Wrestling with God (Gen 32:22-32)

The story of Jacob wrestling with ‘a man’ is both mysterious and evocative. Who is the man? Is he an angel? God? But how can a mere mortal wrestle with God? And how can the opponent not prevail, when he can dislocate Jacob’s hip with only a touch (Gen 32:25)? Moreover, in what sense does Jacob overcome God (Gen 32:28)?! Despite these questions, the scene is also evocative. After all, who hasn’t wrestled with God at some point, whether it was about something we desperately wanted from Him or because we could not understand what He was doing in our lives or because of the suffering we endured? It is also fascinating that Israel preserved this memory of their ancestor as a key to their identity as the people of God. Jacob wrestled with people (Esau, Laban), but ultimately with God all his life and so do many faithful Jews and Christians today. Far from the comfortable crutch that secular people think God is for believers, He does not conform to our expectations and His plans are often beyond our comprehension.

Not quite ready

To return to the beginning of our reading, Jacob spends the night at camp, but he clearly cannot sleep. He has moved his animals across the Jabbok stream that night (Gen 32:13, 21), a hazardous act reflecting his agitated state. Imagine the chaotic bleating of frightened animals forced to enter water in the pitch-dark, the shouts of the drivers to keep them together. Finally, they are on the other side and the camp quietens down. But Jacob gets up again, this time to take his family over (Gen 32:22-23). Does he send them across or go with them and then return? The text is ambiguous and his motive unclear. People who face overwhelming fears tend to have ‘a fight or flight’ reaction. Jacob mostly chose to flee in the past (Esau, Laban), but now he is almost pushing himself into confrontation. Yet his return to the other side suggests that he is not quite ready to cross his Rubicon.

The true meaning of blessing

The man who suddenly appears and wrestles with him in the dark is mysterious, but the context suggests that in some sense Jacob encounters God (Gen 32:30).[1] All his life, Jacob wrestled for blessing. Although this includes material benefits in its Old Testament meaning, blessing and birthright have a value as an acknowledgement, recognition, or approval of a person and their place in the world. This is what Jacob was striving for. Although physically he is no match for his opponent (witness how easily he is injured), but, as Walton helpfully points out, the battle is in the spiritual arena and the opponent cannot overcome him because Jacob is unwilling to yield.[2] He wants the blessing.

Finding our God-given place

The exchange that follows highlights how divine recognition and affirmation come. The question for Jacob’s name (Gen 32:27) is not a request for information but one of identity. Who are you? How do you see yourself? Jacob’s reply is an admission, ‘I am a cheat, a supplanter, a heel’ (the meaning of his name). It is a confession of an unsavoury character, someone who knows his faults. We can only find our God-given place in the world when we are able to admit where we have come from and what we are on our own. Paradoxically, it is in that moment of self-recognition that the Lord can transform us and give us a new destiny. God looks at Jacob and knows that beyond the cheat is a man who longs to be recognised and acknowledged, ultimately by God. He desires a good thing. In the past, he had hoped to gain approval from human sources but now he understands that the deepest acknowledgement must come from the Lord. His new name, Israel, indicates his destiny and new identity as a man who perseveres until he finds his God-given place (Gen 32:28).[3] Jacob prevails upon God, not because the Lord is too weak to resist him, but because He wants to bless all along. In fact, the blessing has already been promised and partially given to Jacob (Gen 28:13-14; 32:9-10), but only when he repents of his self-sufficiency and seeks Him can he fully take hold of it. Paradoxically, it is when Jacob submits to God that he overcomes. May we, too, seek Him with perseverance and humility.

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[1] The fact that Jacob asks his opponent to bless him suggests that he recognises the mysterious wrestler’s superiority (blessing is always given by the superior; Gen 32:26). Jacob’s name change also indicates that he wrestled with God here, and his naming the place Peniel (‘face of God’; Gen 32:30) testifies to his meeting God in some sense. The Old Testament is characteristically reticent in pinning down these encounters with the divine because it is concerned to preserve God’s transcendence (otherness). Often the designation ‘the angel of the LORD’ is used interchangeably with God. Thus, Hosea reflects on Israel’s ancestor and names the opponent alternately an angel and God in parallel lines (Hos 12:3-4).

[2] John H. Walton, Genesis, NIVAC (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 605.

[3] I believe that Esau disqualified himself precisely because he took his firstborn status for granted and was more interested in material benefits, especially when it brought immediate satisfaction (witness his exchange of the birthright for a stew) than in the ultimate and spiritual value of his privilege.

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