points:-

I. It must have been a welcome fore-gleam of approaching victory, and a pledge of the sustaining presence of Jehovah in the “valley of the shadow of death,” that as this day of crisis broke on the pilgrim the angels of God met him.

II. What is the significance of this terrific conflict? It means this assuredly. Jacob having gone to God in quaking fear, God holds him and will not let him go; goads and harrows his soul, till his heart swells and is ready to break; urges him to such a relentless and soul-consuming struggle with his self-will that he feels as though he is held in the grip of a giant and cannot escape. He resists, he struggles, he writhes, and in his furious contortions is at last lamed and helpless, and therefore compelled to trust himself and his all to God.

III. Jacob wrestled against God, but at last yielding, his soul is suffused with the blessedness of the man whose trust is in the Lord. Faber asks, with mingled beauty and force, “What is it will make us real?” and answers, “The face of God will do it.” It is so. Israel is a new creation: Jacob is dead. Dark as the night was, Jacob passed through it, saw the Face of God at day-dawn, and became himself, met his brother with serenity, and spent the rest of his days in the love and service of God.

J. Clifford, Daily Strength for Daily Living, p. 39.

References: Gen 32:7, Gen 32:8.-S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 204. Gen 32:9-11.-Sermons for Boys and Girls (1880), p. 122. Gen 32:9-12.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 186.

Gen 32:10

I. The contrast here presented between the early loneliness and poverty of life and its growing riches is universal. (1) What is life but a constant gathering of riches? Compare the man and the woman of forty with their childhood. They have made themselves a name and a place in life; they are centres of attraction to troops of friends. How rich has life become to them! how full its storehouses of knowledge, power, and love! (2) That which is stored in the mind, that which is stored in the heart, is the true treasure; the rest is mere surplusage. To know and to love: these are the directions in which to seek our riches. (3) There is no other way to make life a progress, but to root it in God.

II. Consider the higher development of the law of increase, the deeper and more solemn sense in which, through the ministry of the angel of death, we become “two bands.” (1) Through death there has been a constant progress in the forms and aspects of creation. The huge, coarse, unwieldy types which ruled of old in both the animal and vegetable worlds have vanished, and out of their ashes the young phoenix of creation has sprung which is the meet satellite of man. (2) This is the counsel of God: to make the darkness of death beautiful for us; to make it the one way home; to show us that the progress is not rounded, but prolonged and completed, and that the increase is not gathered, but consecrated by death as the possession of eternity. To bring heaven easily within our reach God separates the bands,-part have crossed the flood, part are on the hither side, and the instinct of both tells them that they are one. At the last great day of God they shall be one band once more, met again and met for ever.

J. Baldwin Brown, Aids to the Development of the Divine Life, No. VII.

“I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which Thou hast shewed unto Thy servant”

Thankfulness is eminently a Christian grace, and is enjoined on us in the New Testament. Jacob knew not of those great and wonderful acts of love with which God has visited the race of men since his day. But he knew that Almighty God had shown him great mercies and great truth.

I. Jacob’s distinguishing grace was a habit of affectionate musing upon God’s providence towards him in times past and of overflowing thankfulness for it. Abraham appears ever to have been looking forward in hope-Jacob looking back in memory; the one rejoicing in the future, the other in the past; the one making his way towards the promises, the other musing over their fulfilment. Abraham was a hero; Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.

II. It would be well for us if we had the character of mind instanced in Jacob and enjoined on his descendants,-the temper of dependence on God’s providence and thankfulness under it and careful memory of all He has done for us. We are not our own, any more than what we possess is our own. We are God’s property by creation, by redemption, by regeneration. It is our happiness thus to view the matter. We are creatures, and being such, we have two duties: to be resigned, and to be thankful.

III. Let us view God’s providence towards us more religiously than we have hitherto done. Let us humbly and reverently attempt to trace His guiding hand in the years which we have already lived. He has not made us for nought; He has brought us thus far in order to bring us farther, in order to bring us on to the end. We may cast all our care upon Him who careth for us.

J. H. Newman, Selection from Parochial and Plain Sermons, p. 52; also vol. v., p. 72.

References: Gen 32:10.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1787 Gen 32:12.-Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 109.

Gen 32:24

There are two decisive and determining moments in the life of Jacob. The wrestling with the angel of the Lord was the second of these, even as that marvellous vision in the field of Luz had been the first. The work which that began, this completes.

I. In that “Let me go” of the angel, and that “I will not let thee go except thou bless me” of Jacob, we have a glimpse into the very heart and deepest mystery of prayer,-man conquering God, God suffering Himself to be conquered by man. The power which prevails with Him is a power which has itself gone forth from Him. Not in his natural strength shall man prevail with God,-at the lightest touch of His hand all this comes to nothing,-but in the power of faith; and the after-halting of Jacob, so far from representing his loss, did rather represent his gain. There was in this the outward token of an inward strength which he had won therein, of a breaking in him of the power of the flesh and of the fleshly mind; while the further fact that he halted not merely then, but from that day forth, was a testimony that this was no gain made merely for the moment, from which he should presently fall back to a lower spiritual level again, but that he was permanently lifted up into a higher region of the spiritual life.

II. The new name does not, in the case of Jacob, abolish and extinguish the old, as for Abraham it does. The names Jacob and Israel subsist side by side, and neither in the subsequent history of his life wholly abolishes the other. In Abraham’s name are incorporated and sealed the promises of God. These evermore abide the same. Israel, on the other hand, is the expression not of the promises of God, but of the faith of man. But this faith of man ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes. Jacob is not wholly Israel, Israel has not entirely swallowed up Jacob, during the present time; and in sign and witness to this the new name only partially supersedes and effaces the old.

R. C. Trench, Sermons Preached in Ireland, p. 1.

I. In what position do we find Jacob’s spiritual state up to the time of this second incident in his life? During the first period of his life he was simply a man of the world. After the vision at Bethel he was a religious man; the sense of religious influence was seen in his life; after the conflict at the ford Jabbok he became a spiritually minded man. He was going home with his sin yet weighty on his soul, unpardoned, unforgiven, uncleansed by the Divine power. Bethel was the house of God, to teach him that he could not set his foot upon a single acre of soil without finding that the Governor of the world was there; here we have the unfolding of the wider thought of the intercommunion and personal relationship between the soul of man and his Maker.

II. Those who trust in the God of Bethel and providence are looking to Him for what He gives; but the aspirations of the spiritual man are wholly different. At Bethel Jacob said, “If Thou wilt be with me and wilt do me good.” At Jabbok his first thought was, “Tell me Thy name.” He desired to know more of God, not to get more from God. To gain further spiritual experience-this is the thirst of the spiritual man. To make a friend of God for the good that we can get-this is the idea of the merely religious man.

Bishop Boyd Carpenter, Penny Pulpit, No. 608.

I. All the evidence here goes to prove that the wonderful wrestler, who contended with Jacob, was the one only true God.

II. Being God and being man, we are right in calling Him Christ, and in placing this incident as the second of the anticipatory advents of the Messiah which lie scattered over the Old Testament.

III. As Jacob wrestled with God in human form, so it is with God in the Lord Jesus Christ that in all our spiritual conflicts, in all our deep repentances, in all our struggling prayers, we must wrestle.

IV. There were two things which Christ gave in this encounter-a wound and a blessing. The wound first and then the blessing. The wound was small and for a season; the blessing was infinite and for ever.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons (1874). p. 235.

We see here the supernatural appearing in the world of the natural. We see God veiling Himself in human form, as He veiled Himself in the form of Christ His Son in after years. We must look at this story of miracle in the light of the miracle of the Incarnation.

I. In this striving of the patriarch with God, and in the blessing he won at the end of the striving, we see the very height and picture of our life, if into that life has passed the life of Christ our Lord.

II. It is by wrestling that we win the Divine blessing, but whether in struggling against doubt, against temptation, or against the enemies of the Church, we must take heed that we fight wisely as well as earnestly. We may strive, and we must strive; but let us strive wisely and lawfully if we would win the blessing.

III. The homeliest, the least eventful life, may and should be a supernatural life-a life in which Christ dwells, a life which the Holy Spirit sanctifies. If we can thus strive and wrestle on, the dawn comes at last, and we are blessed of God.

Bishop Magee, Penny Pulpit, No. 1078.

I. Any attempt to make Jacob a hero, or even a good man, at the time of his deception of his father, must fail. At that time he represented the very lowest quality of manhood. We can call him a man only by courtesy; while Esau, a venturous and kind-hearted child of nature, stands up as a prince, uncrowned indeed, but only because a thief had robbed him of his crown. In the fact that God chose Jacob we find the germ of the redemptive idea at work.

II. Jacob was not at once promoted to his high place. As a wanderer and a stranger, he underwent most humiliating discipline, and on this night his old and wretched past was replaced by a new name and a new hope.

III. There must be such a night in every life-a night in which the sinful past shall go down for ever into the depths of unfathomable waters. The wrestling of Jacob was (1) long, (2) desperate, (3) successful.

IV. The night of wrestling was followed by a morning of happy reconciliation with his brother.

Parker The City Temple (1870), p. 373.

(With 1Sa 2:27; Act 1:11; Act 16:9)

I. There are anonymous ministries in life which teach the great facts of spirituality and invisibleness.

II. There are anonymous ministries in life which pronounce upon human conduct the judgment of Almighty God.

III. There are anonymous ministries in life which recall men from useless contemplation and reverie.

IV. There are anonymous ministries in life which urgently call men to benevolent activity. Two important and obvious lessons arise from the subject. (1) We are to view our own position and duty in the light of humanity as distinct from mere personality. We are parts of a whole. We belong to one another. In watering others we are watered ourselves. (3) We are not to wait for calls to service that are merely personal. We do not lift the gospel into dignity. It catches no lustre from our genius. It asks to be spoken that it may vindicate its own claim.

Parker, The City Temple, vol. i., p. 1.

Genesis 32

I. God selects men for His work on earth, not because of their personal agreeableness, but because of their adaptation to the work they have to perform.

II. There is something affecting in the way in which guilty persons invoke the God of their fathers. Conscious that they deserve nothing at the hands of God, they seek to bring down on themselves the blessing of the God of their father and mother.

III. When a man is overtaken in his transgression, and all his wickedness seems to come down upon him, how true it is that then there rises up before him the concurrent suffering of all his household! It takes hold on him through his wife and his children and all that he loves.

IV. Men’s sins carry with them a punishment in this life. Different sins are differently punished.

V. Nothing but a change of heart will put a man right with himself, right with society, and right with God.

VI. No man who is in earnest need ever despair because of past misdoing.

H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 106.

References: Gen 32:24.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 88; Congregationalist, vol. xi., p. 6; W. M. Taylor, Limitation of Life, p. 30; Bishop Ewing, Revelation Considered as Light, p. 1; A. P. Stanley, Good Words (1874), p. 63; W. J. Keay, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 277; F. Langbridge, Sunday Magazine (1885), p. 675; Parker, Pulpit Notes, p. 15; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 118, and vol. iii., pp. 531, 541, 558. Gen 32:24-28.-Expositor, 1st series, vol. x., p. 241. Gen 32:24-32.-R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 74.

Gen 32:26

Esau, with all his amiable qualities, was a man whose horizon was bounded by the limitations of the material world. He never rose above earth; he was a man after this world; he lived an eminently natural life. Jacob, on the other hand, was a man of many faults, yet there was a continuous testimony in his life to the value of things unseen. He had had wonderful dealings of God with him, and these had only the effect of whetting his spiritual appetite. When the opportunity came he availed himself of it to the full, and received from the hands of God Himself that blessing for which his soul had been longing. Notice:

I. He was thoroughly in earnest; he wrestled till he got the blessing.

II. If we wish to gain a blessing like Jacob’s we must be alone with God. It is possible to be alone with God, even in the midst of a multitude.

III. Jacob’s heart was burdened with a load of sin. It crushed his spirit, it was breaking his heart; he could bear it no more, and so he made supplication. He wanted to be lifted out of his weakness and made a new man.

IV. In the moment of his weakness Jacob made a great discovery. He found that when we cannot wrestle we can cling; so he wound his arms round the great Angel like a helpless child. He clings around those mighty arms and looks up into His face and says, “I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me.”

V. He received the blessing he had wrestled for. As soon as Jacob was brought to his proper place, and in utter weakness was content to accept the blessing of God’s free gift, that moment the blessing came. He received his royalty on the field of battle, was suddenly lifted up into a heavenly kingdom and made a member of a royal family.

W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons, 3rd series, p. 38.

Though no vision is vouchsafed to our mortal eyes, yet angels of God are with us oftener than we know, and to the pure heart every home is a Bethel and every path of life a Penuel and a Mahanaim. In the outer world and the inner world do we see and meet continually these messengers of God. There are the angels of youth, and of innocence, and of opportunity; the angels of prayer, and of time, and of death. To those who wrestle with them in faith and prayer they are angels with hands full of immortal gifts; to those who neglect or use them ill they are angels with drawn sword and scathing flame.

I. The earliest angel is the angel of youth. Do not think that you can retain him long. Use, as wise stewards, this blessed portion of your lives. Remember that as your faces are setting into the look which they shall wear in later years, so is it with your lives.

II. Next is the angel of innocent pleasure. Trifle not with this angel. Remember that in heathen mythology the Lord of Pleasure is also the God of Death. Guilty pleasure there is; guilty happiness there is not on earth.

HI. There are the angels of time and opportunity. They are with us now, and we may unclench from their conquered hands garlands of immortal flowers. Hallow each new day in your morning prayer, for prayer, too, is an angel-an angel who can turn “pollution into purity, sinners into penitents, and penitents into saints.”

IV. There is one angel with whom we must wrestle whether we will or no, and whose power of curse or blessing we cannot alter-the angel of death.

F. W. Farrar, The Fall of Man and other Sermons, p. 236.

References: Gen 32:26.-J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 363; I. Burns, Select Remains, p. 87; M. Dix, Sermons-Doctrinal and Practical, p. 180; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 192.

Gen 32:28

Some surprise may be felt at first at the term prince being applied to the patriarch Jacob; for whatever good qualities distinguish his character, we hardly regard him as possessing princely ones. He has the quiet virtues of resignation, meekness and caution, but we hardly attribute to him that spirit and mettle, that vigorous temper and fire, which belong to the princely character. Yet when we consider Jacob we find that he had virtues which lie at the foundation of the royal and grand form of human character.

I. His patience was a princely virtue. How patiently he bore the long delays in Laban’s service! the plots of his sons Simeon and Levi! We sometimes think of patience as the virtue of the weak, the sufferer, the inferior. Yet a great prime minister of England, when asked what was the most important virtue for a prime minister, gave this answer: “Patience is the first, patience is the second, patience is the third.”

II. Hopefulness was another of Jacob’s regal virtues. He looked forward with trust and confidence to the future; he believed firmly in God’s promises. His was a religious spirit; the religious mind is sustained by hope. “I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord,” he says in his last address, when he summed up the purpose of his life. He had waited, but never ceased to hope; the Divine reward had always been before him.

III. But it was in prayer specially that Jacob showed his princely character. What a nobility is attributed to prayer in this episode of Jacob’s life! What a description the text gives us of the royal attributes of prayer-that it sets in motion the sovereign agency which settles all human events! Jacob had in the midst of all his worldly sorrows and depressions a religious greatness. While to human eyes he was a dejected man, in the presence of God he was a prince, and prevailed.

J. B. Mozley, Sermons-Parochial and Occasional, p. 347.

I. The very twofold name of Jacob and of Israel is but the symbol of the blending of contradictions in Jacob’s character. The life of Jacob comes before us as a strange paradox, shot with the most marvellous diversities. He is the hero of faith, and the quick, sharp-witted schemer. To him the heavens are opened, and his wisdom passes into the cunning which is of the earth earthy.

II. The character of Jacob is a form which is to be found among the Gentiles no less than among the Jews. There are in our own day prudential vices, marring what would otherwise be worthy of all praise. And that which makes them most formidable is that they are the cleaving, besetting temptations of the religious temperament. The religious man who begins to look on worldlings with the feeling of one who gives God thanks that he is not like them is in the way to fall short even of their excellences. (1) Untruthfulness, the want of perfect sincerity and frankness, is, it must be owned with shame and sorrow, the besetting sin of the religious temperament. (2) It is part of the same form of character that it thinks much of ease and comfort, and shrinks from hardship and from danger. Cowardice and untruthfulness are near of kin and commonly go together, and that which makes the union so perilous is that they mask themselves as virtues.

III. The religious temperament, with all its faults, may pass into the matured holiness of him who is not religious only, but godly. How the work is to be done “thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter,” when thou too hast wrestled with the angel and hast become a prince with God.

E. H. Plumptre, Theology and Life, p. 296.

References: Gen 32:28.-G. Litting, Thirty Children’s Sermons, p. 154; Weekly Pulpit, vol. i. (1887), p. 271; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 551; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 339. Gen 32:28, Gen 32:20.-F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 1st series, p. 36; Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes (1884), pp. 13, 16.

Gen 32:29

This is the question of all questions. For the name of God denotes His nature and His essence, the sum of all His properties and attributes.

I. It is a question worth the asking. There is a despair of religious knowledge in the world, as though in God’s rich universe, Theology, which is the science of God Himself, were the one field in which no harvest could be reaped, no service of sacred knowledge gained.

II. The knowledge of God is the one thing needful. He who seeks to do the work of a Paley in presenting Christian evidences in a sense conformable to the intellectual state of thoughtful men, as the shadows are folding themselves about this wearied century-above all, he who cultivates and disciplines his spirituality until it has become the central fact of his being-it is he who offers in a right and reverent spirit the prayer of Jacob at Peniel, “Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name.”

III. It is necessary not only to ask the great question of the Divine nature, but to ask it in a right spirit. Jacob acted as though there were no other way of asking the question aright than by prayer; he must also ask it at the cost of personal suffering.

IV. What is the answer when it comes? Jacob’s question was asked, but was not answered; or, rather, it was answered not directly and in so many words, but effectually: “He blessed him there.” It is not knowledge that God gives to striving souls, but blessing. He stills your doubtings; He helps you to trust Him. You go forth no longer as Jacob, the supplanter, mean, earthly, temporal, but in the power of a Divine enthusiasm, as an Israel, a prince with God.

J. E. C. Welldon, The Anglican Pulpit of To-day, p. 428.

Reference: A. Fletcher, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 413.

Gen 32:29

God blessed Jacob at Peniel because he asked to be blessed, and his desire for it constituted at once his worthiness and his capacity. He began the blessing by the agony of prayer, and he completed it with the discipline of sorrow.

I. Life being itself a blessing, and to one who believes in God and hopes for Him the greatest of all blessings, God makes it a yet greater blessing by ordaining for it a fixed plan.

II. God does not expect perfect characters to fulfil His purpose. He chooses the fittest instruments He can find for His purest purposes, and trains them and bears with them until their work is done.

III. God uses circumstances as His angels and voices to us, and He has special epochs and crises in which He visits our souls and lives.

IV. The perfection of youth is eagerness without impetuosity; the perfection of old age is wisdom without cynicism, and a faith in the purpose of God which deepens and widens with the years.

Bishop Thorold, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 145.

Gen 32:31

I. From the great conflict with sin none come off without many a scar. We may wrestle and prevail, but there will be touches of the enemy, which will leave their long and bitter memories. The way to heaven is made of falling down and rising up again. The battle is no steady, onward fight, but rallies and retreats, retreats and rallies.

II. The reason of our defeats is that the old sin of the character continues, and continues with unabated force, in the heart of a child of God. There are two ways in which sin breaks out and gains an advantage over a believer. (1) A new temptation suddently presents itself. (2) The old habit of sin recurs-recurs, indeed, sevenfold, but still the same sin.

III. All sin in a believer must arise from a reduction of grace. This is the result of grieving the Holy Ghost by a careless omission of prayer or other means of grace. There was an inward defeat before there was an outward and apparent one.

IV. Defeat is not final. It is not the end of the campaign. It is but one event in the war. It may even be converted into a positive good to the soul, for God can and will overrule guilt to gain. He allows the defeat to teach us repentance and humility.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 6th series, p. 33.

References: Gen 32:31.-Parker, vol. i., p. 363. Gen 32-F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 116; H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 106; R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 63; M. Dods, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, p. 99; R. Lorimer, Bible Studies in Life and Truth, p. 1; Expositor, 1st series, vol. viii., p. 409. Gen 33:9.-Parker, vol. i., p. 363. Gen 33:17.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., P 543.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 32 Jacobs Fear of Esau and Prayer at Peniel

1. The vision at Mahanaim (Gen 32:1-2)

2. The message to Esau (Gen 32:3-5)

3. Esaus coming and Jacobs fear (Gen 32:6-8)

4. Jacobs prayer (Gen 32:9-12)

5. Preparing to meet Esau (Gen 32:13-23)

6. Jacobs prayer at Peniel (Gen 32:24-32)

What a welcome it was when he came near to his land, that the angels of God met him. They were like divine ambassadors sent to welcome him back to assure him of Gods presence and protection. When the remnant of Israel returns in the future to the promised land, the angelic hosts will not be absent. They have a share in the regathering and restoration of the people Israel (Mat 24:31). But he faced the greatest trouble, his brother Esau. Fear drives him to prayer. It is a remarkable prayer: 1. He acknowledges his utter unworthiness; 2. He gives God the glory for all he has received; 3. He cries for deliverance; 4. He reminds God of the promises given at Bethel. And the Lord heard and answered his prayer. The returning remnant of Israel during the great tribulation will confess and pray in the same manner.

The night experience at Jabbok was not a dream, nor a vision, but an actual occurrence. The same person who appeared to Abraham at Mamre (chapter 18) appeared to Jacob that night. It is often stated that Jacob wrestled with the Lord who came to him that night; it is the other way, the Lord wrestled with Jacob. And He appeared in that memorable night as Jacobs enemy and opponent. Jacob uses the same carnal weapons with which he had in the past contended against God; he meets Him in his own natural strength. That stubbornness is overcome by the Lord touching the hip-joint of Jacob, dislocating it. In this way He completely crippled his strength and now Jacob could wrestle no more. In utter weakness and helplessness he could but cling to Him and ask a blessing. By his strength he had power with God, yea he had power over the angel and prevailed; he wept and made supplication unto Him (Hos 12:3-4). The weeping and supplication was his strength. His name is changed. From now on his name is Israel-a Prince with God. And the descendants of Jacob, at the time of Jacobs trouble (Jer 30:7), will make a similar experience and have their Peniel.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

angel

(See Scofield “Heb 1:4”).

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

angels: Psa 91:11, Heb 1:4, 1Co 3:22, Eph 3:10

Reciprocal: Gen 28:12 – ladder Gen 35:9 – General Jos 13:26 – Mahanaim Psa 34:7 – encampeth Zec 9:8 – I will Mat 18:10 – their Luk 2:13 – a multitude Heb 1:14 – sent

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

ANGELS ON LIFES PATHWAY

Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

Gen 32:1

Every man lives two livesan outward and an inward. The one is that denoted in our present text: Jacob went on his way. The other is denoted in a later verse (24): Jacob was left alone. In either state God dealt with him.

I. The angels of God met him.We do not know in what form they appeared, or by what sign Jacob recognised them. In its simplicity the angelic office is a doctrine of revelation. There exists even now a society and a fellowship between the sinless and the fallen. As man goes on his way, the angels of God meet him.

II. Are there any special ways in which we may recognise and use this sympathy? (1) The angelic office is sometimes discharged in human form. We may entertain angels unawares. Let us count common life a ministry; let us be on the look-out for angels. (2) We must exercise a vigorous self-control lest we harm or tempt. Our Saviour has warned us of the presence of the angels as a reason for not offending His little ones. Their angels He calls them, as though to express the closeness of the tie that binds together the unfallen and the struggling. We may gather from the story two practical lessons. (a) The day and the night mutually act and react. A day of meeting with angels may well be followed by a night of wrestling with God. (b) Earnestness is the condition of success. Jacob had to wrestle a whole night for his change of name, for his knowledge of God. Never will you say, from the world that shall be, that yon laboured here too long or too earnestly to win it.

Dean Vaughan.

Illustration

(1) I did not see, early in the morning, the flight of those birds that filled all the bushes and all the orchard trees, but they were there, though I did not see their coming, and I hear their songs afterwards. It does not matter whether you have ministered to you yet those perceptions by which you perceive angelic existence. The fact that we want to bear in mind is, that we are environed by them, that we move in their midst. How, where, what the philosophy is, whether it be spiritual philosophy, no man can tell, and they least that think they know most about it. The fact which we prize and lay hold of is this, that angelic ministration is a part, not of the heavenly state, but of the universal condition of men, and that as soon as we become Christs, we come not to the home of the living God, but to the innumerable company of angels.

(2) There is a spirit world, and a world as full of spirits as this world is full of men. There is a connection between that world and this. The wanderer saw in his dream a ladder between earth and heaven, and troops of angels ascending and descending on it; and the vision has been the reality ever since. Angels are still ascending and descending on the Son of Man. They assume the human formthis is singular if you think on iteither because it is the fittest, or because there is no higher or diviner form. There would probably be the freshness, the openness, the transparency of beauty of a cherubs face, and the combined majesty and glory of more than human intellect. If we could see an angels face, there would doubtless be a superhuman beauty and a Divine serenity.

(3) Though no vision is vouchsafed to our mortal eyes, yet angels of God are with us oftener than we know, and to the pure heart every home is a Bethel and every path of life a Penuel and a Mahanaim. In the outer world and the inner world do we see and meet continually these messengers of God. There are the angels of youth, and of innocence, and of opportunity; the angels of prayer, and of time, and of death.

(4) The angels of God come in the shape which we need. Jacobs want was protection; therefore the angels appear in warlike guise, and present before the defenceless man another camp. Gods gifts to us change their character; as the Rabbis fabled that the manna tasted to each man what each most desired. In that great fulness each of us may have the thing we need.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Thus far, many blemishes have marred the history of Jacob. His desire at the outset for the birthright and the blessing of God, which accompanied it, was right: the way he schemed to obtain it altogether wrong. God had been but little in his thoughts, and when, fleeing from Esau’s vengeance, in a night vision he discovered the house of God, he felt it to be a dreadful place. One of our hymn writers describing his soul’s journey, began with, “All of self and none of Thee.” If it was not exactly thus with Jacob, it had certainly been, “Nearly all of self and very little of Thee.”

Now however the time had come when God would deal more directly with him, and the first move was that he should encounter an angelic band. Jacob was migrating with wives, children, servants and many animals, thus forming a large band. He now became conscious that there was a second band, standing on his behalf. Even this did not free him from the fear of Esau, and his approach to him, as given in verses Gen 32:3-5, though very diplomatic, bears traces of the working of a bad conscience.

Verse Gen 32:7 again bears witness to this. The tidings that Esau, at the head of four hundred men, was coming to meet him, awoke his keenest fears. In spite of having seen the angelic band, he assumed at once, as the fruit of the working of his conscience, that Esau was on his way to take vengeance and, true to his nature, he at once worked out an elaborate scheme to placate his brother and secure himself. All his possessions, starting with flocks and servants and working down to wives and children, were to meet the brother he feared before he himself had to face him.

But this did not altogether exclude God from his thoughts. In verses Gen 32:9-12, we have his prayer recorded. God had intervened with him previously and Jacob had registered a vow, but this is the first actual prayer of his that is put on record. It does not breathe the spirit of communion and intercession, such as marked Abraham in Gen 18:1-33, it was simply a plea for preservation, while acknowledging God’s mercies to him in the past. Yet we notice how rightly he took a low place, though not as low as Abraham, who said, “I… am but dust and ashes” (Gen 18:27). Jacob says, “I am not worthy of the least of all Thy mercies,” which was indeed true, though it did not go the whole length. It is a fact in all dispensations that one’s sense of unworthiness and nothingness deepens as nearness to God increases. As an illustration of this see Psa 73:17, Psa 73:22.

Jacob’s plan was to appease Esau with a present, as verse Gen 32:20 records. All – even wives and sons – were sent over the brook at the ford Jabbok, and he was left alone, well to the rear. Not a very dignified or courageous proceeding! Yet God was in all this, for being left alone, the moment had come for him to be brought face to face with God Himself, that he might have an experience, the effect of which he would never lose. Up to this point his life had been mainly one of scheming against and wrestling with men. Now God by His Messenger was going to wrestle with him.

“There wrestled a man with him;” such is the record, and doubtless at the start of this incident the unknown Stranger was to Jacob but a mere man. Who was Jacob to give way to another man? Hence it put him on his mettle to resist. The Stranger strove to break him down and until breaking of the day he resisted. Then the supernatural nature of the Stranger was manifested by the powerful touch which crippled him at his strongest point.

Then at once Jacob’s attitude changed. Instead of wrestling, which now had become impossible to him he took to clinging to his Conqueror. He ceased his striving and took to trusting, realizing that the One who had overcome him had done so for his blessing, and that he was in the presence of God. The Name of the Stranger was not revealed, but the blessing that Jacob had desired from his youth was bestowed upon him then and there.

“He blessed him there,” in the place of solitude with God, and when his natural power was crippled and laid low. The vital blessing of God did not descend upon his head when he struck that crafty bargain with Esau, nor even when his blind father, deceived by his impersonation of Esau, pronounced the patriarchal blessing on his head. No, it was when God dealt with him personally in solitude, and broke his stubborn will. In all this we may see a picture of how God deals with our souls today, though the grace into which we are called is so much richer than anything that Jacob knew.

By naming the place Peniel – “The face of God” – Jacob disclosed his deep sense of having been brought face to face with God and that the outcome was preservation and not destruction. Here was good reason for him to revise his earlier thought that the house of God and the gate of heaven was a “dreadful” place.

In this incident we see foreshadowed several striking things. First, that in order to deal fully and finally with man, God Himself would stoop into manhood, since it was as “a man” that Jacob saw God “face to face.” Second, that God’s thought towards us, even the most wayward of us, is blessing. Third, that human struggling and wrestling achieves nothing, and that surrender or submission, and honesty in confession, is the way of blessing. Fourth, that it was when clinging to the One who had vanquished him, and confessing to his name of Jacob – meaning Supplanter – that his name was changed to Israel – meaning Prince of God – and he was told that he had power not only with men but with God, and he had prevailed. By changing his name God claimed Jacob as belonging now to Him.

Thus a great moment in his history had been reached, and as he realized that he had seen God face to face, with salvation as the result, the sun rose upon him. An experience of this kind in the history of any soul does indeed mark the dawning of a new day. In Jacob’s case the experience was memorialized for his children by a simple prohibition in their eating, as the last verse of the chapter records.

But as yet Jacob was hardly equal to his new name, so we do not find it used by the inspired historian until much later in his story. All his old characteristics come into display in Gen 33:1-20, carried to a high degree of obsequiousness. The bowing down of himself and wives and children could hardly have been more complete and his proffered gifts were large, having made up his mind to “appease him with the present.”

The attitude of Esau was however not what he had anticipated. His anger had cooled off during the intervening years, and he had become the leader of hundreds of men and thus a man of influence and of large possessions. Though ultimately accepting Jacob’s present, he at first declined it saying, “I have enough,” or more literally, “I have much.” In verse Gen 32:11, we find Jacob saying, “I have enough,” but he used a different word, meaning, “all.” That word he could use because he was able to say, “God hath dealt graciously with me.” The man of the world may be able to say, “I have much,” it is only the saint, consciously blessed of God, who can say, “I have all.” This is what the Apostle Paul said in Php 4:18.

Jacob called his gift “my blessing,” but in spite of this he was by no means anxious to have Esau’s company on his further journey. His plea, recorded in verse Gen 32:13, was doubtless a genuine one. It lends itself to an application amongst the people of God today. There are always to be found those who are young and tender, who must not be overdriven. Those who have reached the stature and activity of full-grown men must remember this, and not force the pace of their weaker brethren to their undoing. Many a young and tender believer has been damaged by this kind of thing.

Having declined the proffered help and Esau having departed, Jacob again reveals the crookedness that seems to have been his natural bent. Having said to Esau, “I come unto my lord unto Seir,” he promptly journeyed to Succoth which lay in an entirely different direction. Moreover, having arrived there, the record is that he built an house and made booths for his cattle, which indicates that he had a mind to settle down in the land rather than maintain the character of a stranger, following in the footsteps of his grandfather Abraham.

The next step recorded is his removal to Shalem, across the Jordan and in the centre of the land. Here, though he had a tent and an altar, we can again discern that his separation from the people of the land was becoming impaired. He pitched his tent close to the city, and then bought the land where he had encamped. Further the very name he gave to his altar tells a similar story. The name El-elohe-Israel means, “God the God of Israel.” He did indeed use his new God-given name and not his old name of Jacob yet even so he connected God with himself instead of connecting himself with God. In effect he was saying “God belongs to me,” instead of, “I belong to God.”

There may not seem to be much difference between these two sentiments but there is a gulf between the practices they induce, as we may soon see in our own histories. We may recognize that as, “born of God,” and, “in Christ Jesus,” we have a new name, yet if we bring God down to connect Him with our new name, we may easily assume that we may connect Him with our things – things by no means worthy of His call or of His glory. On the other hand, to recognize that He has called us to link us with Himself, at once searches our hearts, and lifts us above many a thing that would entangle us.

The whole of Gen 34:1-31 is occupied with the unhappy results that sprang from the lowering of Jacob’s separation from the world, which we have just noted. Its effects for evil were not manifested in Jacob himself but in his family. The tide of evil runs in two broad channels: violence and corruption. They are first mentioned in Gen 6:12, Gen 6:13 : they are personified in “the evil man” and “the strange woman” of Pro 2:12, Pro 2:16. The world is just the same today; and how often we have to hang our heads in shame and confess that a bit of world-bordering on our part, as Christian parents, has led to sorrow and even disaster in our families.

In our chapter the corruption comes first. His daughter, Dinah, wanted to enjoy the companionship and pleasures of the other young women of the land, and in result got entangled and defiled, and this aroused great wrath amongst Jacob’s sons, which was not appeased by the action of Shechem and Ham or in the way of repairing the damage done. The anger came to a head in the atrocious violence of Simeon and Levi, which was never forgotten by Jacob, nor indeed by God. When at the end of his life Jacob spoke prophetically of his sons, foretelling the future of the tribes and uttering certain blessings, he denounced these two sons, cursing their anger, as recorded in Gen 49:5-7.

Thus the shameful story of Gen 34:1-31 not only caused Jacob “to stink among the inhabitants of the land,” – a dreadful position for him, seeing he was the only man in the land possessing the true knowledge of God – but it brought a judgment upon the two who were the promoters of the violence. It is of interest to note that in later days the tribe of Levi so acted as to gain a special blessing, and in consequence we are permitted to see how God can turn that which was originally a curse into a blessing. The word had been, “I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel” (Gen 49:7). They were divided; but it was by Levi being called to special service and scattered throughout all the tribes.

The first verse of Gen 35:1-29 shows us how God intervened when things had reached this sorry pass. He called Jacob back to the place where first God had made Himself known to him. There he was to dwell and there his altar was to be. At Bethel, as we saw in Gen 28:1-22, God declared what He would be for and to Jacob, without raising any question as to Jacob’s response or behaviour. Now God is always true to Himself and to His word. Before the giving of the law through Moses, God was dealing with these patriarchs on the basis of His promises in grace, and those promises abide.

God deals with us according to grace in the Gospel today. Hence we read of, “this grace in which we stand” (Rom 5:2), which is equivalent to saying that our dwelling before God is in His grace or favour. As we dwell in the sense of His favour so shall we be led to approach Him in the spirit of worship, and to have done with all that is displeasing to Him.

So it was with Jacob as we see here. Immediately God called him back to Bethel he realized that there were evil things to be found in his household, even strange gods. In Gen 31:1-55 we saw how Rachel had carried off from Laban the “gods,” or “seraphim,” that he valued, and there is no record of Jacob taking exception to them at that time. But with God before him, he at once became alive to the evil of them. They were to be put away, and there was to be personal cleanliness, extending even to the garments they wore, for the presence of God demands a purging which covers even to that which surrounds us: an important lesson that we all need to take to heart.

So far all was well with Jacob but a defect soon appears. The unclean things were not destroyed but only hidden away. They had considerable monetary value and it looks as if he hoped to resume possession, or at least realize their value, in a future day. The tendency of our foolish hearts is just the same. Let us see that we do not act in similar fashion with defiling things of the flesh and of the world that would naturally attract us.

As Jacob went to Bethel God restrained the peoples of the land from taking vengeance on him and his household because of the violent action of his two sons; and so he safely got there, and built his altar. The name he gave it stands in contrast with that which he gave to his former altar, as recorded in the last verse of Gen 33:1-20. There he connected God simply with himself. Here he recognized Him as the God of His own dwelling-place. The altar, El-beth-el, demanded from Jacob a higher standard of conduct than did the altar, El-elohe-Israel.

Arrived at Bethel, things began to move rapidly forward. The first recorded event is the death of Deborah, who had been nurse to Jacob’s mother. A break with the past is thus signified. Then, the promises of God were confirmed in a fresh appearance of the Almighty. Jacob’s new name was confirmed, and the land was made sure to him. This moved him freshly to set up a pillar of witness and anoint it, as a response to the revelation. But, as is so often the case in God’s ways this fresh grace from God is followed by fresh losses on the human side.

Leaving Bethel, Rachel was over taken in childbirth and died. Thus he lost his favourite wife, though in her death he gained a son. As we before noted this was the only occasion when Jacob himself had to do with the naming of his sons, and the child became known by that name, rather than by the name his dying mother gave him.

This blow was succeeded by the disgraceful sin of Reuben, so that at this point sorrow succeeded sorrow. Yet we cannot but think that there is a typical significance in the way these things are brought together: Rachel typifying the nation out of whom the Messiah was to spring. He was to be the “Son of Sorrow” in His rejection, which would mean the setting aside of the nation from whom He sprang. Ultimately the “Son of Sorrow” would be manifested as the “Son of the Right Hand,” not only of Jacob but of Jehovah Himself. But until that time, and while as a nation Israel lies spiritually dead, the Gentiles come into prominence, just as the sons of Leah and the concubines are prominent in verses Gen 32:23-26.

The closing verses put on record one more loss, in the death of his aged father, Isaac. Though he went blind many years before and anticipated his death (Gen 27:2), it did not actually take place till he had lived 180 years. The division of Genesis entitled, “The generations of Isaac,” began at Gen 25:19, and it extends to the end of Gen 35:1-29. Under it has come all these many details as to the earlier history of Jacob.

Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary

Section 3. (Gen 32:1-32; Gen 33:1-20; Gen 34:1-31; Gen 35:1-29; Gen 36:1-43; Gen 37:1.)

Israel: the prince with God, and the holiness of the house of God.

We now follow Jacob on his return to his own land. This, in its application to the nation, brings us into the field of prophecy: for them, as for their father, Peniel must prepare the way to Bethel; that they may not fall into the hands of their enemies, God, whose name is yet unknown to them, must take them into His own, crippling the human strength with which they contend with Him, that in weakness they may hold Him fast for blessing. Thus broken down in repentance, and purged from idolatry, they will have their second Bethel, when God will reveal to them His name so long hidden, and confirm to them the promise to their father Abraham. Christ, Son of His Father’s right hand, will then take His place among them; and so they will come to Mamre and to Hebron -to the riches of a portion which is henceforth to be enjoyed in fellowship with God.

The individual application we can trace more fully. Here it is good to note how, ere Jacob reaches the land really, the angels of God meet him; God Himself not yet, for not yet is Jacob prepared for this. “This is God’s host,” or “camp,” he says; and he calls the place “Mahanaim,” -that is, “two camps.” Here he must have taken in his own, of which he speaks directly in his message to Esau: “I have oxen and asses, flocks and men-servants and women-servants.” Yet in a little while we find him dividing this into “two camps,” saying, “If Esau come to the one camp and smite it, then the other camp which is left shall escape”! Such is our strength when built upon, although we would fain, perhaps, associate God’s power with it. But then in the time of need, our own, what is it? and God’s, where shall it be found?

The dread of Esau is upon Jacob’s soul. His messengers bring him only the alarming news that his brother is on his way with four hundred men to meet him. He betakes himself to his devices, and then to God, and then once more to his planning. In solitude and in the night God meets him, -unknown, and as an antagonist, the attitude to which Jacob’s own has forced Him; and when Jacob’s stubbornness stands out against Him, He cripples his strength by dislocating his hip-joint. Then he can wrestle no more, but only cling in helplessness, and thus he prevails: when did man’s weakness ever fail to constrain the power of God? He is blest; but God cannot yet disclose His name. He gives Jacob a new one. Crippled, he becomes Israel -a prince with God: the secret of power is disclosed to him; God is not: when the day breaks, He has disappeared.

Jacob calls the place Peniel; “for,” he says, “I have seen God face to face”; but his conduct as yet shows nothing of this. He cringes before Esau, though God has disarmed him, -returns to his old deceit, telling him he will follow him to Seir, and going off in another direction, to build him a house at Succoth, which again he leaves to pitch his tent at Shechem on a piece of ground which he purchases, there to meet a deep dishonor, and to witness its bloody retribution, impotent to avert it.

The power of his name it is evident he has not yet got. His altar proclaims God to be his God (El-elohe-Israel); but this, it would seem, he uses only to walk in his own ways more unblushingly than before: his house at Succoth, his purchase at Shechem, both tell the same tale. He is scarcely now the pilgrim, and losing his separateness Dinah is defiled. The slaughter of the Shechemites follows: judgment so cruel, and with such deceit in it, that it is itself pronounced accursed by the Spirit of God in Jacob afterward. And now he is shaken out of his ease and security, and plunged into distress and fear once more. God’s grace will not comfort those who will not use it holily.

But now He comes in again, and discloses the remedy: “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there, and make there an altar to God that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.” Yes, he had forgotten Bethel, God’s house, in building his own; he must get up to a higher level, and build his altar to El-Beth-el -the God of His own house. Hitherto he had known only a God that belonged to him; now he is to learn and own that he belongs to God. At once the difference is apparent: the false gods tolerated at Shechem, spite of his altar there, must now be put away, and they must be clean. Then the fear passes from their hearts to those of the nations round them, and they journey to Bethel in peace.

Every thing shows that now he has really reached the goal. All his journeyings in the land are passed over in the quiet words which treat him as just come back to it: “And God appeared to Jacob again after he had come from Paddan Aram.” He had spoken to him before, wrestled with him before, blessed him before, and Jacob had spoken of having seen His face at Peniel, in the dark, where he could not see it! But now God appears to him, and, as if to show how practically ineffective Peniel had been, gives him afresh the name which he had given him there. “And God said to him, Thy name is Jacob” -still Jacob! -“thy name shall not henceforth be called Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. And He called his name ‘Israel.'” Thus we learn that if weakness be the secret of strength (as it is,) it is only strength to walk in God’s ways. Israel must come to Bethel to be Israel. How good to remember this!

And now God reveals Himself almighty, as with Abraham, and confirms to him the promise he had made to Abraham; and Jacob sets up his pillar of stone, and pours his drink-offering and oil upon it; and he too names the place afresh -Bethel, as if he had never named it before. Nor intelligently had he done so.

And now we find Benjamin’s birth, and Rachel’s death at Ephrath: a notable combination of things in this place! Ephrath means “fruitfulness,” for now Israel is to be fruitful. But how? Benjamin is Christ in power upon the earth, as we have seen: Christ in us it is who is our power. That we may have it, Rachel herself passes away; for Rachel typifies, as we have seen, that subjective state we seek after, but which must, as a substantial presence with us, pass (as Abel gave place to Seth), that Christ may be alone our occupation. Once more, the “I, yet not I,” of which we need again and again to be reminded.

This truth, the fall of Reuben, -“my might, the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power,” says Jacob afterward, -confirms from the other side. It is a more emphatic “Enos.” But here comes in this new name of Jacob’s beautifully. All awake he is, but without a murmur bows his head at his own dishonor, -“Israel heard it.”

And so this chequered history ends with Mamre and with Hebron, where now Isaac gives up his place to him as the vessel of testimony for God upon the earth. Only now is he ready to fill the place.

But before the story is closed up as ended, Esau’s seed is shown us for many generations, prematurely ripening into dukes and kings. Isaac’s prophecy becomes, in one part of it, soon fulfilled. Esau leaves Canaan for Seir, and his posterity soon, as their names would seem to show, live by their sword in this barren region. Two texts for us here have special significance: first, that “Esau took his wives and his sons and his daughters, and all the persons of his house, and his cattle, and his beasts, and all his substance which he had got in the land of Canaan, and went into the country from the face of his brother Jacob;” while the section closes with one verse which, in its brevity, speaks volumes to the ear that hears, contrasting Jacob’s portion with that of his brother, -“And Jacob dwelt in the land in which his father was a stranger -in the land of Canaan.”

Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary

JACOB BECOMES ISRAEL

MEETING WITH THE ANGELS (32:1-2)

Filled with wonders is this lesson! The appearance of the angels, the divine wrestling, the transformation of Esau how much we need the Holy Spirit to understand the meaning of these things!

Be sure to identify these places: Galeed or Mizpah of the preceding chapter, and Mahanaim, Peniel and the river Jabbok named in this, are all on the east of the Jordan, not far from what was known later as Ramoth- Gilead.

How condescending of God to send His angels to encourage such a man as Jacob at this crisis! Mahanaim means two heaps or two camps, with perhaps the angels as one camp and the household of Jacob as the other.

MEETING WITH GOD (32:3-32)

Where was Esau dwelling at this time (Gen 32:3)? What shows Jacobs fear of him (Gen 32:4-8)? What reason had he for the increase of this fear (Gen 32:6)? To whom did he appeal, and how (Gen 32:9-12)?

Study this prayer, the first of its kind in the Bible (Abrahams was intercessory and of the nature of a dialogue, but this is a personal supplication). Its elements are adoration, confession, thanksgiving, petition and pleading. Discover these divisions for yourself and locate them in the verses.

How does Jacob plan to propitiate Esau (Gen 32:13)? What kind of present does he prepare for him (Gen 32:14-15)? How many droves in all do you think there were (Gen 32:16-20)? Can you picture these five droves separated and appearing before Esaus astonished eyes at intervals? Was not the plan well adapted from a human point of view to have the desired effect?

But the incident following shows that something must be done in Jacobs soul and then the propitiation of his brother will be brought about in another way. In this incident we have another theophany such as we have seen before, but in some respects more remarkable still. To think that Jehovah should not only appear in human form but wrestle as a man with a man! What is the meaning of it all?

For one thing it shows Jacobs dogged determination to have his own way – a kind of symbolic action illustrative of his whole career. What a schemer and planner he was from the time he defrauded Esau of his birthright until now! While wrestling with God he was in spirit wrestling with Esau probably, seeking in his own strength and by his own schemes to make peace with him, but he is to learn that his strength is made perfect in weakness. In Gods plan and purpose he cannot prevail with men until he first prevails with God, and with God he cannot prevail until he ceases his own efforts and simply clings to Him for support and blessing. But this he will not do until God afflicts and makes it impossible for him to do otherwise. What a lesson for us! May God help us to translate it into our experience!

MEETING WITH ESAU (CHAP. 33)

The action of Esau, especially Gen 33:4, seems to indicate a supernatural work on him, changing his mind toward Jacob. It is not the result of Jacobs plan so much as Gods grace, whether Jacob realizes it as yet or not.

His caution (Gen 33:12-15) still shows a certain fear of Esau, shown further by the fact that he does not follow him to Seir (Gen 33:14), but turns sharply to the east, locating in Succoth, and then in Schechem. Notice the altar he erects and the recognition of his own new name God, the God of Israel.

QUESTIONS

1.Identify the localities.

2.Analyze Jacobs prayer.

3.Picture in your mind his plan of propitiation of Esau.

4.Compare yourself with Jacob as a planner.

5.Have you learned Jacobs secret of prevailing with God?

Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary

Wrestling With God

As Jacob continued his journey toward home, angels met him. He called the name of that place Mahanaim, or “two camps” because there were two armies encamped there, the angels and his family and servants. He sent messengers to tell Esau how he had gained wealth and was returning home. They came back reporting that Esau was coming to meet him with four hundred men.

In fear, Jacob divided his group into two camps, hoping one would escape if Esau killed the other. He then prayed God would deliver him as he had promised. He sent a gift of goats, rams, milk camels with their colts, cows, bulls, donkeys and their foals to Esau. He had his servants separate each group of animals into its own drove and had them approach Esau one group of gift animals at the time. They were to tell him the animals were a gift from Jacob. It was his hope the presents would appease his brother so he would accept him ( Gen 32:1-21 ).

That night, Jacob took his wives and children over a brook of water and remained in the camp alone. He wrestled with a man all night. The man, or angel, reached down and dislocated Jacob’s hip joint. Jacob clung tenaciously to the stranger, asking for a blessing. The angel informed him that he would no longer be known as the supplanter, or deceiver (Jacob). Instead, he would be called Israel, which means “one who strives with God.” Jacob named the place Peniel, or “the face of God,” because he said he had seen God face to face and lived. As day broke, Israel limped toward his family. The author tells us the children of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip of animals because of this ( Gen 32:22-32 ; Hos 12:3-4 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

Gen 32:1. The angels of God met him In some visible and glorious forms, as they frequently appeared to the patriarchs. Probably only Jacob saw them. They met him to bid him welcome to Canaan again; a more honourable reception than ever any prince had that was met by the magistrates of a city. They met him to congratulate his arrival, and his escape from Laban. They had invisibly attended him all along, but now they appeared, because he had greater dangers before him. When God designs his people for extraordinary trials, he prepares them by extraordinary comforts.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Gen 32:2. Mahanaim, two camps or hosts, or the camp of God; a city in Gilead, mentioned in Jos 13:26; Jos 21:38; denoting that the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him. Psa 34:7.

Gen 32:4. My lord Esau. Jacob salutes his brother as a prince, but he says nothing of the birthright. That being the gift of God, must not be given to another.

Gen 32:6. Four hundred men. A rabbi remarks here, that Laban followed Jacob with some shame, but that Esau came to meet him bare faced, as a bear. The dismissal of Jacobs messengers in silence, followed by the approach of this armed host, are sufficient indications of Esaus intentions, and fully justified all Jacobs fears.

Gen 32:9. Oh God of my father Abraham. Jacob in terror has recourse to God, to his covenant and promises. He pleads that God had bade him return; that he had already done great things for him, though not worthy of the least of his mercies; and surely he would not now allow an angry brother to frustrate the riches of his grace. What a model is this prayer for christians in the time of trouble!

Gen 32:22. The ford Jabbok. This river runs between Amma or Philadelphia, and Gerazan, and joins the Jordan about four miles from the latter place. Jacob therefore now entered the promised land, and retired for devotion, on his critical but safe arrival.

Gen 32:24. A man. This being the only place in which Jehovah, the angel, is expressly called a man, there can be no doubt but Jacob took the stranger for a man of the country. But from his age and aspect, and more so from his conversation, he soon discovered him to be a personage of a very superior order; and therefore solicited of him a patriarchs blessing, with more eagerness and tears than Esau had solicited the blessing of Isaac.

Gen 32:25. The hollow of Jacobs thigh was out of joint, being distended, and so much so, that he limped a little all his future years. Is this a law of the invisible world, that he who sees his Maker, though in vision, shall bear till death a thorn in the flesh?

REFLECTIONS.

The Annotations of the Assembly of Divines, Matthew Henry and others, represent the wrestling between Jacob and Messiah the Angel, almost as an outward conflict. They suppose, that Godthe Angel assuming a sort of human vehicle for the occasionstepped in between Jacob and his family, and refused to give him passage into the promised land. This however is quite improbable, because God had bidden him depart from Padanaram. The text also suggests that Jacob was left behind solely for devotion; that the wrestling on the mans part was to get away before the day dawned; and on Jacobs part it was not a pagan conflict, but consisted of supplication and tears. Hos 12:4. He was resolved to die rather than let him go without a blessing. Hence we may suppose that the man, as he is called, graciously obtruded himself on Jacobs solitude; and finding him in the depths of trouble, tenderly enquired into the cause; and that Jacob instantly acquainted him with the whole family history concerning the birthright, and the critical situation in which he now stood with his brother Esau. We may farther suppose that the man, on hearing this account, sat down and discoursed with him of God and religion; and in particular, of such providences as would be edifying to the patriarch in his beclouded situation. Jacob, hearing the wisdom of heaven unfolded, and with a simplicity not less captivating than instructive, felt himself in the presence of a superior personage; and probably supposing him to be some such man as the venerable Melchizedek, from whom his grandfather had obtained a blessing, Gen 15:14; he prostrated before him to receive his benediction, and to entreat his prayers for deliverance on the approaching day. This the man sternly refused to grant, faithfully reproaching Jacob, at the same time, with his former duplicity, and with all his sins, making these, no doubt, with the want of deeper repentance and of earlier fruits, the chief reasons for withholding the favour. Now the conflict began, and it was a severe and weeping conflict; for so peremptory was the man in the refusal, and so determined to disengage himself from his grasp, that he gave Jacob a dreadful sprain in the sinew of his thigh, and thereby occasioned his walking lame for life. This took away all human hope and confidence; and Jacob now could neither fight nor fly. But oh his soul strengthened as his body weakened: he still held the man with a strong arm, and would not let him go. Yea, he felt that he held him with more than human strength; for he felt that the stranger did not use his whole strength to break away. He perceived that the man was not only wiser and holier than himself, but far more powerful. And when the divine stranger saw that he prevailed not against him, he asked to know his name. The patriarch, little suspecting the grace about to follow, simply answered Jacob. Thy name, said the Lord, shall no more be called Jacob, a supplanter, but Israel; that is, a man seeing God, for as a prince thou hast power with God and with man, and hast prevailed. Jacob, now encouraged by this favour, ventured to ask at parting the strangers name. Wherefore, said the Lord, dost thou ask after my name? Hast thou not perceived a presence more than human! And he blessed him there, and while the benediction descended, Jacob felt all his soul renovated with a divine flame; he felt an awe which sanctified beyond all that language can describe, because, he a worm, a sinful man, had seen his Maker face to face, and his life was preserved. Now, refreshed with this holy fire, all fear was expelled from his heart; he could go forth and meet his brother Esau, in the spirit of confidence and love. He knew the shield which covered his arm. How blessed and happy are the people of God! The angel of the Lord encamp around them, to deliver them from all evil. Psa 34:7. Christ himself is on their right hand to save them.

We ought not to forget however, that it was Jacobs sin, his complicated sin, which brought him into trouble; he had personated Esau in obtaining the blessing. And providence is the same still. Those who commit family crimes, those who through covetousness and ambition influence a dying parent in a moment of weakness, will feel its effects at some future day. It shall be so also with every other class of sinners. Gods justice, though at the distance of twenty years, will come armed against them for destruction.

We learn farther, that sinners should bring forth the proper fruits of repentance before they go to God; or at least, if these fruits cannot be all brought forth now, the time for doing this should be firmly fixed in the mind. Unless restitution is made for wrongs, when men are in circumstances to do it, our prayers and sacrifices are in Gods account no better than if we cut off a dogs neck. And oh, do sins revive in all their strength and vigour, which have slept for twenty, yea for a thousand years? Who then would not tremble at thy justice, oh Lord, and implore thy mercy.

So did Jacob. He resolved to die sooner than suffer his God to go, and leave him destitute of his love. Sinners, here is your model in prayer. The want of food and raiment, the loss of health and all its comforts, are occurrences which concern providence; whenever they are denied, you must submit to the will of God. But the pardon of sin, and a sense of the divine favour, are blessings essential to salvation. Therefore, learn of Jacob; get alone and wrestle with God in all the strength of prayer. Take no denial, for God has promised: be discouraged at no reproaches, for the blessing shall come in larger stores of grace, having for the moment been withheld.

Jacob on prevailing, obtained a new name of the highest honour, having seen his Maker face to face. And whenever God gives the white stone of absolution to a sinner, he writes on his heart a new name of sanctifying grace. The new heart, and the new name are inseparably joined. All we beholding in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Then we become indeed the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, and are called by his name. The perfect love of God casteth out all fear of death, and we are not afraid of any adversary.

But let all families, as well as penitents, learn of Jacob to plead and wrestle with God, whenever providence, or their own imprudence may have drawn them into difficulties. He used also every prudent means to pacify his brother, and then cast himself on the divine protection, and God was better to him than all his fears.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Genesis 32

And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.” Still God’s grace follows him, notwithstanding all. “Nothing changeth God’s affection.” Whom He loves, and as He loves, He loves to the end. His love is like “Himself,” the same yesterday, today, and for ever.” But how little effect “God’s host” had upon Jacob may be seen by his actings, as here set before us. “and Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother, unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom.” He evidently feels uneasy in reference to Esau, and not without reason;. He had treated him badly, and his conscience was not et ease; but instead of casting himself unreservedly upon God, he betakes himself to his usual planning again, in order to avert Esau’s wrath. He tries to manage Esau, instead of leaning on God.

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.” ALL this bespeaks a soul very much off its centre in God. “My lord,” and “thy servant,” is not like the language of a brother, or of one in the conscious dignity of the presence of God; but it was the language of Jacob, and of Jacob, too, with a bad conscience.

“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. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.” But what does he first do? Does he at once cast himself upon God? No; he begins to manage. “He divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands; and said, If Esau come to the one company and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape.” Jacob’s first thought was always a plan, and in this we have a true picture of the poor human heart. True, he turns to God, after he makes his plan, and cries to Him for deliverance; but no sooner does he cease praying than he resumes the planning. Now, praying and planning will never do together. If I plan, I am leaning more or less on my plan; but when I pray, I should lean exclusively upon God. Hence, the two things are perfectly incompatible; they virtually destroy each other. When my eye is filled with my own management of things, I am not prepared to see God acting for me; and, in that case, prayer is not the utterance of my need, but the mere superstitious performance of something which I think ought to be done, or it may be, asking God to sanctify my plans. This will never do. It is not asking God to sanctify and bless my means, but it is asking Him to do it all Himself.*

{*No doubt, when faith allows God to act, He will use His own agency; but this is a totally different thing from His owning and blessing the plans and arrangements of unbelief and impatience. This distinction is not sufficiently understood.}

Though Jacob asked God to deliver him from his brother Esau, he evidently was not satisfied with that, and therefore he tried to “appease him with a present.” Thus his confidence was in the “present,” and not entirely in God. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” It is often hard to detect what is the real ground of the heart’s confidence. We imagine, or would fain persuade ourselves, that we are leaning upon God, when we are, in reality, leaning upon some scheme of our own devising. Who, after hearkening to Jacob’s prayer, wherein he says,” 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,” could imagine him saying, “I will appease him with a present.” Had he forgotten his prayer? Was he making a God of his present? Did he place more confidence in a few cattle than in Jehovah, to whom he had just been committing himself? These are questions which naturally arise out of Jacob’s actings in reference to Esau, and we can readily answer them by looking into the glass of our own hearts. There we learn, as well as on the page of Jacob’s history, how much more apt we are to lean on our own management than on God; but it will not do; we must be brought to see the end of our management, that it is perfect folly, and that the true path of wisdom is to repose in full confidence upon God.

Nor will it do to make our prayers part of our management. We often feel very well satisfied with ourselves when we add prayer to our arrangement, or when we have used all lawful means, and called upon God to bless them. When this is the case, our prayers are worth about as much as our plans, inasmuch as we are leaning upon them instead of upon God. We must be really brought to the end of everything with which self has ought to do; for until then, God cannot show Himself. But we can never get to the end of our plans until we have been brought to the end of ourselves. We must see that “all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.” (Isa. 40: 6)

Thus it is in this interesting chapter; when Jacob had made this prudent arrangements, we read, “And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.” This is a turning point in the history of this very remarkable man. To be left alone with God is the only true way of arriving at a just knowledge of ourselves and our ways. We can never get a true estimate of nature and all its actings, until we have weighed them in the balance of the sanctuary, and there we ascertain their real worth, No matter what we may think about ourselves, nor yet what man may think about us; the great question is, what does God think about us? and the answer to this question can only be heard when we are “left alone.” Away from the world; away from self; away from all the thoughts, reasonings, imaginations, and emotions of mere nature, and “alone” with God – thus, and thus alone, can we get a correct judgement about ourselves.

“Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him.” Mark, it was not Jacob wrestling with a man; but a man wrestling with Jacob. This scene is very commonly referred to as an instance of Jacob’s power in prayer. That it is not this is evident from the simple wording of the passage. My wrestling with a man, and a man wrestling with me, present two totally different ideas to the mind. In the former case I want to gain some object from him; in the latter, he wants to gain some object from me. Now, in Jacob’s case, the divine object was to bring him to see what a poor, feeble, worthless creature he was, and when Jacob so pertinaciously held out against the divine dealing with him, “he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him.” The sentence of death must be written on the flesh – the power of the cross must be entered into before we can steadily and happily walk with God. We have followed Jacob so far, amid all the windings and workings of his extraordinary character – we have seen him planning and managing during his twenty years sojourn with Laban; but not until he “was left alone,” did he get a true idea of what a perfectly helpless thing he was in himself. Then, the seat of his strength being touched, he learnt to say, “I will not let thee go.”

“Other refuge have I none;

Clings my helpless soul to thee.”

This was a new era in the history of the supplanting, planning, Jacob. Up to this point he had held fast by his own ways and means; but now he is brought to say, “I will not let thee go.” Now, my reader remark, that Jacob did not express himself thus until “the hollow of his thigh was touched.” This simple fact is quite sufficient to settle the true interpretation of the whole scene. God was wrestling with Jacob to bring him to this point. We have already seen that, as to Jacob’s power in prayer, he had no sooner uttered a few words to God than he let out the real secret of his soul’s dependence, by saying, “I will appease him (Esau) with a present.” Would he have said this if he had really entered into the meaning of prayer, or true dependence upon God? Assuredly not. If he had been looking to God alone to appease Esau, could he have said, “I will appease him by a present” Impossible: God and the creature must be kept distinct, and will be kept so in every soul that knows much of the sacred reality of a life of faith.

But, alas here is where we fail, if one may speak for another. Under the plausible and apparently pious formula of using means, we really cloke the positive infidelity of our poor deceitful hearts; we think we are looking to God to bless our means, while, in reality, we are shutting Him out by leaning on the means, instead of leaning on Him. Oh! may our hearts be taught the evil of thus acting. May we learn to cling more simply to God alone, that so our history May be more characterised by that holy elevation above the circumstances through which we are passing. It is not, by any means, an easy matter so to get to the end of the creature, in every shape and form, as to be able to say, “I Will not let thee go except thou bless me.” To say this from the heart, and to abide in the power of it, is the secret of all true strength. Jacob said it when the hollow of his thigh was touched; but not till then. He struggled long, ere he gave way, because his confidence in the flesh was strong. But God can bring down to the dust the stoutest character. He knows how to touch the spring of nature’s strength, and write the sentence of death thoroughly upon it; and until this is done, there can be no real “Power with God or man.” We must be “weak” ere we can be “strong.” “The power of Christ” can only “rest on us” in connection with the knowledge of our infirmities. Christ cannot put the seal of His approval upon nature’s strength, its wisdom, or its glory: all these must sink that He may rise. Nature can never form, in any one way, a pedestal on which to display the grace or power of Christ; for if it could, then might flesh glory in His presence; but this, we know, can never be.

And, inasmuch as the display of God’s glory, and God’s name or character, is connected with the entire setting aside of nature, so, until this latter is set aside the soul can never enjoy the disclosure of the former. Hence, though Jacob, is called to tell out his name, to own that his name is Jacob, or a supplanter,” he yet receives no revelation of the name of Him mho had been wrestling with him, and bringing him down into the dust. He received for himself the name of Israel, or prince,” which was a great step in advance?; but when he says, “Tell me, I pray thee, thy name;” he received the reply, “Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?” The Lord refuses to tell His name, though he had elicited from Jacob the truth as to himself, and He blesses him accordingly. How often is this the case in the annals of God’s family! There is the disclosure of self in all its moral deformity; but we fail to get hold practically of what God is, though He has come so very close to us, and blessed us, too, in connection with the discovery of ourselves. Jacob received the new name of Israel when the hollow of his thigh had been touched. He became a mighty prince when he had been brought to know himself as a weak man; but still the Lord had to say, “Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?” There is no disclosure of the name of Him who, nevertheless, had brought out the real name and condition of Jacob.

From all this me learn that it is one thing to be blessed by the Lord and quite another thing to have the revelation of His character, by the Spirit, to our hearts. “He blessed him there;” but he did not tell His name. There is blessing in being brought, in any measure, to know ourselves, for therein we are led into a path, in which we are able, more clearly, to discern what God is to us in detail. Thus it was with Jacob. When the hollow of his thigh was touched he found himself in a condition in which it was either God or nothing. A poor halting man could do little, it therefore behoved him to cling to one who was almighty.

I would remark, ere leaving this chapter, that the book of Job is, in a certain sense, a detailed commentary on this scene in Jacob’s history. Throughout the first thirty-one chapters, Job grapples with his friends, and maintains his point against all their arguments; but in Job 32 God, by the instrumentality of Elihu, begins to wrestle with him; and in Job 38 He comes down upon Him directly with all the majesty of His power, overwhelms him by the display of His greatness and glory, and elicits from him the well-known words, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job. 42: 5, 6) This was really touching the hollow of his thigh. And mark the expression, “mine eye seeth thee.” He does not say, “I see myself” merely; no; but “thee.” Nothing But a view of what God is, can really lead to repentance and self-loathing. Thus it will be with the people of Israel, whose history is very analogous with that of Job. When they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, they will mourn, and then there will be full restoration and blessing. Their latter end, Like Job’s, will be better than their beginning. They will learn the full meaning of that word, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine help.” (Hosea 13: 9)

Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch

Gen 31:22 to Gen 32:2. After Mutual Recriminations, Jacob and Laban Make a Covenant to Refrain from Aggression on each others Territories.The analysis is uncertain; Gunkel assigns Gen 31:22-24, Gen 31:26, Gen 31:28-31 a (to Laban), Gen 31:32-35, Gen 31:36 b, Gen 31:37, Gen 31:41-43, Gen 31:45; Gen 31:49 f., Gen 31:53 b Gen 33:2 to E; the rest, apart from Gen 31:47, to J. According to E, Laban learns of Jacobs flight on the third day, and overtakes him seven days later, but is warned in a dream the night before their encounter to say nothing to him, a command which he interprets as forbidding him to take hostile measures. He reproaches Jacob with his sudden flight, depriving him of the opportunity of saying adieu to his children. He could hurt him but for Gods prohibition. And if sore home-sickness excused him, why has he stolen his gods? Jacob, ignorant of Rachels theft, replies that the thief shall die (cf. Gen 44:9), and gives him full liberty to search. Laban searches the tents of Jacob, the maids, and Leah, without discovering the teraphim. Last of all, he enters Rachels tent. She had concealed them in the camels howdah, in which she travelled, and alleges her condition of ceremonial uncleanness as the reason why she cannot rise (a stolen god protected from discovery in so ignominious a way!). Jacob concludes that Labans charge was a pretext for ransacking his property to see if he can find anything of his own, and challenges him to produce it. Then (Gen 31:41 f.) he carries the war into the enemys camp. Fourteen years he had served for the daughters, six for the flock; but for Gods care Laban would have turned him away penniless. Gods rebuke shows that he bad marked Jacobs wrongs. Laban replies, Daughters, children, flocks, all you have is mine, yet I must part with them; what kindness can I show them? Then he (not Jacob) sets up a pillar, to indicate that God will watch between them, to see that Jacob, when no longer under his father-in-laws eye, does not illtreat his daughters. Jacob swears by the Fear of Isaac, offers a sacrifice, and partakes with his brethren of a sacrificial meal. In the morning Laban bids his children adieu, and returns home.

According to J, Laban overtakes Jacob and reproaches him for leaving without the customary send-off. He replies that he feared that Laban might rob him of his daughters. (Labans reply is not preserved; it aroused Jacobs hot anger (Gen 31:36 a), and from the tenor of Jacobs reply Gunkel conjectures that he charged him with stealing his flocks.) Jacob replies in wrath that he had served him twenty years, there have been no miscarriages in the flock, he has not eaten the rams, if beasts had devoured he had not brought the mangled remains for inspection to prove his honesty (Exo 22:13, Amo 3:12), but had borne the loss; pitiless heat by day, biting frost by night, scanty sleep, such had been his thankless lot. Laban proposes a covenant (and (?) the making of a cairn) to witness between them. He (not Jacob) bids his brethren collect stones, and they celebrate the covenant feast on the cairn. This cairn is to be a witness that neither will pass it in hostile aggression against the other.

In Gen 32:1 f. (E) we have apparently a fragmentary explanation of the name Mahanaim. The incident is so curious that probably something objectionable to later piety (possibly a conflict between Jacob and the angels; cf. Gen 32:24-32) has been struck out.

Gen 31:25. the mountain: apparently different from the mountain of Gilead; perhaps Mizpah stood in the text (Gen 31:49).

Gen 31:42. the Fear of Isaac: i.e. the deity feared by Isaac, not the terror inspired by the god Isaac (E. Meyer) or a sacred object belonging to and reverenced by Isaac and now in Jacobs possession (Eerdmans).

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

RETURNING TO FACE ESAU

As Jacob continues his journey we are told that the angels of God met him (v.1). It was not God Himself as yet who met him, but the angels were no doubt intended as an encouragement for Jacob to be diligent to return all the way to the Lord’s place for him. We may wonder in what way they appeared, but Jacob recognized them as “God’s host,” and names the place “Mahanaim,” meaning “two camps.” Jacob had not yet learned that his interests ought to be merged with God’s interests, therefore he considers God’s “camp” separate from his. This has its unhealthy influence over his actions soon after, when he divided his own company into “two bands” (v.7). How much better it would have been for him if he had prayed the prayer of the Psalmist, “Unite my heart to fear Thy name” (Psa 86:11). It is always because our hearts are not undividedly devoted to God that we resort to divisions among the people of God.

Jacob realizes that in returning he must meet Esau again. Twenty years previously Esau had spoken of killing him, and he had no knowledge of whether Esau’s attitude had changed. He sends messengers to Esau, telling him of his long sojourn with Laban and that he had acquired livestock and servants. He even takes a place of subservience to Esau, calling him “my lord,” and asking that he might find grace in Esau’s sight.

The messengers bring back word that Esau is coming with four hundred men to meet Jacob (v.6). They say nothing as to whether Esau was glad to hear of Jacob or not; and Jacob is thrown into a panic. He is so frightened that, instead of first appealing to the Lord, he divides his company into two bands, thinking that one band may escape if the first is attacked by Esau. Of course such human reasoning was not God’s leading. God does not divide His saints in order to sacrifice one part of them for the protection of the other. He loves all His saints, and has no intention of sacrificing any of them to the enemy. But what of ourselves when trouble of any kind threatens us? Though every believer surely knows that our only true resource is in the Lord, yet our first impulse is to try something to relieve us, rather than going first to the One who can really help.

After Jacob had resorted to his own planning, then he prays, addressing the Lord as the God of Abraham and of Isaac, the One who had told him to return to his own country, where God would deal well with him. But where was Jacob’s faith to absolutely believe that God would deal well with him in his own land? He ought to have had perfect confidence that God would do this, for God said He would. However, he has learned more than he had when he made his vow at Bethel. He had thought then he would prove fully worthy of whatever blessing God would give him. Now he confesses, “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and all the truth which You have shown Your servant” (v.10). At least he is giving up the self confidence that he had before expressed, though he has not yet learned to have total confidence in the living God.

But he has nowhere else to turn, and he earnestly entreats the Lord to deliver him from Esau, his brother (v.11), for he admits he is afraid of Esau, that he might kill him and his wife and children. “For you said,” he adds, “I will surely treat you well, and make your descendants as the sand of the sea” etc. He was virtually saying to God, “You said this, but now Esau might kill me, and what will happen to your promise?” Did he need to plead with God to keep His promise? He did make an error, however, in saying that God had told him he would make his seed as the sand of the sea. God had said this to Abraham (ch.22:17), but to Jacob He had promised a seed “as the dust of the earth” (ch.28:14).

After prayer Jacob goes back to his planning as to how he can protect himself from Esau (vs.13-20). Of course he finds afterward that his planning was totally unnecessary. He sets apart 560 animals altogether as a present for Esau, apparently in about six droves with some distance between each. He gave the driver of the first drove instructions as to what to say to Esau when he met him. He expected Esau to inquire as to who the man was and to whom the animals belonged. In reply he was to tell Esau that they belonged to Esau’s servant Jacob (why not Esau’s brother?), and Jacob was giving them as a present to “my Lord Esau.” When Jacob knew that the Lord had told Rebekah “the elder shall serve the younger” (ch.25:23), it is sad to see him taking this place of unseemly subservience to Esau. Of course, because of his previous supplanting of Esau, he was moved by both conscience and fear.

Each succeeding driver was given similar instructions, for Jacob assumed that by this means he might appease any antipathy of Esau (v.20). This is the natural conception of human beings, and they constantly use this method in seeking any proper relationship with God, as though God is going to be influenced by man’s giving him presents of things that God has in the first place created! But God is not looking for gifts from men. Rather, He desires their hearts. The droves went on before Jacob, and he lodged that night in the camp (v.21). However, he did send his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons over the brook together with his possessions (vs.22-23).

Now God designed matters so that Jacob was left alone. It was time that Jacob was wrestled with, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. No doubt this was the Lord Himself in bodily form, which required an unusual miracle. Certainly the Lord could have subdued Jacob immediately, yet the wrestling continued for hours. However, this was intended to be a significant lesson for Jacob, and for us. The Lord had actually been wrestling with jacob all his previous life, and Jacob had not surrendered: he continued to struggle against God’s dealings with him. How could he properly learn until he had yielded himself to God? His planning, then praying, then going back to his planning was only consistent with his previous character of self confidence rather than confidence in God. He was struggling, yet hardly realized his struggle was against God.

Finally, because Jacob continued to struggle, the Lord simply “touched the hollow of his thigh,” putting it out of joint (v.25). He could have done this before, but had given Jacob opportunity to submit without any drastic action. Usually, however, we require some hard measures before we learn to truly submit ourselves to God.

Jacob was rendered unfit to wrestle any more, but he was still clinging to the Lord, who told him, “Let me go, for the day breaks.” The Lord could have easily left at once, but He gave opportunity to Jacob to say what he did, “I will not let You go unless you bless me” (v.26). At least the faith of Jacob was real, though it was weak. He knew he needed the Lord’s blessing, though he had acted inconsistently with a spirit of unquestioning faith and dependence on God.

The Lord then first requires Jacob to confess his name by natural birth. But Jacob (“the supplanter”) must have his name changed if he is to receive proper blessing from God. Only when the flesh is touched and shriveled does Jacob receive the name Israel (“a prince with God”). By nature he was Jacob, but by the grace of God he becomes Israel.

God said of Jacob that he would be named Israel because he had “struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.” It certainly does not mean that he had defeated God in wrestling, for he actually prevailed only when he was crippled and therefore clung dependently to the Lord. This dependence on God would enable him to prevail with men too. This will prove true in the future for the nation Israel also; and the same proves true for every believer today who has been brought down to a place of clinging dependently to the Lord. May we know this place well.

Jacob wanted to know the name of his adversary in wrestling, but he is only answered by the question, “Why is it that you ask about my name?” Jacob would not earn that name properly until he was in the place of God’s name, that is, Bethel, “the house of God.” It is only in God’s way that we really know God Himself (Exo 33:13). He had begun the trip back to Bethel, but he was not there. Yet the Lord blessed him where he was (v.29). After this, until he reached Bethel, he was not called “Israel” at all, for he did not learn quickly to act in the princely dignity becoming to that name. But we are all slow learners.

Jacob called the place “Peniel,” meaning “the face of God,” saying he had seen God face to face and his life was preserved (v.30). What he understood by this we do not know, but whatever he saw of God was concealed by a human form. Still, he realized the Lord was involved in this encounter, and he would remember it.

As he passed over Peniel we are told “the sun rose upon him.” This is in designed contrast to chapter 28:11, when he had left Beersheba: “the sun was set.” The night of darkness in our lives passes only when the flesh has been crippled (or judged) and we learn to cling only to the Lord. The sun (typical of the Lord Jesus) and we learn to cling only to the Lord. The sun (typical of the Lord Jesus) rises on our vision in a living, practical way. But Jacob remains crippled (v.31).

The children of Israel were impressed enough by this to take the outward action of abstaining from eating meat from the hollow of the thigh of the animals they slaughtered. but it was only outward. How little in all this history have they learned in spiritual reality to put the flesh in the place of self-judgment. Similarly, after being established in the land, they could go to Gilgal and “multiply transgressions” (Amo 4:4), rather than have the serious lesson of Gilgal impressed upon their souls, the lesson of the sharp knives of circumcision cutting off the flesh (Jos 5:2-9).

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

11. Jacob’s attempt to appease Esau 32:1-21

Chapters 32 and 33 can be viewed as one episode in the life of Jacob. They describe his return to the Promised Land including his meeting with Esau. There are thematic parallels between these chapters and chapter 31.

In spite of the vision of God’s assisting messengers, Jacob divided his people into two groups as a precaution when he heard Esau was coming to meet him with 400 men. Furthermore he sought to pacify Esau’s anger with an expensive gift in addition to praying for God’s deliverance.

Jacob had been able to handle his problems himself by hook or by crook until now. At this point in his experience God brought him to the end of his natural resources.

"As Jacob is at the precipice of receiving the promise of Canaan, he is not yet morally ready to carry out the blessing. Jacob must possess his own faith, obtaining the blessing through personal encounter, not by heredity alone." [Note: Mathews, Genesis 11:27-50:26, p. 537.]

"The events of this chapter are couched between two accounts of Jacob’s encounter with angels (Gen 32:1; Gen 32:25). The effect of these two brief pictures of Jacob’s meeting with angels on his return to the land is to align the present narrative with the similar picture of the Promised Land in the early chapters of Genesis. The land was guarded on its borders by angels. The same picture was suggested early in the Book of Genesis when Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden and ’cherubim’ were positioned on the east of the garden to guard the way to the tree of life. It can hardly be accidental that as Jacob returned from the east, he was met by angels at the border of the Promised Land. This brief notice may also be intended to alert the reader to the meaning of Jacob’s later wrestling with the ’man’ . . . at Peniel (Gen 32:25-30). The fact that Jacob had met with angels here suggests that the man at the end of the chapter is also an angel." [Note: Sailhamer, "Genesis," p. 208.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

These angels (messengers) must have resembled the angels Jacob had seen at Bethel (Gen 28:12) for him to have recognized them as angels. They joined his own company of travelers for Jacob’s protection (cf. Psa 34:7). This is the reason for the name "Mahanaim" (i.e., double host or double camp). Jacob probably saw the camp of angels as a source of comfort to his own camp as he prepared to enter the Promised Land.

"Although outside the land of promise, he was not outside the hand of promise." [Note: Mathews, Genesis 11:27-50:26, p. 547.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

JACOB AT PENIEL

Gen 32:1-32

“Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” Jam 4:10

JACOB had a double reason for wishing to leave Padan-aram. He believed in the promise of God to give him Canaan: and he saw that Laban was a man with whom he could never be on a thoroughly good understanding. He saw plainly that Laban was resolved to make what he could out of his skill at as cheap a rate as possible-the characteristic of a selfish, greedy, ungrateful, and therefore, in the end, ill-served master. Laban and Esau were the two men who had hitherto chiefly influenced Jacobs life. But they were very different in character. Esau could never see that there was any important difference between himself and Jacob-except that his brother was trickier. Esau was the type of those who honestly think that there is not much in religion, and that saints are but white-washed sinners. Laban, on the contrary, is almost superstitiously impressed by the distinction between Gods people and others. But the chief practical, issue of this impression is, not that he seeks Gods friendship for himself, but that he tries to make a profitable use of Gods friends. He seeks to get Gods blessing, as it were, at secondhand. If men could be related to God indirectly, as if in law and not by blood, that would suit Laban. If God would admit men to his inheritance on any other terms than being sons in the direct line, if there were some relationship once removed, a kind of sons-in-law, so that mere connection with the godly, though not with God, would win His blessing, this would suit Laban.

Laban is the man who appreciates the social value of virtue, truthfulness, fidelity, temperance, godliness, but wishes to enjoy their fruits without the pain of cultivating the qualities themselves. He is scrupulous as to the character of those he takes into his employment, and seeks to connect himself in business with good men. In his domestic life he acts on the idea which his experience has suggested to him, that persons really godly will make his home more peaceful, better regulated, safer than otherwise it might be. If he holds a position of authority, he knows how to make use, for the preservation of order and for the promotion of his own ends, of the voluntary efforts of Christian societies, of the trustworthiness of Christian officials, and of the support of the Christian community. But with all this recognition of the reality and influence of godliness, he never for one moment entertains the idea of himself becoming a godly man. In all ages there are Labans, who clearly recognise the utility and worth of a connection with God, who have been much mixed up with persons in whom that worth was very conspicuous, and who yet, at the last, “depart and return unto their place,” like Jacobs father-in-law, without having themselves entered into any affectionate relations with God.

From Laban, then, Jacob was resolved to escape. And though to escape with large droves of slow-moving sheep and cattle, as well as with many women and children, seemed hopeless, the cleverness of Jacob did not fail him here. He did not get beyond reach of pursuit; he could never have expected to do so. But he stole away to such a distance from Haran as made it much easier for him to come to terms with Laban, and much more difficult for Laban to try any further device for detaining him.

But, delivered as he was from Laban, he had an even more formidable person to deal with, As soon as Labans company disappear on the northern horizon, Jacob sends messengers south to sound Esau. His message is so contrived as to beget the idea in Esaus mind that his younger brother is a person of some importance, and yet is prepared to show greater deference to himself than formerly. But the answer brought back by the messengers is the curt and haughty despatch of the man of war to the man of peace. No notice is taken of Jacobs vaunted wealth. No proposal of terms as if Esau had an equal to deal with, is carried back. There is only the startling announcement: “Esau cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him.” Jacob at once recognises the significance of this armed advance on Esaus part. Esau has not forgotten the wrong he suffered at Jacobs hands, and he means to show him that he is entirely in his power.

Therefore was Jacob “greatly afraid and distressed.” The joy with which, a few days ago, he had greeted the host of God, was quite overcast by the tidings brought him regarding the host of Esau. Things heavenly do always look so like a mere show; visits of angels seem so delusive and fleeting; the exhibition of the powers of heaven seems so often but as a tournament painted on the sky, and so unavailable for the stern encounters that await us on earth, that one seems, even after the most impressive of such displays, to be left to fight on alone. No wonder Jacob is disturbed. His wives and dependants gather round him in dismay; the children, catching the infectious panic, cower with cries and weeping about their mothers; the whole camp is rudely shaken out of its brief truce by the news of this rough Esau, whose impetuosity and warlike ways they had all heard of and were now to experience. The accounts of the messengers would no doubt grow in alarming descriptive detail as they saw how much importance was attached to their words. Their accounts would also be exaggerated by their own unwarlike nature, and by the indistinctness with which they had made out the temper of Esaus followers, and the novelty of the equipments of war they had seen in his camp. Could we have been surprised had Jacob turned and fled when thus he was made to picture the troops of Esau sweeping from his grasp all he had so laboriously earned, and snatching the promised inheritance from him when in the very act of entering on possession? But though in fancy he already hears their rude shouts of triumph as they fall upon his defenceless band, and already sees the merciless horde dividing the spoil with shouts of derision and coarse triumph, and though all around him are clamouring to be led into a safe retreat, Jacob sees stretched before him the land that is his, and resolves that, by Gods help, he shall win it. What he does is not the act of a man rendered incompetent through fear, but of one who has recovered from the first shock of alarm and has all his wits about him. He disposes his household and followers in two companies, so that each might advance with the hope that it might be the one which should not meet Esau; and having done all that his circumstances permit, he commends himself to God in prayer.

After Jacob had prayed to God, a happy thought strikes him, which he at once puts in execution. Anticipating the experience of Solomon, that “a brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city,” he, in the style of a skilled tactician, lays siege to Esaus wrath, and directs against it train after train of gifts, which, like successive battalions pouring into a breach, might at length quite win his brother. This disposition of his peaceful battering trains having occupied him till sunset, he retires to the short rest of a general on the eve of battle. As soon as he judges that the weaker members of the camp are refreshed enough to begin their eventful march, he rises and goes from tent to tent awaking the sleepers, and quickly forming them into their usual line of march, sends them over the brook in the darkness, and himself is left alone, not with the depression of a man who waits for the inevitable, but with the high spirits of intense activity, and with the return of the old complacent confidence of his own superiority to his powerful but sluggish-minded brother-a confidence regained now by the certainty he felt, at least for the time, that Esaus rage could not blaze through all the relays of gifts he had sent forward. Having in this spirit seen all his camp across the brook, he himself pauses for a moment; end looks with interest at the stream before him, and at the promised land on its southern bank. This stream, too, has an interest for him as bearing a name like his own-a name that signifies the “struggler,” and was given to the mountain torrent from the pain and difficulty with which it seemed to find its way through the hills. Sitting on the bank of the stream, he sees gleaming through the darkness the foam that it churned as it writhed through the obstructing rocks, or heard through the night the roar of its torrent as it leapt downwards, tortuously finding its way towards Jordan; and Jacob says, So will I, opposed though I be, win my way, by the circuitous routes of craft or by the impetuous rush of courage, into the land whither that stream is going. With compressed lips, and step as firm as when, twenty years before, he left the land, he rises to cross the brook and enter the land-he rises, and is seized in a grasp that he at once owns as formidable. But surely this silent close, as of two combatants who at once recognise one anothers strength, this protracted strife, does not look like the act of a depressed man, but of one whose energies have been strung to the highest pitch, and who would have borne down the champion of Esaus host had he at that hour opposed his entrance into the land which Jacob claimed as his own, and into which, as his glove, pledging himself to follow, he had thrown all that was dear to him in the world. It was no common wrestler that would have been safe to meet him in that mood.

Why, then, was Jacob thus mysteriously held back while his household were quietly moving forward in the darkness? What is the meaning, purpose, and use of this opposition to his entrance? These are obvious from the state of mind Jacob was in. He was going forward to meet Esau under the impression that there was no other reason why he should not inherit the land but only his wrath, and pretty confident that by his superior talent, his mother-wit, he could make a tool of this stupid, generous brother of his. And the danger was, that if Jacobs device had succeeded, he would have been confirmed in these impressions, and have believed that he had won the land from Esau, with Gods help certainly, but still by his own indomitable pertinacity of purpose and skill in dealing with men. Now, this was not the state of the case at all. Jacob had, by his own deceit. become an exile from the land, had been, in fact, banished for fraud; and though God had confirmed to him the covenant, and promised to him the land, yet Jacob had apparently never come to any such thorough sense of his sin and entire incompetency to win the birthright for himself, as would have made it possible for him to receive simply as Gods gift this land which as Gods gift was alone valuable. Jacob does not yet seem to have taken up the difference between inheriting a thing as Gods gift, and inheriting it as the meed of his own prowess to such a man God cannot give the land; Jacob cannot receive it. He is thinking only of winning it, which is not at all what God means, and which would, in fact, have annulled all the covenant, and lowered Jacob and his people to the level simply of other nations who had to win and keep their territories at their risk, and not as the blessed of God. If Jacob then is to get the land, he must take it as a gift, which he is not prepared to do. During the last twenty years he has got many a lesson which might have taught him to distrust his own management, and he had, to a certain extent, acknowledged God; but his Jacob-nature, his subtle, scheming nature, was not so easily made to stand erect, and still he is for wriggling himself into the promised land. He is coming back to the land under the impression that God needs to be managed; that even though we have His promises it requires dexterity to get them fulfilled; that a man will get into the inheritance all the readier for knowing what to veil from God and what to exhibit; when. to cleave to His word with great profession of most humble and absolute reliance on Him, and when to take matters into ones own hand. Jacob, in short, was about to enter the land as Jacob, the supplanter, and that would never do; he was going to win the land from Esau by guile, or as he might; and not to receive it from God. And therefore, just as he is going to step into it, there lays hold of him, not an armed emissary of his brother, but a far more formidable antagonist-if Jacob will win the land, if it is to be a mere trial of skill, a wrestling match, it must at least be with the right person. Jacob is met with his own weapons. He has not chosen war, so no armed opposition is made; but with the naked force of his own nature, he is prepared for any man who will hold the land against him; with such tenacity, toughness, quick presence of mind, elasticity, as nature has given him, he is confident he can win and hold his own. So the real proprietor of the land strips himself for the contest, and lets him feel, by the first hold he takes of him, that if the question be one of mere strength he shall never enter the land.

This wrestling therefore was by no means actually or symbolically prayer. Jacob was not aggressive, nor did he stay behind his company to spend the night in praying for them. It was God who came and laid hold on Jacob to prevent him from entering the land in the temper he was in, and as Jacob. He was to be taught that it was not only Esaus appeased wrath, or his own skilful smoothing down of his brothers ruffled temper, that gave him entrance; but that a nameless Being, Who came out upon him from the darkness, guarded the land, and that by His passport only could he find entrance. And henceforth, as to every reader of this history so much more to Jacobs self, the meeting with Esau and the overcoming of his opposition were quite secondary to and eclipsed by his meeting and prevailing with this unknown combatant.

This struggle had, therefore, immense significance for the history of Jacob. It is, in fact, a concrete representation of the attitude he had maintained towards God throughout his previous history; and it constitutes the turning point at which he assumes a new and satisfactory attitude. Year after year Jacob had still retained confidence in himself; he had never been thoroughly humbled, but had always felt himself able to regain the land he had lost by his sin. And in this struggle he shows this same determination and self-confidence. He wrestles on indomitably. As Kurtz, whom I follow in his interpretation of this incident, says, “All along Jacobs life had been the struggle of a clever and strong, a pertinacious and enduring, a self-confident and self-sufficient person, who was sure of the result only when he helped himself-a contest with God, who wished to break his strength and wisdom, in order to bestow upon him real strength in divine weakness, and real Wisdom in divine folly.” All this self-confidence culminates now, and in one final and sensible struggle, his Jacob-nature, his natural propensity to wrest what he desires and win what he aims at, from the most unwilling opponent, does its very utmost and does it in vain. His steady straining, his dexterous feints, his quick gusts of vehement assault, make no impression on this combatant and move him not one foot off his ground. Time after time his crafty nature puts out all its various resources, now letting his grasp relax and feigning defeat, and then with gathered strength hurling himself on the stranger, but all in vain. What Jacob had often surmised during the last twenty years, what had flashed through him like a sudden gleam of light when he found himself-married to Leah, that he was in the hands of one against whom it is quite useless to struggle, he now again begins to suspect. And as the first faint dawn appears, and he begins dimly to make out the face, the quiet breathing of which he had felt on his own during the contest, the man with whom he wrestles touches the strongest sinew in Jacobs body, and the muscle on which the wrestler most depends shrivels at the touch and reveals to the falling Jacob how utterly futile had been all his skill and obstinacy, and how quickly the stranger might have thrown and mastered him.

All in a moment, as he falls, Jacob sees how it is with him, and Who it is that has met him thus. As the hard, stiff, corded muscle shrivelled, so shrivelled his obdurate, persistent self-confidence. And as he is thrown, yet cleaves with the natural tenacity of a wrestler to his conqueror; so, utterly humbled before this Mighty One whom now he recognises and owns, he yet cleaves to Him and entreats His Blessing. It is at this touch, which discovers the Almighty power of Him with whom he has been contending, that the whole nature of Jacob goes down before God. He sees how foolish and vain has been his obstinate persistence in striving to trick God out of His blessing, or wrest it from Him, and now he owns his utter incapacity to advance one step in this way, he admits to himself that he is stopped, weakened in the way, thrown on his back, and can effect nothing, simply nothing, by what he thought would effect all; and, therefore, he passes from wrestling to praying, and with tears, as Hosea says, sobs out from the broken heart of the strong man, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me.” In making this transition from the boldness and persistence of self-confidence to the boldness of faith and humility, Jacob becomes Israel-the supplanter, being baffled by his conqueror, rises a Prince. Disarmed of all other weapons, he at last finds and uses the weapons wherewith God is conquered, and with the simplicity and guilelessness now of an Israelite indeed, face to face with God, hanging helpless with his arms around Him, he supplicates the blessing he could not win.

Thus, as Abraham had to become Gods heir in the simplicity of humble dependence on God; as Isaac had to lay himself on Gods altar with absolute resignation, and so become the heir of God, so Jacob enters on the inheritance through the most thorough humbling. Abraham had to give up all possessions and live on Gods promise; Isaac had to give up life itself; Jacob had to yield his very self, and abandon all dependence on his own ability. The new name he receives signalizes and interprets this crisis in his life. He enters his land not as Jacob, but as Israel. The man who crossed the Jabbok was not the same as he who had cheated Esau and outwitted Laban and determinedly striven this morning with the angel He was Israel, Gods prince, entering on the land freely bestowed on him by an authority, none could resist; a man who had learned that in order to receive from God, one must ask.

Very significant to Jacob in his after life must. have been the lameness consequent on this nights struggle. He, the wrestler, had to go halting all his days. He who had carried all his. weapons in his own person, in his intelligent watchful eye and tough right arm, he who had felt sufficient for all emergencies and a match for all men, had now to limp along as one who had been worsted and baffled and could not hide his shame from men. So it sometimes happens that a man never recovers the severe handling he has received at some turning point in his life. Often there is never again the same elastic step, the same free and confident bearing, the same apparent power, the same appearance to our fellow-men of completeness in our life; but, instead of this, there is a humble decision which, if it does not walk with so free a gait, yet knows better what ground it is treading and by what right. To the end some men bear the marks of the heavy stroke by which God first humbled them. It came in a sudden shock that broke their health, or in a disappointment which nothing now given can ever quite obliterate the trace of, or in circumstances painfully and permanently altered. And the man has to say with Jacob, I shall never now be what I might have been; I was resolved to have my own way, and though God in His mercy did not suffer me to destroy myself, yet to drive me from my purpose He was forced to use a violence, under the effects of which I go halting all my days, saved and whole, yet maimed to the end of time. I am not ashamed of the mark, at least when I think of it as Gods signature I am able to glory in it, but it never fairs to remind me of a perverse wilfulness I am ashamed of. With many men God is forced to such treatment; if any of us are under it, God forbid we should mistake its meaning and lie prostrate and despairing in the darkness instead of clinging to Him Who has smitten and will heal us.

For the treatment which Jacob received at Peniel must not be set aside as singular or exceptional. Sometimes God interposes between us and a greatly-desired possession which we have been counting upon as our right and as the fair and natural consequence of our past efforts and ways. The expectation of this possession has indeed determined our movements and shaped our life for some time past, and it would not only be assigned to us by men as fairly ours, but God also has Himself seemed to encourage us to win it. Yet when it is now within sight, and when we are rising to pass the little stream which seems alone to separate us from it, we are arrested by a strong, an irresistible hand. The reason is, that God wishes us to be in such a state of mind that we shall receive it as His gift, so that it becomes ours by an indefeasible title.

Similarly, when advancing to a spiritual possession, such checks are not without their use. Many men look with longing to what is eternal and spiritual, and they resolve to win this inheritance. And this resolve they often make as if its accomplishment depended solely on their own endurance. They leave almost wholly out of account that the possibility of their entering the state they long for is not decided by their readiness to pass through any ordeal, spiritual or physical, which may be required of them, but by Gods willingness to give it. They act as if by taking advantage of Gods promises, and by passing through certain states of mind and prescribed duties, they could, irrespective of Gods present attitude toward them and constant love, win eternal happiness. In the life of such persons there must therefore come a time when their own spiritual energy seems all to collapse in that painful, utter way in which, when the body is exhausted, the muscles are suddenly found to be cramped and heavy and no longer responsive to the will. They are made to feel that a spiritual dislocation has taken place, and that their eagerness to enter life everlasting no longer stirs the active energies of the soul.

In that hour the man learns the most valuable truth he can learn, that it is God Who is wishing to save him, not he who must wrest a blessing from an unwilling God. Instead of any longer looking on himself as against the world, he takes his place as one who has the whole energy of Gods will at his back, to give him rightful entrance into all blessedness. So long as Jacob was in doubt whether it was not some kind of man that was opposing him, he wrestled on; and our foolish ways of dealing with God terminate, when we recognise that He is not such a one as ourselves. We naturally act as if God had some pleasure in thwarting us-as if we could, and even ought to, maintain a kind of contest with God. We deal with Him as if He were opposed to our best purposes and grudged to advance us in all good, and as if He needed to be propitiated by penitence and cajoled by forced feelings and sanctimonious demeanour. We act as if we could make more way were God not in our way, as if our best prospects began in our own conception and we had to win God over to our views. If God is unwilling, then there is an end: no device nor force will get us past Him. If He is willing, why all this unworthy dealing with Him., as if the whole idea and accomplishment of salvation did not proceed from Him?

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary