Jacob Becomes Israel

Genesis 32:1-32¹

January 7, 2007

[Prayer]

Today’s message is from Genesis chapter 32—the entire chapter. We won’t read it all at once—it’s 32 verses. But, I’ll quote it in sections as we go along. Remember, as always, that this is the word of God, breathed by God’s Holy Spirit. It’s what God has revealed about himself to us—what he wants us to know about him. It shows us how he interacts with us—how he interacts with those whom he has created.

Also, as always, I encourage all of you to read your Bibles every day. It’s how you know God. Do you understand how important it is to know God? This is what Jesus said. This is what he prayed to God before he went to the cross. He looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son so that the Son may glorify You, for You gave Him authority over all flesh; so He may give eternal life to all You have given Him. This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One You have sent—Jesus Christ.” (Emphasis added –John 17:1-3) How important do you think it is to know God? There is nothing, absolutely nothing, more important!

Now let’s look at the first two verses of today’s passage. We’ll be reading from the HCSB—the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Listen as I read the verses:

^{1Jacob went on his way, and God’s angels met him. ²When he saw them, Jacob said, “This is God’s camp.” So he called that place Mahanaim. (Genesis 32:1,2)

Jacob had run away from his Uncle Laban. The Lord had told him to go back to Canaan, the land where he was born and the land that the Lord was going to give to Jacob and to his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham and to all their descendants forever.

Jacob had run from Uncle Laban. Uncle Laban had gone after him with mayhem in his heart, but had wound up being afraid of Jacob and asking Jacob to make a peace treaty with him instead—which Jacob did. Do you remember that God came to Laban in a dream and warned him about Jacob? The result was that Jacob and Laban made a treaty and each went his own way—Laban back to Haran and Jacob toward Canaan. Verse 1 says, “Jacob went on his way, and God’s angels met him.” You see, God was with Jacob.

But now Jacob had another worry. (He shouldn’t have worried, should he? But he did.) Twenty years earlier, he had run away from his brother Esau who had been planning on murdering him because Jacob had cheated him out of both the rights of the firstborn (Esau was the firstborn) and out of the blessing which their father Isaac had intended to give to him. Now Jacob had to go back and face Esau. God had told him, in fact, to go back. Jacob was not just running away from Uncle Laban, he was obeying God’s instructions—his command—to return to the land that he had promised to Abraham, to Isaac and now to Jacob. Let’s look at verse 3 through 5. I’ll read them:

^{3Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. ⁴He commanded them, “You are to say to my lord Esau, ‘This is what your servant Jacob says. I have been staying with Laban and have been delayed until now. ⁵I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male and female slaves. I have sent this message to inform my lord, in order to seek your favor.’” (Genesis 32:3-5)

Now the situation is this: Jacob is going back to where his brother Esau may be waiting to kill him, so he sends emissaries to ask for peace: “I have sent this message to inform my lord, in order to seek your favor.” He also informs Esau that he is rich (and, hopefully, Esau will think, powerful—I have oxen and donkeys, and so forth…).

And, did you notice that he called Esau his lord: “You are to say to my lord Esau…”? And that he referred to himself in his message to Esau as “your servant Jacob”? But through the blessing that Jacob had stolen (but God had intended to give to Jacob anyway), God had made Esau Jacob’s servant, not the other way around—“may your mother’s sons bow down to you”. I’m sure that had rankled Esau quite a bit. But now Jacob is saying that he is Esau’s servant—“your servant Jacob”. Anyway, Jacob is hoping that Esau will have forgotten about the whole thing. But remember again one thing. God has sent Jacob back to Canaan.

Now let’s look at verses 6 through 8. I’ll read them:

^{6When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau; he is coming to meet you—and he has 400 men with him.” ⁷Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; he divided the people with him into two camps, along with the flocks, cattle, and camels. ⁸He thought, “If Esau comes to one camp and attacks it, the remaining one can escape.” (Genesis 32:6-8)

My goodness! Esau already knows that Jacob is coming and is not just waiting for him to arrive, but is on his way to meet him with 400 men—the last thing in the world that Jacob wants to hear! “Jacob was greatly afraid and very distressed,” it says. (I think the word of God is given to understatements. Jacob was absolutely terrified. But, what’s super scary for us is nothing for God. And for that very reason, we should not worry either, but trust God in every situation—but we do worry.)

Well, God had told Jacob to go back to Canaan, and Jacob should have said, “Wow, what a great opportunity to learn to trust God,” right? But, he didn’t. It says that he divided up the people with him and the flocks and herds into two camps with the idea that, if Esau came to one camp and attacked it, the others might escape. He would possibly save half of his possessions and people.

But God had chosen Jacob and has been teaching and training him. (He rebukes those he loves and disciplines those he treats as sons.)

Jacob started out as someone who trusted in his own wiles and craftiness. It got him into trouble and he had to run for his life. Then he met Uncle Laban, who was sneakier and craftier than he was. He learned quite a bit from that experience. Now he’s sure his brother Esau is coming to get his revenge—and he has 400 men with him. Let’s look at verses 9 through 12.

Listen while I read them:

^{9Then Jacob said, “God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, ‘Go back to your land and to your family, and I will cause you to prosper,’ ¹⁰I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness You have shown Your servant. Indeed, I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two camps. ¹¹Please rescue me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid of him; otherwise, he may come and attack me, the mothers, and their children. ¹²You have said, ‘I will cause you to prosper, and I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’” (Genesis 32:9-12)

Now Jacob is doing something right. He is asking for help. He is praying to the one who is able to give him help. (The word praying, by the way, in English, means begging. Jacob is begging God for help.) So, let’s look at Jacob’s prayer. Maybe we can learn something from it.

Jacob starts out by acknowledging who God is, the God of his father Abraham (really, grandfather, but, you remember, the distinction is not made in the Bible). He is the God of Jacob’s grandfather Abraham and the God of his father Isaac—the God that Abraham and Isaac trusted—and now the God that Jacob has to trust too. Jacob is forced to trust him.

Jacob says to God, “You told me, ‘Go back to your land and to your family, and I will cause you to prosper.’ Jacob says, “I am doing what you told me to do, and I won’t be able to prosper if Esau kills me, so I’m trusting you. You made my grandfather Abraham and my father Isaac prosper, and you have promised to make me prosper too. They trusted you and now I’m trusting you too.” (Do you remember that Abraham was willing to take Isaac up on the mountain to sacrifice him as a burnt offering because he believed God’s promise that it was through Isaac that his offspring would be reckoned. He expected to come back from the mountain with Isaac alive because of God’s promise that his offspring would be reckoned through Isaac. He knew that, even if he did sacrifice Isaac, God could and would raise him from the dead!)

Now look at verse 10. Jacob says, “I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness You have shown Your servant. Indeed, I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two camps.” God has made Jacob very prosperous at this point. But, Jacob acknowledges that he is unworthy of God’s kindness and faithfulness. Jacob has acknowledged who God is and now he is acknowledging who he is: “I am unworthy.” None of us is worthy of God kindness and faithfulness. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We fall short! The only way we can come to God is by his mercy and kindness. We have no righteousness of our own. We are not worthy of God’s kindness or mercy. We are in fact instead worthy of God’s wrath and vengeance! But we have the righteousness of Jesus Christ, God’s son, through whom he made all things, whom he sent to become a man, to live a perfect life and to die for our sin. We can come to God through the righteousness of Christ who died for us. But, we have to acknowledge that we have no righteousness of our own, only the righteousness of Christ!

Now look at verse 11: “Please rescue me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid of him; otherwise, he may come and attack me, the mothers, and their children.” This is Jacob’s prayer. This is what he is begging for. He wants to be rescued from Esau—especially his family—the mothers and their children.

Now let’s look at verse 12: “You have said, ‘I will cause you to prosper, and I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’” Again, Jacob is reminding God of his promise. Do you think God needs to be reminded? I don’t think so. He has a very good memory and is absolutely faithful. Many prayers in the Bible remind God of not only who he is and what he has done in the past, but what he has promised. They also acknowledge the unworthiness of the person who is praying! God certainly doesn’t need to be reminded of any of these things—certainly not of our unworthiness—but he wants us to pray this way and has given many examples of such prayers. (Just read the Psalms.) What God is doing is teaching us to trust him. He’s teaching Jacob to trust him. That’s what he wants us to learn, too.

Now let’s look at verses 13 through 23. Listen while I read them:

^{13He spent the night there and took part of what he had brought with him as a gift for his brother Esau: ¹⁴200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, ¹⁵30 milk camels with their young, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys. ¹⁶He entrusted them to his slaves as separate herds and said to them, “Go on ahead of me, and leave some distance between the herds.”
^{17And he told the first one: “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘Who do you belong to? Where are you going? And whose animals are these ahead of you?’ ¹⁸then tell him, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau. And look, he is behind us.’”
^{19He also told the second one, the third, and everyone who was walking behind the animals, “Say the same thing to Esau when you find him. ²⁰You are to also say, ‘Look, your servant Jacob is right behind us.’” For he thought, “I want to appease Esau with the gift that is going ahead of me. After that, I can face him, and perhaps he will forgive me.”
^{21So the gift was sent on ahead of him while he remained in the camp that night. ²²During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female slaves, and his 11 sons, and crossed the ford of Jabbok. ²³He took them and brought them across the stream, along with all his possessions. (Genesis 32:13-23)

Jacob has arranged to send an elaborate series of gifts to Esau in the hope of softening him up. Esau is coming with 400 men, so he may well be much richer than Jacob. Probably the gifts would mean nothing to Esau because he already has plenty of possessions. (What do you give to the person who already has everything?) But, this may be what the Lord has led Jacob to do. After all, Jacob prayed. And how often do we (and I am speaking for myself) make decisions without asking for God’s guidance and blessing? We need to pray about everything.

Now let’s look at verses 24 through 26. I’ll read them:

^{24Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. ²⁵When the man saw that He could not defeat him, He struck Jacob’s hip as they wrestled and dislocated his hip socket. ²⁶Then He said to Jacob, “Let Me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me.” (Genesis 32:24-36)

Jacob is all alone now and he is wrestling with someone. Jacob wrestles with him all night until daybreak. Who is it that Jacob is wrestling with? It says that a man wrestled with Jacob. And the HCSB translators gave the title Jacob Wrestles with an Angel to this passage. But I believe this is none other than Jesus before he came as a man—the preincarnate Christ! I think the HCSB translators really think that, too, because they have capitalized all the pronouns that refer to this person: “Then He (capital H) said to Jacob…” and Jacob said, “I will not let You (capital Y) go…” This is the Angel of the Lord who is wrestling with Jacob. This is Jesus!

Jacob wrestled with this person until he touched (is says struck, but I believe it was more like a touch—that’s what the King James translators say)… He touched Jacob’s hip and dislocated it. (This was a very gentle touch. He certainly could have touched Jacob and turned him to dust with no more effort.)

At this point I believe that Jacob actually could no longer wrestle. All he could do is hang on—cling to the person he was wrestling with. Finally the person (the Angel of the Lord) says to Jacob, “Let Me go, for it is daybreak.” And Jacob says, “I will not let You go unless You bless me.”

We may not be sure who Jacob was wrestling with, but Jacob knew. He knew that he was wrestling with and then clinging to the very one who was able to bless him.

Now let’s look at verses 27 and 28. I’ll read them:

^{27 “What is your name?” the man asked.
“Jacob!” he replied.
^{28 “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” He said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.” (Genesis 32:27, 28)

The man asked Jacob his name. Jacob replied, “Jacob.” You remember, Jacob means deceiver. (Do you remember how, when Jacob stole the blessing, Esau said that Jacob’s name was completely appropriate—Deceiver. Jacob was a deceiver.) But the Lord is changing Jacob’s name to Israel because he has struggled with men and with God and has prevailed. (Israel sounds like the Hebrew for he struggled with God.) Jacob struggled with God—and when he couldn’t win, he just held on to God until God blessed him. We need to do that, too—just hold on to God until he blesses us!

Now let’s look at verse 29. Here’s what it says:

^{29Then Jacob asked Him, “Please tell me Your name.”
But He answered, “Why do you ask My name?” And He blessed him there. (Genesis 32:29)

I’m not sure why the “man” would not tell Jacob his name, but let me quote something from the book of Judges. This is from Judges 13:15-18. This when the Angel of the Lord came to Manoah and his wife to tell them that Samson would be born to them. But they thought that the Angel of the Lord was a “man of God,” a human being. Listen while I read the passage. Manoah is speaking to the Angel of the Lord:

^{15 “Please stay here,” Manoah told Him, “and we will prepare a young goat for You.”
^{16The Angel of the Lord said to him, “If I stay, I won’t eat your food. But if you want to prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the Lord.” For Manoah did not know He was the Angel of the Lord.
^{17Then Manoah said to Him, “What is Your name, so that we may honor You when Your words come true?”
^{18 “Why do you ask My name,” the Angel of the Lord asked him, “since it is wonderful.” (Judges 13:15-18)

I wanted to quote that passage because of the way the Angel of the Lord responded when Manoah asked his name. He did not tell Manoah his name because it was wonderful. The NIV translators say beyond understanding—his name was beyond understanding. (Wonderful in the Bible doesn’t mean exactly the same thing that we think it means today.) God’s name—who he is—is beyond our understanding. When Jacob (in today’s passage) asked the man what his name was, he didn’t answer either. There’s no way Jacob could have comprehended the answer. (How can we really comprehend who God is?) The man simply said, “Why do you ask My name?” Then he blessed Jacob.

Now I want to read the rest of the passage from Judges. This is what happened after the Angel of the Lord told Manoah that his name was wonderful. You remember that Manoah was going to prepare a goat for the Angel of the Lord (whom he thought was a man). The Angel of the Lord told him to offer it to the Lord. Listen:

^{19Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the Lord, and He did a wonderful thing while Manoah and his wife were watching. ²⁰When the flame went up from the altar to the sky, the Angel of the Lord went up in its flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell facedown on the ground. ²¹The Angel of the Lord did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah realized that it was the Angel of the Lord.
^{22 “We’re going to die,” he said to his wife, “because we have seen God!”
^{23But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had intended to kill us, He wouldn’t have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us, and He would not have shown us all these things or spoken to us now like this.” (Judges 13:19-23)

Now let’s look at the rest of today’s passage. Listen while I read verses 30 through 32:

^{30Jacob then named the place Peniel, “For,” he said, “I have seen God face to face, and I have been delivered.” ³¹The sun shone on him as he passed by Penuel —limping on his hip. ³²That is why, to this day, the Israelites don’t eat the thigh muscle that is at the hip socket: because He struck Jacob’s hip socket at the thigh muscle. (Genesis 32:30-32)

Jacob now knows that he has seen God face-to-face and been delivered (that is he didn’t get killed), just as Manoah and his wife did (saw God face-to-face and didn’t get killed). Jacob now has a new name, too. It’s Israel. He struggled with men and with God and prevailed. We can struggle with God too—not to resist him as Jacob did, but in prayer. We can cling to him, too.

Well, next week we’ll find out what happens when Jacob meets Esau. But, before I finish, I want to read the lyrics from a song. It’s called His Name Is Wonderful. (We’ll sing it too.)

His Name Is Wonderful ²

His name is Wonderful
His name is Wonderful
His name is Wonderful
Jesus my Lord
He is the mighty King
Master of ev'rything
His name is Wonderful
Jesus my Lord
He's the Great Shepherd
The rock of all ages
Almighty God is He
Bow down before Him
Love and adore Him
His name is Wonderful
Jesus my Lord

[Prayer]

END NOTES
^{1 Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible ®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible ®, Holman CSB ® and HCSB ® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.
2 CCLI Song #1122230
© 1959 Audrey Mieir. Renewed 1987 Manna Music, Inc.
Audrey Mieir
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