Wrestling with the Man; the Night Visitor (I); Gen. 32:22-31

"22 The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24 Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip."

I. Introduction

There are few Biblical passages that can compare in profundity and "multi-layeredness" of meaning to the story of Jacob wrestling with the shadowy "man" all night long. The surface meaning only directs us to an event in Jacob's life as he is fearfully trying to plan for an encounter with his older brother Esau, a brother whom he has repeatedly deceived. But by digging below the surface we see the story as a window into the terrifying, exhausting, and life-threatening wrestling we all must do with the demons/night creatures of our lives. Jacob's story is so powerful for us today because it describes the process and results of our own wrestling with unseen forces in our lives, forces that threaten our equilibrium, joy, health and even safety.

This exposition will consist of two essays. The first essay talks about "background" material--the life and personality of Jacob, the identity of the "man" who wrestles with Jacob, the nature of "demons" or shadowy forces that stalk our lives, the need finally to confront these forces. The second essay then looks at the passage itself, and mentions four points: the aloneness and difficulty of the struggle, the injury suffered in the fight, the struggle for a new name, and finally, the notion of blessing through injury. This is a tall order, so let's begin.

II. Meeting Jacob

Jacob is not my favorite Biblical character, but he is one of the most vividly portrayed people in the Bible. From the beginning of his existence--the struggle in the womb against his brother Esau to see who would be the first-born (Gen. 25:24-26)--we have the story of someone who connived, either by his own offices or in conjunction with his mother Rachel, to establish his preeminence at the expense of his brother. He took advantage of Esau, the first born twin, when Esau was famished after a day of hunting (Gen 25:29-34). Before giving him any food, Jacob made Esau turn over his birthright (i.e., the rights of the eldest son) to him. Jacob was the ancient equivalent of the Title Loan specialist (Title Loan businesses are sprouting like weeds in 2007 America. They require people who get ready cash from them to turn over the title of their car as collateral, which title is forfeited in the case of failure to repay), but he was even worse. Rather than just having Esau "loan" him his birthright for a while, Jacob wanted secure possession of it.

But birthright must be completed by receipt of blessing if it is to have full effect. So, in Gen. 27, when the father Isaac was old and his eyes were "dim," Jacob connived with his mother Rebekah on a scheme to convince Isaac to bless Jacob as if he were the older son Esau. This scheme worked, and Jacob received the irreversible blessing of the first-born despite the fact that Esau, in the vivid language of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "sought the blessing with tears" (12:17).

Jacob did receive a little comeuppance at the hands of his kinsman Laban, when he went East to find a wife. Instead of getting Rachel, his beloved, after seven years, he ended up having to labor 20 years to get her because Laban wasn't straightforward with Jacob about what he needed to do to win Rachel's hand. A deceptive person tends to run into other deceptive people, and they all do business together.

III. Getting to the Story--The Identity of the Opponent

In this passage Jacob is hemmed in on all sides. He has just left his deceptive kinsman Laban with his wife and possessions to return to his home in the land of promise. Jacob's parting in the East has not been cordial. Laban's people suspected Jacob of not playing fair with them (Gen. 31:1-2). Then, as he was returning to his home in the West, Jacob received news that his brother Esau, whom he repeatedly had taken advantage of, was coming to meet him "and four hundred men are with him" (Gen. 32:6). Oops. Looks like Jacob is, in the words of Amos, running from a lion only to encounter a bear or going into one's house, the supposed place of security, and leaning against the wall only to be bitten by a snake (cf. Amos 5:19). Jacob is finally going to have to pay the piper for all his misleading conduct.

That is where our story begins. I will exposit the story in the next essay, but I need to say a word about the person with whom Jacob wrestled through the night. He is only called a "man" at first (vv. 24,25), but as the story goes on we see that he is some kind of divine messenger or figure. He has the ability to bless and injure. And, as I will show in the next essay, these two aren't incompatible. I call this message "wrestling with the demon" because even if the shadowy figure with whom we wrestle is a "man" or a bringer of blessings, he is often experienced as a dangerous and even demonic figure. So, we don't know who he is; let's just call him the "man" who wrestles with Jacob.

IV. The "Demons" of Our Lives

One of the reasons the passage is so powerful is that Jacob's wrestling with the man in the night is suggestive of the psychological wrestlings we must endure before we are truly free to receive the "blessing" of God. I, for one, believe there is great truth in the statement that unless we learn to deal with the multitude of our griefs, failures, and past sadnesses that we will never emerge into the fullness of the life of faith, hope and confidence. So, what is a list of these "demons" with which we need to wrestle in life? Our mortality, our "failures," our being subject to treatment that we couldn't avoid, our issues with abuse, with loss of trust, with lack of confidence in self, with lust fulfilled and unfulfilled, with losses too numerous to mention. Conversely, we may need to wrestle with demons of arrogance, with blindness of the way that our life has hurt others, with the splinters of worthless ideologies to which we dedicated ourselves for years. There are so many ways that our past rises up to attack us, even if we have tried to "deal" with it.

Finally, we realize in this story that Jacob's battle with the "man" is a sort of "forced" battle. He is hemmed in on all sides, and he now has to wrestle with the dark figure through the night. Though we aren't often forced to deal with the looming demons of our lives, sometimes we are. And sometimes we shouldn't put it off any longer. If you want to understand what the process of dealing with the demons looks like, go on to the next essay.

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