Genesis 32:21–23

After dispatching the droves, Jacob remained behind with his family and the rest of his company to spend the night in the encampment by the river Jabbok, a stream which flows west into the Jordan, entering it about halfway between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. They were at first north of the Jabbok, while of course Esau was approaching from the south. During the night, he decided to move his entire company across the river to the south side. The river was fordable at that point, and Jacob wished to have the somewhat troublesome business of herding all the animals across the stream completed before Esau reached him. By this action, he obviously indicated that it was certainly not his intention to retreat before a possible attack by Esau.

Having done everything he could, Jacob then decided to spend the rest of the night in prayer. Though the text does not say so specifically, the implication is that Jacob returned to the northern bank of the Jabbok in order to be completely alone. He knew Esau would not arrive until the next morning, at least; so his family would be safe for the night with the other servants.

Genesis 32:24–32

It is significant that the name Jabbok means “Wrestler,” a name evidently given to it later in commemoration of Jacob’s amazing experience that night. This section is indeed one of the most difficult to understand in the Bible. Did he actually wrestle with a man, or with an angel, or is the entire description simply an allegory of the spiritual battle through which he passed that night? Interpretations of this passage have been many and fanciful.

There seems to be no question, however, that the writer of the passage (originally Jacob, probably) intended it to be taken literally. As far as the mysterious wrestler is concerned, he was in the form of a man, but angels often assumed such forms in those days. Angels had actually eaten a meal with Abraham, and two of them had been the objects of the depraved sexual lusts of the Sodomites; so there is no doubt that angels can take on the physical structure of men in every detail when there is proper occasion for them to do so. That this was, indeed, an angel is indicated in a commentary by Hosea on this passage. “[Jacob] took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God: Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication to him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us; Even the Lord God of hosts; the Lord is his memorial” (Hosea 12:3–5).

Apparently in Jacob’s evaluation, his combatant was more than even an angel. It was none other than the Angel, the pre-incarnate Christ, because, according to Jacob’s testimony, he had “seen God face to face.”

This experience must, therefore, have been an exceedingly important event in the history of man’s redemption. Jacob, whom God had chosen to be the father of the children of Israel, through whom He would finally come into the world not only in the form of man but as the very Son of Man, was facing the greatest opposition to the accomplishment of his divinely ordered mission. If Esau were to be victorious here, all of God’s plans and promises would be defeated, and the world would never have a Savior.

It was essential that Jacob receive both understanding and assurance concerning the supreme importance of his mission. He must learn clearly, as he began the establishment of the chosen nation, that God was all-sufficient and that he had been prepared by God to accomplish this incomparable task. He must know fully his own weakness, but even more he must know the power of God and his right to claim that power.

Little did he dream, as he began to pray that night, that his agony of soul as he cried to God for strength and deliverance would soon become an actual physical battle, and with none other than God Himself. As he earnestly wrestled in prayer, it was as though he sensed that God was really present with him and was declining to grant his request, perhaps because of Jacob’s remaining fears and doubts, perhaps also because of his greater immediate concern for physical protection rather than for the fulfillment of God’s purposes.

As he felt more and more this conflict, he cried the more earnestly to God, seeing ever more clearly that it was not the immediate dangers that should be the burden of his prayers, but rather the accomplishment of God’s will for all men everywhere. God’s presence and purpose became more and more real to him until, suddenly, He was real! His uplifted arms were actually clinging to God Himself, God in human form. Jacob felt that, if he ever let go, it would mean that God had left him, with prayer unanswered; and so he clung desperately, pleading all the while for His blessing. God in grace allowed him to hang on, seeing that Jacob’s faith and understanding were growing as he clung.

As the day began to break, Jacob was still holding on, refusing to let go until God would give him full and final assurance of permanent blessing. According to Hosea’s commentary, this “wrestling” on Jacob’s part involved weeping and supplication, as well as physical tenacity. Hosea compared Jacob’s holding to the Angel with his tenacity in holding onto his brother’s heel as he was born, both testifying of his great desire to be the recipient of God’s greatest blessings and responsibilities.

When God saw that He could not prevail against Jacob, He finally gave him the blessing he sought. This, of course, does not suggest that God was weaker than Jacob, but does show that God desires men to persist in prayer and that He delights to yield to such prayers. “Shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?” (Luke 18:7). “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). There indeed is such a thing as prevailing prayer, when the request conforms to the will and the word of God; and Jacob’s experience symbolizes all such prayers.

To remind Jacob perpetually of the experience, the Angel imposed a physical injury on him, which evidently consisted of a slight dislocation of the ball-and-socket joint in the thigh. This would inhibit Jacob from any undue presumption against God, since he would know that God really only allowed him to prevail; but at the same time it would never let him forget that God indeed had promised in this most unique encounter to bless him forever.

Before He pronounced the blessing, the Angel, to show the transition between Jacob’s time of preparation and his time of fulfillment, called attention to his name, Jacob, by asking him to state it. He is no longer to be the “Supplanter,” but the “Prevailer.” The name “Israel,” which Jacob received that night, and which has continued to be the name of his descendants for thirty-seven hundred years, means “One Who Fights Victoriously with God.” It has also been rendered “A Prince with God,” since it is derived from the two words Sarah-El with the word sarah meaning “fight, or rule, as a prince.” It is the word which, in this verse, is translated “as a prince hast thou power.”

The name Israel is God’s permanent testimony to the character and power of Jacob, a considerably different testimony than has been afforded to him by numerous commentators through the years. One is justified in accepting God’s testimony rather than man’s!

Jacob then, after the Angel had asked his name, felt he must also ask the Angel’s name. He well realized he had been experiencing a unique encounter with the divine presence, but never had he met God in this form before. He had seen and heard God in dreams and visions, but here was an actual physical person with whom he had been struggling. Was this actually Jehovah, the God of his fathers, to whom he had so often prayed? From what He had said, and from what Jacob had sensed, it must be. And yet, could God actually assume a physical human body?

The Angel responded by a rhetorical question. “Why do you ask my name?” Jacob already knew who it was. He had been earnestly praying to Jehovah, and Jehovah had answered his prayer in this most remarkable way, an experience neither he nor his children could ever forget. Then the Lord—for it was He—gave Jacob a divine blessing, probably (though the text does not actually say) recalling and reaffirming all the great promises which were to be centered in Israel, culminating finally in the actual entrance of God into the human family (as prefigured by this physical appearance of God to Jacob), when Messiah would come.

When the Lord had departed, and the sun had risen, Jacob found he had to limp because of his thigh. This was no mere dream he had experienced, but an actual physical struggle; and he would carry the resulting injury with him as a token of it all his life. The later editor (Moses, presumably) recorded that, because of this, the children of Israel had adopted the practice of not eating that particular muscle (probably the portion of the hindquarter containing the sciatic nerve) when eating meat. God did not command such a practice, of course, but it did indicate the importance of this event in the minds of those who practiced it.

Jacob named the place “Peniel,” meaning “The Face of God.” Jacob marveled greatly that he had actually been allowed to see and touch God, and that he had survived to tell the experience. This would have been utterly impossible, had not God veiled Himself in human form, of course (Exodus 33:20; 1 Timothy 6:16).

The name of the place, as given by Jacob, was not forgotten. Though slightly changed in form, to Penuel, it continued to be known by that name until at least the days of the divided kingdom (1 Kings 12:25).

After such an encounter, Jacob was now fully prepared to meet Esau, and then to enter the promised land to establish the foundations for the nation Israel. As the sun rose, though forced to limp because of the crippled thigh, he passed over Penuel, and presumably also the Jabbok River, to rejoin his family and to await the coming of Esau.  Morris, H. M. (1976). The Genesis record: a scientific and devotional commentary on the book of beginnings (pp. 498–502). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Ge 32:22 Jabbok. A stream, 60–65 mi. long, E of the Jordan which flows into that river midway between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea (ca. 45 mi. S of the Sea of Galilee).
32:24 a Man wrestled. The site name, Peniel, or “face of God,” given by Jacob (v. 30) and the commentary given by Hosea (Hos. 12:4) identifies this Man with whom Jacob wrestled as the Angel of the Lord who is also identified as God, a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. See note on Ex. 3:2.
32:28 no longer … Jacob, but Israel. Jacob’s personal name changed from one meaning “heel-catcher” or “deceiver” to one meaning “God’s fighter” or “he struggles with God” (cf. 35:10). The marginal reading “Prince with God” is not preferred. with God and with men. An amazing evaluation of what Jacob had accomplished, i.e., emerging victorious from the struggle. In the record of his life, “struggle” did indeed dominate: 1) with his brother Esau (chaps. 25–27); 2) with his father (chap. 27); 3) with his father-in-law (chaps. 29–31); 4) with his wives (chap. 30); and 5) with God at Peniel (v. 28).
32:30 Peniel. See note on v. 24.
32:32 not eat the muscle that shrank. This might refer to the sciatic muscle/tendon. The observation that up to Moses’ time (“to this day”) the nation of Israel did not eat this part of a hindquarter intrigues because it bears no mention elsewhere in the OT, nor is it enshrined in the Mosaic law. It does find mention in the Jewish Talmud as a sacred law.  MacArthur, J., Jr. (Ed.). (1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed., pp. 63–64). Nashville, TN: Word Pub.

 And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two womenservants, 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 [Gen. 32:21–23].

This is the night of the great experience in Jacob’s life. The land where he crossed the Brook Jabbok is very desolate. When I was there, I purposely got away from my group and took a walk across the bridge that is there today. The United States built a very lovely road through that area for the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan. There are several things in that area which you would not be able to see if there wasn’t that good road, because it is quite a wilderness area. I took pictures of sheep that were drinking down at the Brook Jabbok. The crossing there is a very bleak place, right down between two hills, in that very mountainous and very rugged country. Here is where Jacob came that night. He is not a happy man, and he is filled with fear and doubts. You see, chickens are coming home to roost. He had mistreated Esau. God had never told him to get the birthright or the blessing in the way he did it. God would have gotten it for him. That night Jacob sends all that he has across the Brook Jabbok, but he stays on the other side so that, if his brother Esau comes, he might kill Jacob but spare the family. And so Jacob is left alone.

WRESTLING AT PENIEL

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day [Gen. 32:24].

There are several things I would like to get straight as we come to this wrestling match. I have heard it said that Jacob did the wrestling. Actually, Jacob didn’t want to wrestle anybody. He has Uncle Laban in back of him who doesn’t mean good at all, and he has his brother Esau ahead of him. Jacob is no match for either one. He is caught now between a rock and a hard place, and he doesn’t know which way to turn. Do you think he wanted to take on a third opponent that night? I don’t think so.
Years ago Time magazine, reporting in the sports section concerning the votes for the greatest wrestler, said that not a vote went to the most famous athlete in history, wrestling Jacob. Lo and behold, the magazine received a letter from someone who wrote asking them to tell something about this wrestler Jacob. The writer of the letter had never heard of him before! And evidently he had never read his Bible at all. Jacob is no wrestler—let’s make that very clear here at the beginning. That night he was alone because he wanted to be alone, and he wasn’t looking for a fight.
This is the question: Who is this one who wrestled with Jacob that night? There has been a great deal of speculation about who it is, but I think He is none other than the preincarnate Christ. There is some evidence for this in the prophecy of Hosea: “Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation; and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt. The LORD hath also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; according to his doings will he recompense him. He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God: Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Beth–el, and there he spake with us; Even the LORD God of hosts; the LORD is his memorial” (Hos. 12:1–5). “The LORD is his memorial”—or, “the Lord is His name.” It was none other than Jehovah, the preincarnate Christ, who wrestled with Jacob that night.  McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Law (Genesis 16-33) (electronic ed., Vol. 2, pp. 174–176). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.