Why Did Jacob Wrestle with God? (Genesis 32)
This article is part of the Tough Passages series.
Listen to the Passage
Read the Passage
22The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. 24And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” 31The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. 32Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh.
Jacob’s Transformation
So often, the biblical text reports an extraordinary event in very prosaic terms. While Jacob is alone—presumably in prayer—a man comes and assaults him, not merely striking him with one or two blows but wrestling with him for hours, until daybreak (Gen. 32:24). What is in view here is a monumental struggle for Jacob, a struggle he cannot win but which he is determined not to lose. The power of Jacob’s opponent is evident from the easy way in which he dislocates Jacob’s hip when he chooses to do so (Gen. 32:25). Clearly this man could kill Jacob if he chose to do so. Yet even when the struggle cripples Jacob’s hip and Jacob can do no more than cling to his adversary, he does just that and will not let him go until he receives from him a blessing (Gen. 32:26). Finally, when the day is breaking, Jacob receives the blessing he seeks—and along with the blessing a new name: “Israel,” “for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed” (Gen. 32:28).1
ESV Expository Commentary
Four biblical scholars offer passage-by-passage commentary through the narratives of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, explaining difficult doctrines, shedding light on overlooked sections, and making applications to life and ministry today. Part of the ESV Expository Commentary.
All Jacob’s life thus far has been spent struggling with men, especially Esau and Laban, in an attempt to prevail over them and win the blessing. Yet everything Jacob has attained has been received not because of his struggles but because the Lord has been with him. Now in this climactic encounter Jacob wrestles with God and not man, and he prevails not by overthrowing his opponent—an impossible task—but simply by clinging to him in his wounded state and refusing to let go. Jacob has finally realized that God—and God alone—is the one with whom he has needed to wrestle in order to receive his blessing.
That transformation in Jacob is marked by the new name, Israel (Gen. 32:28). The original etymology and meaning of this name are obscure,2 but in context the name is taken to indicate a shift from man to God as the opponent of Jacob’s striving. What is particularly striking about this name change is that his new name is not a variant or an extension of his previous name, as with Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah, but rather a total transformation of his identity. His lifelong attempt to gain the promised blessing by ingenuity and striving rather than by grace must now be abandoned. However, perhaps because that sanctifying transformation is partial in all of us in this life, Jacob’s name change is still only partial. Unlike Abraham and Sarah, who, once given their new names, never revert to their old ones, Jacob is from now on both Jacob and Israel. The biblical text alternates between the two designations for the patriarch, not because it comes to us from two different sources, as scholars have sometimes argued, but because Jacob/Israel has two warring natures. God’s transforming work is established in principle in this man’s life, as the new name declares, but it will take a lifetime for that principle to work itself out in fullness. As long as “Israel” lives here on earth, part of him will still always be “Jacob.”
It is significant that the crucial encounter with God climaxes at daybreak, just as the encounter at Bethel began at sunset. The intervening period, while Jacob has been out of the Land of Promise, has been one long night. God has been with Jacob to protect and bless him, but now he will be with Jacob in a new way as the dawn breaks on his renewed sojourn in the land. A new day is quite literally dawning for Jacob—and in him for all humanity.
Jacob obtains what he had sought from this encounter, as he sees God face to face and receives God’s blessing. Yet in this instance meeting with God leads not to peace and healing for Jacob but rather to an enduring, painful crippling of his hip. Jacob will forever bear in his body the marks of this excruciating yet grace-filled encounter, in which to survive and to cling to the Lord was to triumph. Thereafter his descendants memorialize Jacob’s encounter by not eating the meat attached to the socket of the hip as a permanent reminder of this reality (Gen. 32:32).
When we fear God, we have nothing else to fear.
Response
Jacob’s painful wrestling with God points us clearly to the cross. Having completed his wrestling with man throughout his earthly life, Jesus Christ wrestled with God on our behalf so that grace and blessing might flow to his people. He wrestled with the difficult and painful will of God in the garden, crying out, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matt. 26:39). He wrestled with the holy and fearsome wrath of God on the cross in that awful moment when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). The outcome of his wrestling was not merely a crippled hip; he was wounded and bruised for us, he was flogged and crucified, burdened with the whole weight of our transgressions. But in the midst of that painful trial Jesus clung to God and would not let him go unless he received a blessing—not for himself but for us, his people. Through Jesus’ faithful clinging to the Father he has prevailed over sin and death and, risen from the dead, has been given the name above every name.
Jesus is the true Israel, with no Jacob mixed in; he is the one who has in fullness struggled with God and man and has overcome. As we are united to Christ, we in turn are given a new name as Christians and become part of the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16). As we do so, we are called to participate in Christ’s struggles and suffering as well as in his victory, overcoming the world through our faith (1 John 5:4). Jesus struggled on the cross not so that we might never have to struggle but so that our struggles might conform us into his image (Phil. 3:10–11).
In our struggles and suffering we are taught to abandon our self-dependence and look to the cross, clinging to God alone for blessing. When we fear God, we have nothing else to fear. When we cling to him with all our strength, we will find that he will not let us go. Even when we feel too weak to cling to him and too fearful to hold on to him a second longer, we still find that his strong arms are encircling us in his love and that the Good Shepherd will not let us go. His strength is not empowered by our strength; rather, it is made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).
What is more, we too are called regularly to memorialize Christ’s great battle on our behalf in our eating of the Lord’s Supper. There we remember Christ’s wrestling on the cross. When we eat the bread, we remember the tearing apart of his body for us. When we drink the cup, we recall the shedding of his blood for our transgressions. There we cling to God and ask him to fulfill his promises to us and in us. At the table our souls are fed once again with God’s assurance that, no matter what difficulties may face us in this life, the love of God has chosen us for blessing in Christ, and he will not let us go.
Notes:
- It is striking that Jacob does not receive an answer to his inquiry about the Lord’s name, unlike Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3:13–14), and Jacob’s own new name, Israel, is built around the divine appellation El. This plausibly fits with the theory that the divine name Yahweh was not actually revealed until the time of the exodus.
- Cf. Sarna, Genesis, 404. Names of this pattern would normally be taken to mean something like “God strives [for him]” or “Let God strive [for him]” (cf. the meaning of Jerubbaal [“Let Baal contend”] in Judges 6:32).
This article by Iain Duguid and is adapted from the ESV Expository Commentary: Genesis–Numbers (Volume 1) edited by Iain M. Duguid, James M. Hamilton Jr., and Jay Sklar.
Popular Articles in This Series
View All
What Is the Mark of the Beast? (Revelation 13)
We must be willing to suffer, to give our all for Christ, to persevere until the end in order to obtain the final reward.
What Does It Mean That Women Should “Remain Quiet” in Church? (1 Timothy 2)
“Quietly” does not mean that women are never to utter a word when the church gathers for worship.
What Was Paul's Thorn in the Flesh? (2 Corinthians 12)
This passage gives every indication that the thorn in Paul's flesh is still a present reality and thus represents a prolonged, sustained pain. But what was the thorn?
What Does It Mean that Women Are to Submit to Their Husbands? (Ephesians 5)
What does it mean that husbands are the head of their wives and that they should love them as Christ loved the church?
