Genesis 32

PART THIRTY-SIX RECAPITULATION: SURVEY OF THE PATRIARCHAL AGE

From A Class-Book of Old Testament History, pp. 73-76

by G. F. Maclear, D.D. Published by Macmillan, London, 1881, now long out of print.

With the death of Joseph the Patriachal Age of Israel’s history may be said to close. The Family had now thrown out many branches and was now on the point of emerging into the Nation. At this juncture, then, it may be well to look back, and review some of the chief features of the Patriarchal Life.

1. And the first of these that claims attention is its Nomadic character. Unlike the founders of Egypt, of Babylon, of Nineveh, the Patriarchs were not the builders of cities and towns, but pilgrims and sojourners, dwellers in tents (Hebrews 11:9). But they were very different from rude hordes, like the Amalekites and other sons of the desert, abhorring any higher mode of life. Abraham was no stranger to the highest form of civilization that his age afforded. He was acquainted with Ur, with Nineveh, with Damascus, with Egypt; he had left his home in one of the chief cities of Mesopotamia, not from choice, but in consequence of a direct personal call from God. Moreover, so far from regarding his present mode of life as an ultimate end, he and Isaac and Jacob were ever looking forward to a time when it would close, when their descendants should be settled in the Land of Promise, and become a great nation, when the portable tent should give way to the city that had foundations (Hebrews 11:10; Hebrews 11:13-16; comp. Genesis 24:7; Genesis 28:4; Genesis 49:4; Genesis 50:24). Hence, from time to time, as opportunity offered, we see the wandering life freely and willingly laid aside. Lot settled in Sodom (Genesis 13:10-12); Abraham in Egypt went direct to Pharaoh’s court (Genesis 12:14); at Hebron he settled and became a prince of God in the midst of the Hittites (Genesis 23:6); Isaac not only lived near the Philistines, but occupied a house opposite the palace (Genesis 26:8), and practised agriculture (Genesis 26:12); and Joseph’s dream of the sheaves points out that this was also continued in the time of Jacob (Genesis 37:7).

2. The Family was the center of the Patriarchal commonwealth. Its head was the source of authority and jurisdiction; he possessed the power of life and death (Genesis 38:24); he united in himself the functions of chief and priest; he offered the burnt-offering; he had his armed retainers (Genesis 14:14; Genesis 48:22; Genesis 34:25; Genesis 33:1); his intercourse with his wives (for polygamy was not forbidden) was free and unrestrained; the wife’s consent was asked before wedlock (Genesis 24:57-58); love hallowed the relations of Abraham with Sarah, of Isaac with Rebekah, of Jacob with Leah and Rachel; woman, indeed, did not occupy the position since conceded to her, but her position was far from degraded, and the sanctity of the marriage-bond was defended by severe laws, which made death the punishment for adultery (Genesis 38:24). Slavery, it is true, existed, but in the tents of Abraham the slave was ever treated with consideration, and not excluded from, but made a partaker of religious privileges (Genesis 17:13). The fidelity and attachment of Eliezer the steward of Abraham’s house, the mourning for Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse (Genesis 35:8), are pleasing proofs of the peace that reigned in the Patriarchal household.

3. Civilization. The life of the Patriarchs was chiefly that of the shepherd, and their wealth consisted in their flocks and their herds. But besides practising agriculture they were not unacquainted with money and the precious metals. Abraham paid for the field of Machpelah with coin (Genesis 23:9-20), and the sons of Jacob took money with them into Egypt (Genesis 42:25; Genesis 42:35); while the gold ring and armlets presented to Rebekah by Eliezer (Genesis 24:22), the bracelet and signet ring of Judah (Genesis 38:18), the ear-rings of Rachel (Genesis 35:4), the many-coloured coat of Joseph, indicate an acquaintance with the luxuries of life.

4. Religion. While other nations were rapidly learning to deify the powers of nature, the Patriarchs believed not only in a God above and beyond nature, but in a God Personal, Omnipotent, and Holy. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was. no mere abstraction, no mere law. He could and did reveal Himself by angelic appearances, by visions, by dreams; He could console, strengthen, encourage; He could punish, rebuke, and on repentance forgive. Abraham, the Friend of God (James 2:23), intercedes with Him in behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:23-33); Isaac is warned by Him against going down into Egypt (Genesis 26:2); Jacob is consoled by Him at Bethel when setting out into the land of exile (Genesis 28:13-15), and wrestles with Him by the fords of Jabbok till the break of day (Genesis 32:24); Joseph believes in His invisible but ever-present help in prison and in a strange land, and ascribes to Him all his wisdom in the interpretation of dreams (Genesis 41:16). The Divine Promise of a great future Abraham believed under circumstances of greatest trial, and his faith was counted to him for righteousness (Romans 4:3). Moreover, the God of the Patriarchs was not a mere national or household God. His sphere of operation was not restricted to the Patriarchs and their families; He is the God of all the earth (Genesis 24:3), the God of Righteousness and Holiness. He punishes the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24-25); He plagues Pharaoh’s house (Genesis 12:17); He is the God of the priest-king Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18), and of the Philistine Abimelech (Genesis 20:3); He protects not only Isaac the child of promise, but the outcast Ishmael the child of the bond-woman (Genesis 21:13); He is with Joseph in prison, but He sends dreams to Pharaoh, and through Joseph He saves Egypt from famine (Genesis 50:20).

5. The Religious Worship of the Patriarchs was in keeping with the simplicity of their creed. The head of the family was also the priest of the family. Whenever Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, reached any new spot in their pilgrimage, they invariably erected an altar, generally of stone and on a high situation (Genesis 22:9; Genesis 26:25; Genesis 35:7); there they called on the name of Jehovah, there they presented their burnt sacrifice, there they offered up their prayers. Their history also proves the existence of offering covenant-sacrifices, and celebrating covenant-feasts (Genesis 15:9-18); the making and paying of vows (Gen. 28:23); the erection of memorial pillars, and the consecration of them by pouring upon them oil and wine (Genesis 28:18); the rite of circumcision (Genesis 17:10-14); and the paying of tithes (Genesis 14:20).

6. The Character of the Patriarchs is never represented as perfect; their faults are freely exposed; theirs is no ideal history. If we compare the four most eminent amongst them, we seem to trace in (i) Abraham, the faith that can remove mountains in its power and in its fulness, revealing itself in unfaltering trust and unquestioning obedience under the most trying circumstances conceivable; in (ii) Isaac, the faith that can possess itself in patience, and discharge the ordinary duties of life in quietness and waiting; in (iii) Jacob, the violent contest of faith with the flesh, the higher with the lower nature, till by hard discipline the latter is purified, and the Sup-planter becomes the Prince, the Prevailer with God; in (iv) Joseph, the fidelity and perseverance of faith, revealed not only in the patient endurance of the most grievous trials, but in energetic action, and at length crowned with victory. He unites in himself the noble trust and resolution of Abraham, with the quiet perseverance of Isaac, and the careful prudence of Jacob. He is moreover an eminent historic type of Christ, in (1) his persecution and sale by his brethren, (2) his resisting temptation, (3) his humiliation and exaltation, and (4) his dispensing to a famine-stricken people the bread of life, and (5) in the fulness of his forgiving love.

ADDENDA [Volume 3] LANGE: ON THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH

(CDHCG, 389-390, verbatim)

Between Abram’s connection with Hagar and the next manifestation of Jehovah there are full thirteen years. But then his faith is strengthened again, and Jehovah appears to him (Genesis 17:1). The most prominent and important theophany in the life of Abram is the appearance of the three men (ch. 17). But this appearance wears its prevailing angelic form, because it is a collective appearance for Abram and Lot, and at the same time refers to the judgement upon Sodom. Hence the two angels are related to their central point as the sun-images to the sun itself, and this central point for Abram is Jehovah himself in his manifestation, but not a commissioned Angel of the Lord. Thus also this Angel visits Sarah (Genesis 21:1; compare Genesis 18:10). But the Angel appears in the history of Hagar a second time (Genesis 21:17), and this time as the Angel of God (Maleach Elohim), not as the Maleach Jehovah, for the question is not now about a return to Abram’s house, but about the independent settlement with Ishmael in the wilderness. The person who tempts Abram (Genesis 22:1) is ElohimGod as he manifests himself to the nations and their general ideas or notions, and the revelation is effected purely through the word. Now, also, in the most critical moment for Abram, the Angel of the Lord comes forward, calling down to him from heaven since there was need of a prompt message of relief. In the rest of the narrative this Angel of the Lord identifies himself throughout with Jehovah (Genesis 22:12; Genesis 22:16). To Isaac also Jehovah appears (Genesis 26:2), and the second time in the night (Genesis 26:24). He appears to Jacob in the night in a dream (Genesis 28:12-13). Thus also he appears to him as the Angel of God in a dream (Genesis 31:11), but throughout identified with Jehovah (Genesis 31:13). Jehovah commands him to return home through the word (31:3). Laban receives the word of God in a dream (Genesis 31:24). The greatest event of revelation in the life of Jacob is the grand theophany, in the night, through the vision, but the man who wrestles with him calls himself God and man (men) at the same time. According to the theory of a created angel, Jacob is not a wrestler with God (Israel), but merely a wrestler with the Angel. It is a more purely external circumstance which God uses to warn Jacob through the word to remove from Shechem (Genesis 35:1). In the second-’ peculiar manifestation of God to Jacob after his return from Mesopotamia (Genesis 35:9), we have a clear and distinct reflection of the first (Genesis 32:24). In the night-visions of Joseph, which already appear in the life of Isaac, and occur more frequently with Jacob, the form of revelation during the patriarchal period comes less distinctly into view. But then it enters again, and with new energy, in the life of Moses. The Angel of Jehovah (Exodus 3:2) is connected with the earlier revelation, and here also is identified with Jehovah and Elohim (Exodus 3:4). But he assumes a more definite form and title, as the Angel of his face, since with the Mosaic system the rejection of any deifying of the creature comes into greater prominence, and since it is impossible that the face of God should be esteemed a creature.

The reasons which are urged for the old ecclesiastical view of the Angel of the Lord, are recapitulated by Kurtz in the following order: 1. The Maleach Jehovah identifies himself with Jehovah. 2. Those to whom he appears recognize, name, and worship him as the true God. 3. He receives sacrifice and worship without any protest. 4. The biblical writers constantly speak of him as Jehovah. We add the reasons. 1. The theory of our opponents opens a wide door in the Old Testament for the deifying of the creature, which the Old Testament everywhere condemned; and the Romish worship of angels finds in it a complete justification. 2. The Socinians also gain an important argument for their rejection of the Trinity, if, instead of self-revelation of God, and of the self-distinction included in it in the Old Testament, there is merely a pure revelation through angels. As the fully developed doctrine of the Trinity cannot be found in the Old Testament, so no one can remove from the Old Testament the beginnings of that doctrine, the self-distinction of God, without removing the very substructure on which the New Testament doctrine of the Trinity rests, and without obscuring the Old Testament theology in its very centre and glory. 3. It would break the band of the organic unity between the Old and New Testaments if it could be proved that the central point in the Old Testament revelation is a creature-angel, and that the New Testament revelation passes at one bound from this form to that of the God-man. The theory of the creature-angel in its continuation through a colossal adoration of angels, points downwards to the Rabbinic and Mohammedan doctrine of angels which has established itself in opposition to the New Testament Christology, and is bound together with that exaggerated doctrine of angels in more recent times, which ever corresponds with a veiled and obscure Christology. On the other hand, it removes from the New Testament Christology its Old Testament foundation and preparation which consists in this, that the interchange between God and men is in full operation, and must therefore prefigure itself in the images of the future God-man. 4. The doctrine of angels itself loses its very heart, its justification and interpretation, if we take away from it the symbolic angel-form, which rules it, as its royal centre, i.e. that angelic form which, as a real manifestation of God, as a typical manifestation of Christ, as a manifestation of angels, has the nature and force of a symbol. But with the obliteration of the symbolic element, all the remaining symbolic and angelic images, the cherubim and seraphim, will disappear, and with the key of biblical psychology in its representation of the development of the life of the soul, to an organ of revelation, we shall lose the key to the exposition of the Old Testament itself. 5. Augustin was consistent when, with his interpretation of the Angel of Jehovah as a creature-angel, he decidedly rejects the interpretation which regards the sons of God (ch. 6)as angel-beings; for the assumption of angels who, as such, venture to identify themselves with Jehovah, and notwithstanding they are in peril, abandon themselves to lustful pleasures and a magical transformation of their nature, combines two groundless and intolerable phantoms. We hold, therefore, that Old Testament theology, in its very heart and centre, is in serious danger from these two great prejudices, as the New Testament from the two great prejudices of a mere mechanical structure of the Gospels, and of the unapostolic and yet more than apostolic brothers of the Lord. (See the defence of the old ecclesiastical view in the Commentary by Keil, also with a reference to Kahnis, de Angelo Domini diatribe, 1858. The assertion of the opposite view held by Delitzsch in his Commentary, meets here its refutation).

6. The aspect of all theophanies as visions. It is a general supposition, that divine revelation is partly through visions, or through inward miraculous sights and sounds. We must, however, bring out distinctly the fundamental position, that every theophany is at the same time vision, and every vision a theophany; but that in the one case the objective theophany and in the other the subjective vision, is the prevailing feature. The subjective vision appears in the most definite form in dream-visions, of which Adam’s sleep, and Abram’s night-horror (chs. 2 and 15.), are the first striking portents. It develops itself with great power in the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and is of still greater importance in the lives of Samuel and Solomon, as also in the night-visions of Zechariah. We find them in the New Testament in the life of Joseph of Nazareth and in the history of Paul. It needs no proof to show that the manifestations of God or angels in dreams, are not outward manifestations to the natural senses. In the elements of the subjective dream-vision, veils itself, however, the existing divine manifestation. But what the dream introduces in the night-life, the seeing in imagesthat the ecstasy does in the day or ordinary waking life (see Lange: Apostolic Age). The ecstasy, as the removing of the mind into the condition of unconsciousness, or of a different consciousness, is the potential basis of the vision, the vision is the activity or effect of the ecstasy. But since the visions have historical permanence and results, it is evident that they are the intuitions of actual objective manifestations of God. Mere hallucinations of the mind lead into the house of error, spiritual visions build the historical house of God. But in this aspect we may distinguish peculiar dream-visions, night-visions of a higher form and power, momentary day-visions, apocalyptic groups or circles of visions, linked together in prophetic contemplation, and that habitual clear-sightedness as to visions which is the condition of inspiration. But that theophanies which are ever at the same time Angelophanies and Christophanies, and indeed as theophanies of the voice of God, or of the voice from heaven, of the simple appearance of angels, of their more enlarged and complete manifestations of the developed heavenly scenethat these are always conditioned through a disposition of fitness for visions, is clear from numerous passages in the Old and New Testaments (2 Kings 6:17, Daniel 10:7; John 12:28-29; John 20:10-12; Acts 9:8; Acts 12:7-12; Acts 22:9-14).

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THE ABRAHAMIC PROMISE

(by H. Christopher, The Remedial System, pp. 146-150)

The promise that God would bless the whole world through him [Abraham] had reference to Christ, the son of Abraham, through whom God would fulfill his promise of blessing the whole world through the offspring of Abraham. Whilst it was the first and chief promise made to Abraham, it was the last in fulfillment. Nearly two thousand years intervened. It was ratified and covenanted by the blood of Christ, and looked to the possession of the heavenly Canaan, and to a circumcision that cut off the heart from all that is worldly and sensual, and to a seal that became the pledge of the purchased possession, and its settlement in the heavenly Canaan, by the resurrection from the dead, when the spiritual people of God cross the Jordan of death, and take possession of the land of promise, for which even Abraham looked, when he sought a city whose maker and builder is God. This promise and its blessings have no connection with the others made to Abraham. They differ as widely as flesh and spirit, and as earth and heaven. They connect or coalesce no where. The first were but preparatory and necessary to the last. When the last appeared, the first had served their chief, if not all their, purpose. The first had chief reference to man’s body, while the last has chief reference to man’s spirit. And as the spirit of man is superimposed, as it were, upon the body, and is capable of a separate and independent existence, so was the last promise superimposed upon the first, and is capable of existing, and does exist, independently of it. Hence, the promises and the covenants by which they were ratified, connect with each other only as the flesh connects with the spirit. Between them lies an impassable gulf. There is no possible passage from the first to the last. The Jew has no rights and privileges under Christ by virtue of his being the son of Abraham according to the flesh; for the promise was; In Isaac shall thy seed be called, and he was the child of promise and of faith. The Christian is the child of promise and of faith, and hence is reckoned through Isaac as a special creation of God, and is, therefore, himself a new creation. The last creation supersedes all former ones, and by this supersession abrogates them. The adoption of the children of Abraham as the special and peculiar people of God, set aside the adoption by creation, and during the time of their adoption, the natural adoption was set aside, and the rest of mankind ignored, and treated as an uncovenanted people. So when the Christian adoption came in, the Jewish was set aside, and all the rest of mankind, not embraced in the new adoption, were ignored and treated as uncovenanted. Hence, under Christianity there is neither Jew nor Greek; neither circumcision nor uncircumcision; but all the families, nations, and races of mankind are one in Christ, in perfect fulfillment of the promise: In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

All this is necessarily true. The Remedial System is developed by differentiations which mark the boundaries of the development. The patriarch had no privileges, special and peculiar, after the calling of Abraham. By that call God isolated a part from the whole, and made this part his special care. By the new creation through Christ another isolation was made, which placed Jew and Greek on the same plane before God, and abrogated all special and peculiar rights or privileges claimed by the Jews. This is necessarily true from another consideration. The claim of the Jew rested on an explicit covenant. That covenant recognized him as the chosen of God, through a means wholly different from that by which he had recognized the patriarch, and does now recognize the Christian. This consideration or means was his birth. He was the son of Abraham according to the flesh, and entitled, consequently, only to the rights and privileges guaranteed by the covenant ordained to grant and secure these. He could claim only under the stipulated grants of his covenant. Under other and different covenants, and made with other people, he could, of course, have no claim or right whatever. His circumcision effected all it was designed to effect, and meant more than the Jew was willing to accept. It cut him off from all the rest of the world, and also from all other covenants of God, but according to the flesh. His circumcision bound him down to the provisions and obligations of that covenant, and confined him within its prescribed limits. What claim, therefore can a Jew have to the grants and blessings of a covenant that has no special reference to him whatever, and that was not made with him as a Jew? The European had as well claim equal rights with the American under the constitution of the United States. The Jew was the chosen of God only according to the flesh, and entitled only to blessings of his covenant. He is not the chosen of God according to the spirit, or the seed of Isaac according to the promise, and hence he can have no right with those who are.

There are four things necessary to make a nation the peculiar and chosen people of God, and all these obtained in the case of the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh. These things are, 1. A creation. This we have in the birth of Isaac. His conception was a miracle, and hence a creation. 2. A seal. This we have in circumcision. 3. A purchase. This we have in the deliverance of this people from Egypt. And 4. A covenant. And this we have in the covenant made before Mt. Sinai. All these are peculiar and consistent, and perfectly harmonious with all that God has promised, or has done for, the Jews. They were all equally necessary, and they follow each other as necessary results one of the other. The seal came to ratify the creation, the purchase, in demonstration of the fulfillment of the promise, and the covenant, in order that the people might also pledge themselves by covenant. By this the people became cemented and organized into a nation. As such they needed laws and institutions for their government and welfare as a people; and as the people of God, religious institutions for the various purposes which God had in view with that people. It will be observed that this covenant made with Abraham’s descendants arose under that which covenanted them as the peculiar people of God, and was, consequently, entirely Jewish. The covenant of Mt. Sinai was made with that people, and the institutions subsequently given, were given to that people, and to no other. The Jewish institution, in all its entirety, was as verily circumcised as were the people for whose benefit it was ordained. It was as completely isolated from all other religions and peoples, as were that people. Hence, it had no connection with any other, nor relation, except that of opposition. The covenant stipulated and embraced no more than did the promise under which it was made. It was a ratification, or acceptance on their part, of the stipulations of the promise. It was the covenant by which God renewed his promise to be their God, and by it the people accepted the offer, and covenanted to be the people of God. This covenant bound both parties to their pledgeGod to be their God, and them to be his obedient people. It did not, and could not stipulate and grant more than did the promise; hence, all these were temporal in their nature. This completed all that God had to provide for that people. Henceforth there was naught for either party to do, but to carry out the provisions of the covenant which formulated the promise. But this covenant was not only temporary as respects the rights, privileges, and blessings which it secured to that people; but it was also temporary in its duration. The people broke that covenant: and a covenant broken on one side, is broken on both. It was faulty in that it only contemplated and provided for man’s temporal wants. Indeed, this was the fault of the whole Jewish fabric, from the inception to the close. This was foreseen; and not only foreseen, but the whole structure was but a means to an end; a measure to give time for the preparation and institution of a better. The promise of God under which the whole Jewish structure arose, was not the first and chief promise that God made to Abraham, nor his chief purpose in calling him. This chief and greatest promise was that through him he would bless the whole human family. This promise the apostle interprets as having reference to Christ, and consequently, it was sooner or later, to take precedence of all others. It could not be annulled by any subsequent promise, unless that promise annulled, at the same time, all former ones. But this the subsequent promises did not do, as is affirmed by the people. The promise which had reference to Christ, preceded the ratification of that concerning the land several years, and antedated the covenant of circumcision twenty-four years. The covenant at Mt. Sinai followed the latter four hundred and six thereafter. So that nothing which transpired under the later promises could annul the first. The first and chief promise which contemplated spiritual blessings and a spiritual offspring through Isaac, was not ratified, fulfilled, or covenanted, for nearly two thousand years. All that has grown out of this promise has no connection with what arose under the others. It differs from them in every respect. It differed from them in the beginning. It came into the world through a different line. There were two lines of descendants in Isaac, as two promises were fulfilled in his descendants. The one line was the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, and the other the seed according to the spirit, the latter of which is reckoned the true line under the covenant of the first promise. This excludes the children according to the flesh from all rights and privileges pertaining to the children according to the spirit. As respects, therefore, their nature, rights, and privileges, the Jewish and Christian institutions differ radically and entirely; to that degree as to exclude the one wholly from the other. The creation, the circumcision or seal, the purchase, and the covenant, that made the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh the people of God, have no place nor value under the Christian institution. The latter has its own creation, seal, purchase, and covenant, all of which are spiritual and eternal, and these give the Christian no rights or privileges under the former. Hence, as respects institutions differing so completely and widely, there can be no community of rights and privileges; nor can the one flow out of the other so as to establish any genetic connection between them. As the spiritual and the eternal necessarily supersede the fleshly and temporal, so does the Jewish institution, in whole and in part, give way to the Christian. Under the latter arises a people of God as distinct from the former as spirit is from flesh. The Christian is a new creation, and all that pertains to his creation is new. Before it the Jew and Gentile stand on the same ground. Both must become the subjects of this new creation before they can be regarded as belonging to the people of God. All the claim which the Jew once preferred, goes for naught under the operation of the new creation. A new birth is just as essential for the Jew as for the Gentile. Hence, the Jew’s creation, seal, purchase, and covenant are all naught when he stands before the Christian’S. His birth of the flesh avails nothing, and neither does his circumcision, Nothing is now acceptable to God but the new creation in Christ. These things being true, all that is Jewish has passed away. The Jews are no longer the people of God. Their whole religious service has perished; and what purpose God has now with that people remains to be seen. That he has no further purpose with them in regard to the fulfillment of his promise of blessing the world through them by Christ, is evident from the fact that Christianity has superseded Judaism, and that the whole religious service of that people perished with the total destruction of their temple. Christ is the end of the law, and of all that pertained to it. It was but a pedagogue to lead the Jews to Christ; so that when he came all that was Jewish was set aside, and the pedagogue was dismissed. All now become the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek; neither bond nor free; neither male nor female; but all are one in Christ Jesus. And all who are Christ’s by virtue of the new creation, the spiritual seal, the eternal purchase, and the everlasting covenant, are the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise: In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. (N. B. After hunting several years for a copy of Christopher’s book, I found it in the Dallas Christian College LibraryC. C.)

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THE EXCELLENCE OF FAITH

(Read Romans 5:1-11).

In the study of First Principles the term which first engages our attention is faith. We shall find that it occupies a prominent place in connection not only with conversion, but also with every phase of Christian activity and growth.

Faith is one of the most far-reaching words in the vocabulary of inspiration. Without faith none of the blessings of the spiritual realm would be available to man. Contrariwise, on the ground of faith, such blessings as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived (1 Corinthians 2:9), are within his power to appropriate and enjoy.

Faith is an oft-recurring word in the New Testament. Jesus had much to say about it, and the word is used repeatedly in the Epistles. Paul states expressly that we are justified by faith (Romans 5 :).

The excellence of faith is indicated in scripture by the following representations:

1. Faith is superior to things and circumstances of this material world.

When given full sway in the human heart it rises above the circumstances of life and controls them. The power of faith is described in such scriptures as Matthew 17:20, Mark 9:23; Mark 11:23, Luke 17:6. Christians of this materialistic age, in bondage as they are to the tyranny of things, are inclined to look on these sayings of the Master with more or less skepticism. The tragedy is that we have never really learned to walk by faith. We cannot testify that these sayings are true for the simple reason that we have never learned to stand on God’s promises. True, we claim to do so, and we sing Standing on the Promises, but always with mental reservations. It is only through the exercise of implicit faith that we can throw off the fetters of anxiety and fear which enslave us to this present evil world. We are willing to obey the Lord in confession and baptism, but we certainly fall far short of His teaching in regard to such everyday matters as fear, worry, forgiveness, humility, and the like. (See Matthew 5:3-12; Matthew 5:21-26; Matthew 5:38-42; Matthew 6:25-33; Matthew 7:1-5; Matthew 7:7-12, etc. Cf. 1 John 4:18) He might well say to us as to His disciples of old, O ye of little faith!

2. Faith is the ground of our justification.

Being therefore justified by faithnot by faith alone, or mere intellectual assent (the theologians have added the word alone)we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Not by faith alone, because faith apart from works (i.e., works of faith) is dead (James 2:26). The faith that is unto the saving of the soul (Hebrews 10:39) expresses itself in works of obedience, sacrifice and service (Romans 12:1-2). To walk by faith is to live by the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25). God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son as a propitiation for our sins (John 3:16), but we must appropriate this matchless Gift by faith. By true faith in Him we have access into this grace wherein we stand (Romans 5:2). For by grace ye have been saved through faith, and that (i.e., that salvation) not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).

3. Faith is the motivating principle of all Christian worship and service.

True worship is (1) communion of the human spirit with the Divine Spirit, (2) on the terms of the truth as revealed in scripture (John 4:24). This can be realized only through faith. Repentance is faith choosing; the confession is faith speaking; baptism is faith obeying; the Lord’s Supper is faith remembering; liberality is faith acknowledging God’s ownership; prayer is faith communing; meditation is faith pondering; and. the whole Christian life is faith serving. Therefore we are justified by faith. From the day of conversion to that of the putting, on of immortality, the actuating principle in the life of every true Christian is faith.

4. Implicit faith, along with obedience, is a necessary, condition to the answer of prayer (John 14:12-15; John 15:5-10, etc.).

(1) Acts 12:1-17. We read here that many of the early disciples were gathered together in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, praying for Peter’s deliverance from prison. Yet they were amazed when their prayer was answered and Peter stood in their midst. Most of our praying is of this kind; it has little conviction back of it. (Matthew 21:22).

(2) The prayer of faith, i.e., the petition offered in harmony with the teaching of God’s word, will not go unanswered.

Unanswered yet? The prayer your lips have pleaded

In agony of heart these many years?

Does faith begin to fail? is hope departing?

And thing you all in vain those falling tears?

Say not the Father hath not heard your prayer,

You shall have your desire, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Tho-’ when you first presented

This one petition at the Father’s throne,

It seemed you could not wait the time of asking

So urgent was your heart to make it known.

Tho-’ years have passed since then, do not despair;

The Lord will answer you, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say -ungranted-';

Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done;

The work began when first your prayer was uttered,

And God will finish what He has begun;

If you will keep the incense burning there,

His glory you shall see, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Faith cannot be unanswered;

Her feet are firmly planted on the Rock;

Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted,

Nor quails before the loudest thunder-shock.

She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer, And cries, -It shall be done, sometime, somewhere!-’ And cries, -It shall be done, sometime, somewhere!-'

5. The blessings and rewards of the gospel are all received and realized through faith.

Among these are: (1) salvation from the guilt of sin (Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38; Acts 10:43; Acts 16:31; Acts 26:18); (2) spiritual life (John 20:31; John 6:40, John 3:16; John 3:36; 1 John 5:12); (3) spiritual light (John 1:9; John 8:12; John 12:36); (4) heavenly adoption (Galatians 3:26); (5) the indwelling Spirit (John 7:39, Ephesians 1:13, Galatians 3:14); (6) justification (Romans 5:1, Galatians 2:16): (7) true righteousness (Romans 1:16-17; Romans 10:6; Romans 3:22); (8) true worship (John 4:24, Ephesians 3:12); (9) providential oversight (1 Peter 1:5); (10) eternal rest (Hebrews 4:3). In fact the inheritance of all the promises of God is to be realized through faith (Hebrews 6:12).

Conclusion: No wonder then that faith is represented to be the foundation which supports the entire pyramid of Christian virtues that true disciples build, one stone upon the other, and upon which they climb heavenward (2 Peter 1:5-7). True Christians walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Faith, hope and love, according to Paul, constitute the abiding trinity of spiritual virtues (1 Corinthians 13:13). Of these three, love is greatest; because, in the home over there, faith will have given way to spiritual knowledge, and hope to fruition, leaving only love to consummate the blissful intercourse of the redeemed with their heavenly Father (Revelation 21:1-5).

THE NATURE OF FAITH

(Read Hebrews, ch. 11, esp. Hebrews 11:1.)

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews has been called Israel’s Roll of Honor. It is the great faith chapter of the Bible. It is an inspired discourse on the subject of faith. The discourse begins properly with the last three verses of ch. 10, in which the writer speaks of a faith that is unto the saving of the soul. The subject-matter which follows, in ch. 11, is an analysis of that kind of faith, what it is, whence it is obtained, and how it operates unto salvation, as exemplified in the lives of many illustrious believers of olden times. The writer proves to be an excellent sermonizer, as we might expect in view of his having been inspired by the Spirit of God. He states his text in v. 1, and then proceeds to develop it with appropriate illustrations drawn from Old Testament history. His concluding exhortation follows, in ch. 12, Genesis 12:1-2. We shall attempt here to evaluate the teaching of this great chapter on the nature (i.e., the original and essential characteristics) of faith.

Let me repeat that the kind of faith under consideration here is the faith that works unto the saving of the soul. By some this has been called saving faith. Not that faith of itself will save any one, because it will not; but that the right kind of faith will motivate the believer to such intelligent and sincere cooperation with God, on God’s terms and according to His plan, that He may consistently save the one who so believes. It is God who pardons and saves, but always through Jesus Christ (John 14:6).

What is faith? Considering the excellence of faith, it is exceedingly important that we know what faith is. I am profoundly thankful that the Holy Spirit has not left us in darkness regarding this essential matter. Nor has he left it to our finite minds to formulate a definition. We are not compelled to go either to philosophy or to theology for a definition of faithwe have it in clear, unmistakable terms, in the Christian Scriptures.

What, then, are the essential characteristics of faith? This question is fully answered in the words of our text, as follows:

1. Faith is assurance. Assurance is defined as confidence inspired or expressed, that which produces certainty. It connotes positiveness, certainty, even boldness.

2. Faith is assurance of things hoped for. That is, faith is the foundation of hope.

(1) Authorized Version: the substance of things hoped for. The word substance means in our language the stuff, material, or matter of which anything is composed. It is used here, however, in its derivative sense. It is derived from the Latin prefix, sub (under) and the Latin participle stans (standing). Substance, then is that which stands under. Faith is that which stands under hope. Cf. Living Oracles: faith is the confidence of things hoped for. Moffatt: faith means we are confident of what we hope for. Weymouth: faith is a well-grounded assurance of that for which we hope. Goodspeed: faith means the assurance of what we hope for.

(2) Faith is the foundation of hope. This is true in every department of human activity. It is true in the business world. I visited a friend on one occasion to solicit a contribution from him for a worthy cause. Having heard my case, his reply was: I believe in your proposition, and I am sorry that I am not in a position to help just at this time. But I will do something later. I have invested a considerable sum of money in an oil well in Texas, and I am expecting returns from this investment within a few months. If you will come back about a year from this date, I will give you a substantial donation. I thanked him, and departed. About a year later I called at his office a second time, and as soon as I entered he looked at me and exclaimed: I know what you have come for, but I can-’t do anything for you. What is the trouble? I asked, didn-’t the oil well turn out satisfactorily? And in extreme disgust he said: I wish I had the money back that I sank in that hole in the ground. The first time I called he was extremely hopeful, because he believed in the enterprise in which he had invested; the second time I found him with hopes blasted, because he had lost all faith in it. Where there is no faith, there is no hope.

(3) This is also true in the social realm. In the course of time a young couple will fall in love, marry, and establish a home. The success of their undertaking will depend largely on their faith in each other. On this foundation of faith they will erect a structure of dreams and plans and hopes. But let the confidence of one in the other be destroyed and this structure will fall to the ground. Both marriage and home are erected on a foundation of faith.

(4) So, in the realm of spirit, as elsewhere, hope rests upon faith. Every act of worship and service we perform is motivated by faith. Faith underlies the pyramid of Christian virtues (2 Peter 1:5-7). And all our aspirations and hopes respecting the home over there, the inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away (1 Peter 1:4) rest on faith. In everything faith is the foundation of hope.

(5) Illustrations from the chapter (Hebrews 11). (a) Abel’s hope that his offering would be acceptable to God rested on faith, Hebrews 11:4. (1 John 3:12) (b) Enoch’s walk with God was a walk of faith, Hebrews 11:5. (c) Faith was the foundation of Noah’s hope of deliverance from impending judgment, Hebrews 11:7. (d) Abraham’s hope of attaining the far country which he was to receive for an inheritance was founded on faith, Hebrews 11:8. Also, his hope of receiving Isaac back from the dead was inspired by faith, from whence he did also in a figure receive him back, Hebrews 11:17-19. (e) Sarah’s expectation of a son, the child of promise, rested on faith, Hebrews 11:11. (f) Joseph’s hope that the children of Israel would ultimately take possession of the land of promise rested upon his faith, Hebrews 11:22. (g) The aspirations, hopes and plans of Moses for his people, and his matchless efforts in their behalf, were all inspired by his faith, Hebrews 11:24-29. In every example cited, faith is presented as the foundation of hope.

3. Faith is a conviction … A conviction is defined as a strong belief, something firmly believed. The faith which operates unto the saving of the soul is something more than a passive intellectual assent. It is a conviction. It must be a conviction, one that takes hold of the soul and determines the course of one’s life. In the light of this definition, it is obvious that faith is precisely the thing that is lacking in the modern church.

4. Faith is a conviction of things not seen, i.e., a conviction with respect to things not seen.

(1) Authorized Version: the evidence of things not seen. Moffatt: Faith means. we are convicted of what we do not see. Weymouth: a conviction of the reality of things which we do not see. Goodspeed: our conviction about things we cannot see.

(2) Note that faith is a conviction with respect to things not seen. I have never seen Paris, but I have a conviction that there is a city by that name and that it is the capital of France. My conviction is the result of satisfactory evidence. Things which are seen are matters of observation and knowledge, but things that are not seen belong to the realm of faith. God who is a Spirit (John 4:24) cannot be seen, and is therefore to be apprehended only by faith. Angels, spirit, resurrection, immortality, heaven, etc., all these realities of the unseen world are matters of faith. Faith pertains not to the things that are illusive and transitory, but to the things which are abiding. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).

(3) We have never seen God, but we believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him (Hebrews 11:6). We were not present to see the worlds created, but our conviction is that they were framed by the word of God (Hebrews 11:3). We have never seen Christ, our Elder Brother, but we believe in Him as the One who is abundantly able to save us from sin and mortality. We have never had a glimpse of heaven, but we believe that the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in us, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to our mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in us (Romans 8:11). Therefore we are exhorted to live by faith, to walk by faith and to die in the faith.

(4) Illustrations from the chapter (Hebrews 11). (a) Abel brought his offering to the altar with the conviction that the God whom he had never seen, but in whom he believed, would accept it, Hebrews 11:4. (b) In Noah’s heart there was an overwhelming conviction that judgment would come upon the antediluvian world because of its wickedness. Although summer and winter, and seedtime and harvest, continued to come and go as usual for one hundred and twenty years, he never faltered. Through all the trying experiences of this period of grace he retained his conviction. Because that during all these intervening years there was no evidence in nature of the impending catastrophe, it was a conviction with respect to things not seen, Hebrews 11:7. (c) Abraham left home and kindred and friends, and started on a strange journey to a land both unknown to him and unseen by him. He had no idea how far he would have to travel in order to reach it. All that moved him was a conviction with respect to the far country and a conviction that God would give it to him for an inheritance. Hebrews 11:8-12. (d) These fathers of Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all died in the faith, having never received the literal fulfilment of the promises. So far as we know they all died without possessing a single acre of the land of promise save the few square feet they had purchased for a burial ground. It seems that as they continued in their pilgrimage their faith became clearer, and they began to look beyond the literal to the spiritual fulfilment of the promise, in the city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God, Hebrews 11:13-16. (e) Joseph’s conviction with respect to the exodus of his people from Egypt pertained to an event far in the future, an event not seen, Hebrews 11:22. (f) Moses, the man who saw an undying flame, chose to share ill treatment with the people of God, above the temporary enjoyment of the pleasures of sin, because he endured as seeing him who is invisible (Hebrews 11:23-29). In all these cases, faith was a conviction with respect to things not seen.

(5) As in the various cases cited from Old Testament history, so it is with respect to faith in the present dispensation and under the new covenant: (a) our faith must be something more than mere assent; (b) it must be genuine conviction in order to work unto the saving of the soul; (c) it must be conviction with respect to things not seen, viz., God, the Son of God, the Spirit of God, the future life, heaven, etc.; (d) this faith undergirds all our spiritual blessings, aspirations and hopes (1 Corinthians 2:6-10).

Conclusion: 1. This inspired definition of faith is perfect and complete. Nothing can be taken from it without weakening its import. Nothing can be added to it that would give it greater force.

2. Christian faith takes in all those convictions with respect to God, the Son of God, the Word of God, the Spirit of God, immortality, heaven, and the like; all of which are eternal realities above and beyond the realm of time and space. Like Moses, we endure as seeing him who is invisible, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Like Abraham, we realize that we are pilgrims and strangers upon this earth, that our present dwelling places are but the tabernacles of a night-time; and, like him, we anticipate a more glorious fulfilment of the promises than would be possible in this world of places and things (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). Our ultimate goal is that heavenly country towards which he made his pilgrimage. In the words of Emily Dickinson:

I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea, Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.

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THE SOURCE OF FAITH

(Read Romans 10:1-17).

Having ascertained the essential nature of faith (1) the assurance of things hoped for, and (2) a conviction with respect to things not seen, we shall now turn our attention to the source of faith. Whence is the faith obtained that is unto the saving of the soul? We may find the answer to this important question by turning again to the cases cited in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews:

1. Abel, Hebrews 11:4. Whence did Abel obtain his conviction that the offering of a sacrifice of blood would be pleasing to God and would bring him God’s blessing? Evidently from the word of God. It seems obvious that God laid down the law of sacrifice as soon as man fell, in order to establish the principle that apart from shedding of blood there is no remission (Hebrews 9:22). Abel, in bringing an offering in which blood was shed, obeyed the law; Cain, in bringing the fruit of the ground, disobeyed it (1 John 3:12). This explains why Abel’s offering was accepted and Cain’s rejected.

That this institution was of divine origin is evident from several considerations: I. We learn from Hebrews 11:4, that Abel offered his sacrifice in faith. But in Romans 10:17, we are told that -faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.-’ And hence it follows that Abel could not have offered in faith without a command from God. II. It could not have been a human invention, because Reason can perceive no connection between the means and the end. It is evidently a positive and not a moral or natural institution. III. Its universality is another proof of its divine origin. Mr. Faber says that -throughout the whole world there is a notion prevalent that the gods can be appeased only by bloody sacrifices. There is no heathen people,-’ he adds, -that can specify a time when they were without sacrifice. All have had it from a time which is not reached by their genuine records. Tradition alone can be brought forward to account for its origin.-’ IV. The distinction between clean and unclean beasts even in the time of Noah (Genesis 7:2) proves also the divine origin of sacrifice. This is a distinction which is altogether positive, and which has no foundation in either reason or philosophy (Milligan, SR, 67).

2. Enoch, Hebrews 11:5.Enoch’s walk of faith was evidently inspired and directed by the word of God (Genesis 5:24).

3. Noah, Hebrews 11:7. How did Noah obtain his conviction that an overwhelming deluge would come upon the antediluvian world? How did he obtain the conviction that in the building of the ark a means of deliverance would be provided him and his family? Evidently from the word of God. God told him the flood would come in due time. God told him to build the ark and how to build it. God gave him the plans for it. God promised him deliverance through the instrumentality of the ark. And Noah believed God. His conviction was inspired not by any manifestation in nature, but solely by the word of God. See Genesis 6:13-22; Genesis 7:1-5; Genesis 8:15-17.

4. Abraham, Hebrews 11:8-19. Whence did Abraham obtain his conviction regarding the land to which he journeyed? Whence did he obtain his belief that this land would be given him for an inheritance? From the word of God. See Genesis 12:1-4; Genesis 13:14-18, etc. It was God who told him about the far country and promised it to him for an inheritance. Whence did Abraham and Sarah obtain their conviction regarding the birth of the child of promise? From the word of God (Genesis 17:15-21). Whence did Abraham obtain his conviction that God would not allow Isaac to suffer an untimely end (Hebrews 11:19)? From the word of God. Had not Isaac been miraculously conceived and born? Were not the details of the Abrahamic promise to be worked out through him? (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 13:16; Genesis 17:19, Hebrews 11:18). Cf. Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, James 2:23.

5. Joseph, Hebrews 11:22. Whence did Joseph obtain his conviction that his people would leave Egypt and repossess Canaan? Evidently from God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 12:1-4; Genesis 13:14-18; Genesis 17:15-21; Genesis 26:2-5; Genesis 28:12-17).

6. Moses, Hebrews 11:22-29. From whom did Moses receive his commission to lead his people out of bondage? From whom did he receive the Law ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator (Galatians 3:19)? From God Himself. See Exodus 3:1 to Exodus 4:17, Exodus 20:1-26, Deuteronomy 5:1-33, etc. Who was his constant Guide and Protector through all those terrible marches in the wilderness? Who rained manna from heaven upon the starving people? Who guided them by means of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night? Moses constantly endured, as seeing him who is invisible.

7. Joshua, Hebrews 11:29. Whence did Joshua obtain his confidence that the walls of Jericho would fall? From Jehovah’s word. He went to God for a war program, in his extremity, and God supplied it (Joshua 6:1-20).

8. Rahab, Hebrews 11:30. Whence did Rahab obtain her belief that she should give aid and succor to the men of Joshua’s army? Evidently from her knowledge of God’s promises and judgments (John 2:9-21; John 6:22-25, James 2:25).

9. The creation, Hebrews 11:3. Whence do we obtain our belief that our physical universe was the materialization of God’s word? Our conviction that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear (i.e., that this universe was not fashioned out of pre-existing materials, as the evolutionists and materialists contend)? From the word of God. (See Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:5, etc. Note that the expression, God said, is found ten consecutive times in Genesis 1. Cf. also John 1:1-3, Hebrews 1:1-3, 2 Peter 3:5-8, etc.).

10. Other great heroes and heroines of faith, Hebrews 11:32-39. All received their inspiration to deeds of heroism from the attractions and impulsions of God’s word. So, then, belief cometh of hearing the divine word, as our text says. Believers in all ages endure as seeing Him who is invisible.

Conclusion: So much for the examples from Old Testament history. But what about the faith that operates unto the salvation of the soul, in the present dispensation, under the new covenant?

1. From what source do we obtain our belief that God is, and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him (Hebrews 11:6)? From the testimony about Him as revealed and recorded in Scripture. From the complete and perfect revelation of Him afforded us in the person and work of Jesus Christ, whom to know aright is eternal life. John 15:9-11, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, Hebrews 1:1-3, 1 Peter 1:3-12, etc.

2. From what source do we obtain our conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God? From the testimony presented in the Scriptures, particularly that of the gospel records. This is our only source of accurate information about Him, See John 17:20, John 20:30-31, Acts 15:7, Acts 17:11-12, etc. Why should me reject the testimony of these competent eye-witnesses, these men who walked and talked and supped with Him, and listen to the quibblings of half-baked professors removed from Him by a span of twenty centuries?

3. Whence do we obtain our convictions respecting the future life and its rewards and retributions? From the testimony of Scripture? From the great and exceeding precious promises of God.

4. Romans 10:17. Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Faith does not come by feeling, nor by a direct operation of the Spirit, nor in answer to prayer, but faith does come by hearing the word of God (Romans 10:6-8, 1 Thessalonians 2:13).

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THE PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH

(Hebrews 11:1-19, esp. Hebrews 11:13)

One of the most illustrious characters of ancient times to whom our attention is called by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, is Abraham, the father of the Hebrew people.

Abraham’s life and walk were so eminently motivated by faith, that his name has gone down in sacred history as the Father of the Faithful, and as the Friend of God (Romans 4:17, Galatians 3:29, Isaiah 41:8, 2 Chronicles 20:7, James 2:23).

1. Note, in the first place, that Abraham’s whole life was a pilgrimage of faith.

(1) It was by faith that he first went out from his native home, Ur of the Chaldees. As faith comes from hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17), so he went out in response to God’s command (cf. Genesis 12:1-3). He did not go out in consequence of any urge within himself, but solely in obedience to God. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance (Hebrews 11:8).

(2)* By faith he made his initial pilgrimage from Ur of Chaldea to the land of promise.* As faith is a conviction with respect to things not seen (Hebrews 11:1), he therefore went out not knowing whither he went (Hebrews 11:8). Commenting on this verse, Milligan says: Here we have given the fact that Abraham received a call from God; that by his call he was required to leave his home and kindred in Ur of Chaldea, and go out into a strange land; that this land, though promised to his posterity, was wholly unknown to him at the time; and that he nevertheless obeyed God, and went out of his own country, not knowing whither he went (Milligan, NTCH, in loco.)

(3) By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, etc. It would seem from this that Abraham never regarded Canaan as his home. He knew of course, by faith, that when the Canaanites should have filled up the cup of their iniquity to the full, in the fourth generation, the land would be given to his posterity for an everlasting possession, as indeed it was in the time of Joshua (Genesis 15:12-21). But until that time neither he nor his seed, he realized, had any rights or privileges there beyond what might have been accorded other strangers under like circumstances. (Cf. Acts 7:5). Hence Abraham died without owning a foot of the land other than the cave of Machpelah, which he purchased from Ephron the Hittite for a burying-ground (Genesis 23:3-20); and hence, also, neither he, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, ever established a permanent residence in the country. They were satisfied to live in movable tents, feeling assured that according to the promise, they were to fall heir to a better inheritance than any that is to be found on this earth.

(4) By faith he looked beyond the literal to the spiritual fulfilment of the promise. For he looked for the city which hath the foundations, etc. (Hebrews 11:9-10). From this and other like passages we are constrained to think that God had given the patriarchs information with regard to the heavenly country, far beyond what is now recorded in Genesis or any other part of the Old Testament. What we find there at present was written for our instruction, as well as for the benefit of the ancients (Romans 15:4). But much may have been said to them which would in no way benefit us; and which was, therefore, excluded from the Canon by Moses, Ezra and other inspired writers. The origin of sacrifice, for instance, is nowhere expressly mentioned in the Old Testament; nor is there anything said in it respecting the origin of the Patriarchal priesthood. Information, clear, full, and explicit, on all such matters, was of course needed by the ancients; but for us the more general instructions of the Bible are quite sufficient. And so, also, we think it was with respect to the heavenly country. The Patriarchs seem to have received revelations concerning it which have never been transmitted to us; for it is obvious that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, lived in constant expectation of entering it at the close of their earthly pilgrimage. They were satisfied to live here as strangers and pilgrims, knowing that they had in heaven a city having permanent foundations whose Architect and Framer is God. This city is manifestly the heavenly Jerusalem (Galatians 4:28, Hebrews 12:22; Hebrews 13:14), which for the present is located in heaven, but which will hereafter descend to the earth after the latter shall have been renovated by fire (Revelation 21). Then will be fulfilled in its full and proper sense the promise made to Abraham, that he and his seed should be the heirs of the world (Romans 4:13) (Milligan, ibid.).

In the land of fadeless day,

Lies -the city four-square-';

It shall never pass away,

And there is -no night there.-'

God shall -wipe away all tears,-'

There’s no death, no pain nor fears,

And they count not time by years,

For there is -no night there.-'

(5) By faith he anticipated the birth of the child of promise (Hebrews 11:11-12, Galatians 4:23, Genesis 17:15-21; Genesis 18:9-15; Genesis 21:1-7). The miraculous conception and birth of Isaac, typical in respect to its supernaturalness of that of Jesus, were direct fulfilments of the promise of Jehovah which Abraham believed. In this respect Abraham’s faith was even greater than Sarah’S, who, on being told, at ninety years of age and long after she had passed the age of child-bearing, that she should give birth to a son, received the announcement at first with considerable incredulity (Genesis 18:9-15).

(6) By faith he offered up Isaac on Mount Moriah, accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead; from whence he did also in a figure receive him back (Hebrews 11:17-19). Abraham’s faith was such that he knew that the promise of God (Genesis 17:21; Genesis 21:12) could not and would not fail, and as he could not anticipate that God would interfere, as He did, so as to prevent the immolation of his son, there was really left for him no alternative other than simply to conclude that God would restore Isaac to life. This conviction seems to be implied in the remark which he made to his servants, -Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again.-’ The word rendered come again (we will return) is in the plural number, and seems to indicate a belief on the part of Abraham, that God would immediately raise Isaac up again from the dead (Milligan, ibid.) The account of this, the severest trial and consequently the supreme manifestation of Abraham’s faith, is related in Genesis 22:1-14).

(7) Having walked in faith, he likewise died in faith, not having received the promises but having seen them and greeted them from afar, etc. What were the promises? (a) That Abraham should have a, numerous offspring (Genesis 13:16; Genesis 15:3-5; Genesis 17:2-4; Genesis 22:16); (b) that God would be a God to him and to his seed after him (Genesis 17:1-8); (c) that He would give to him and his seed an everlasting inheritance (Genesis 12:7; Genesis 13:15; Genesis 15:18-21; Genesis 17:8); (d) that through him and his seed, all the nations of the earth should be blessed (Genesis 2:3; Genesis 22:18). With respect to these four details, Abraham looked beyond their literal to their spiritual fulfilment. To each of these God attached a double significance.. They each consisted, so to speak, of two elements, one of which had reference to the carnal side of the covenant, and the other to the spiritual side; one to the type, and the other to the antitype. Thus Abraham was made the honored father of two families: to each of which an inheritance was promised, and through each of which the world was to be blessed (Milligan, ibid.). Abraham, it would seem, understood all this, understood by faith that the spiritual side of the promise would be realized through his seed, the Messiah, and consequently rejoiced to see his day, and he saw it, and was glad (John 8:56). (Cf. Galatians 4:21-31; Galatians 3:6-13, etc.) Hence, he died in faith, knowing that the promise in its various details would be worked out according to God’s eternal purpose and plan. Hence, too, by his constant life and walk of faith, he admitted that he did not seek a home on this earth, that here he considered himself merely a stranger and sojourner, that he did not expect to enter into possession of his true home until he should have reached the end of his pilgrimage and been received into a better country than this, i.e., heaven itself. Wherefore God approved and rewarded the faith of Abraham, and of Isaac and Jacob as well, by preparing for their inhabitation, and for all the redeemed of all ages, a city whose foundations had, even in their day, been laid prospectively in the blood of Jesus Christ (cf. Hebrews 12:22-24).

2. Note, in the second place, that Abraham’s pilgrimage of faith was designed to be typical of the believer’s journey.

(1) A voyage to a distant landsuch is the life of every Christian believer.

Our life is like the hurrying on the eve Before we start on some long journey bound, When fit preparing to the last we leave, Then run to every room the dwelling round, And sigh that nothing needed can be found; Yet go we must, and soon as day shall break; We snatch an hour’s repose; when loud the sound For our departure calls; we rise and take A quick and sad farewell, and go ere well awake.

(2) Here we walk by faith, and not by sight, if we are true Christians. Though in the world, we are not of the world. The worldly spirit deals with things present, but the spirit of faith anticipates the more glorious things to come. The worldly spirit is neither far-reaching nor far-sighted. Its range is bounded by the horizon of time and sense. It has no wings with which to soar into realms invisible. It is of the earth, earthly. Whence comes the manna? why gushes the water from the rock? whither guides the pillar of cloud and fire?these are questions it never asks. It knows not how to soar, how to anticipate and trust and wait, how to endure as seeing Him who is invisible, how to repose under the shadow of His wings, unmindful of the dangers of the wilderness and unalarmed by foes. But the heavenly-minded man walks by faiththat faith which is the substance of things hoped for, and a conviction with respect to things not seen. And, among all the great verities which possess his soul there is none greater, none nobler, none surer, than his conviction with respect to the saints-’ everlasting home. All the circumstances of his present journey, all the remembrances, all his reasonings, all his aspirations, point to a Better Land. By faith he sings:

There is a land of pure delight,

Where saints immortal reign,

Infinite day excludes the night,

And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides

And never-withering flowers;

Death, like a narrow sea, divides

This heavenly land from ours.

(3) We realize that as far as this present life is concerned we are but strangers and sojourners on the earth. We dwell in tents, as did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; in the tabernacles of a night-time. We are here today, and gone tomorrow. There is nothing that we possess here that we can really call our own. All that we shall have in the end is a few square feet of earth in which our mortal remains will be laid away to mingle with the dust. This is not sentimentaityit is plain fact. We can-’t take anything material with us into the next world, for the simple reason that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. No matter how diligently we may toil and strive to accumulate houses and lands and worldly goods, of what value will these things be when we reach the end of the road? We are pilgrims, nothing more, walking by faith in the direction of the heavenly country which we expect to reach beyond the swelling of the Jordan, the country that will truly be, Home, Sweet Home. The true Christian philosophy is expressed by Phoebe Carey in these lines:

One sweetly solemn thought

Comes to me o-’er and o-’er:

I am nearer my home today

Than I have ever been before.

Nearer my Father’s house

Where the many mansions be;

Nearer the great white throne,

Nearer the crystal sea.

Nearer the bound of life,

Where we lay our burdens down;

Nearer leaving the cross,

Nearer gaining the crown.

(4) Observation teaches us that much in this life is inequality and injustice. As far as this world alone is concerned, honesty is not always the best policy, Judas fares about as well as John, and Nero quaffs more of the wine of living than Paul. The voice of experience speaks to us that if this life is all, it is scarcely worth the living. In the words of Robert Browning:

Truly there needs be another life to come! If this be all And another life await us not for one, I say, -Tis a poor cheat, a stupid bungle, A wretched failure, I for one protest Against, and I hurl it back with scorn.

(5) Life as we live it here is largely illusion. (See F. W. Robertson, Sermons, The Illusiveness of Life). Our senses deceive us. They deceive us with respect to distance, shape, and color. That which, afar off, seems to be oval, turns out to be circular when modified by the perspective of distance; that which appears to be a speck, becomes a vast body, on nearer approach. Stand in the middle of a railroad track, and look in either direction, and the rails appear to converge; but they do not actually do so. Look at what we call the horizon and it seems that the earth and sky meet, but they do not actually, meet. The beautiful berry turns out to be bitter and poisonous; that which apparently moves is in reality at rest; that which seems to be stationary is in perpetual motion; the earth moves, but the sun, which appears to be moving, stands still. All experience here is but a correction of life’s illusionsa modification or reversal of the judgment of the senses. Our natural anticipations deceive us. Every human life starts out bright with hopes that will never be realized. These hopes may be different in nature: finer spirits may look on life as an arena for good deeds, while the more selfish regard it as a place only for personal enjoyment; but the results are usually the same. Regardless of the nature of these hopes, the majority will fail of fruition. It would seem almost a satire on life to compare the youth in the outset of his career, flushed and sanguine, with the aspect of the same man when he is nearly done, worn, sobered, covered with the dust of life, confessing that its days have been few and evil. Where is the land flowing with milk and honey? Not on this earth. With our affections it is even worse. Man’s affections are but tabernacles of Canaan, the tents of a nighttime, never the same, always changing. Where are the charms of character, the perfection and purity and truthfulness which seemed so resplendent in our friend? Association has rendered them sordid. They were only our conceptions and they proved false; hence we outgrow friendships. Life as we live it here is an unenjoyable Canaan with nothing real or substantial about it. Our expectations, resting on divine revelation, deceive us. For example, the attitude of the church with respect to the second coming of Christ. The apostles expected Him to return while they were yet here, and the early churches were vitalized by this hope of seeing the great and notable day of the Lord. John, in penning the last words of the New Testament, expressed this hope, Come, Lord Jesus. The church, throughout the centuries of the Christian era, has revived and revitalized this hope many times; in fact it has never died away. And even today, if it should turn out that we who are alive shall remain unto the coming of the Lord, we would consider ourselves fortunate indeed. However, He has not come. He will comebut not as yet. The promise, This Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven, remains unfulfilled. What is the meaning of all this illusiveness of earthly life? Faith replies that it is not delusion, but illusion; that the non-fulfilment of the promises literally, is a pledge of their spiritual fulfilment later; that God, by their very non-realization, lures us onward and upward to nobler things. Suppose, for instance, that the spiritual side of the Abrahamic promise had been revealed to ancient Israel at first; suppose they had been informed at the outset that God’s rest is inward, that the land of promise is to be found only in the Jerusalem which is above; not material, but immaterial; not visible, but invisible. That rude, gross people, yearning after the flesh-pots of Egypt, willing to go back into slavery so only they might have enough to eat and drinkwould they have quitted Egypt on such terms? Would they have taken one step on that pilgrimage which was to find its meaning in the discipline of the ages? Nothey had to be lured on by something visible, something tangible. So we are lured on through life as upon a journey. Could man see the route before hima flat, straight road, unbroken by tree or eminence, with the sun’s heat burning down upon it, stretching out in dreamy monotonyhe could scarcely find either the inclination or the energy with which to begin his journey. It is the very uncertainty of that which is not seen, that which lies just around the bend, that keeps expectation alive. The view we think we may get from yonder summit, the landscape that may be glimpsed as the road winds around yonder knoll, hopes like these beguile the weary traveler on. So our heavenly Father leads us on, educating us day by day, and hour by hour, to walk in faith, ever holding up the seen as an incentive to the unseen. So He deals with us, luring us on by means of life’s unsatisfactory and illusive rewards, ever schooling us in the art of waiting, of enduring as seeing Him who is invisible. Canaan first; then the hope of a Redeemer; and finally the Better Land. It was in this manner that the ancient saints interpreted this mystery of the illusiveness of life. They did not regard life as a dream, nor as a bubble, nor as a delusion. Though they no doubt felt as keenly as any moralist could feel; the brokenness of its promises, yet by faith they pressed on, confessing that they were pilgrims and strangers here, that they had no continuing city, never mournfully moralizing about it, but admitting it cheerfully and even rejoicing that it was so. They felt that all was right; they knew that the promise had a deeper than material significance; so they looked for the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. They even died in faith, not having received the promises, not expecting to receive them here, but hereafter. Now observe the glorious result that comes from the indestructible power of believing and continuing on, in spite of apparent failure. The primitive Christians, for instance, believed in their day that the millennium was at hand. They had heard the apostolic warning, brief and clear, to watch. Now suppose, instead of this, they had been able to look into the future and see all the dreary pages of church history unfolded, with its heresies, its apostasy and divisions; suppose they could have known that even after two thousand years the world would scarcely know the alphabet of the Christian religion; knowing all these things, what would have become of their gigantic and heroic efforts, their sacrifices, their persecutions and their martyrdoms? With such knowledge of the future, do you suppose there ever would have been what we consider the heroism, the sacrifice, the passionate zeal of primitive Christianity? It is in this way that God leads His children on, on to realization and achievement through the illusiveness of the past; as a father educates his child, holding up the seen, all the while nurturing the thought of the unseen. Thus we shall continue to the endto that day when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and His Christ. Thus the non-fulfilment of God’s promises becomes to the man of faith an earnest of their deeper and nobler fulfilment.

(6) Finally, as in Abraham’s case, heaven is the goal of our pilgrimage. We expect to find illusion here, and we expect to find reality hereafter. We know that things here are seen and temporal, and we know, too, that the things we shall enjoy hereafter, the things that are now unseen, will be eternal. Interpreted, then, in the light of faith, life’s illusions are not disappointing; in fact nothing is disappointment if spiritually discerned. Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called our God; for he hath prepared for us a city (Hebrews 11:16).

There’s a land that is fairer than day,

And by faith we can see it afar,

For the Father waits over the way,

To prepare us a dwelling-place there.

Just recently Dr. F. B. Meyer, one of England’s greatest preachers, entered into rest. Writing to a friend just three days before his death, this is what he said: Dear Friend: I have just been told, to my surprise, that my days on earth are numbered. It may be that before you receive this letter, I shall have passed within the Palace of the King. Do not trouble to write. I will meet you in the morning. Yours, with much love, F. B. Meyer. I will meet you in the morningwithin the palace of the King. This is Christian faith. This is conviction. Death isn-’t the end, it is the beginning, the beginning of greater growth, greater progress, greater service, and greater joy. As Louise Chandler Moulton has written:

At the end of Love, at the end of Life, At the end of Hope, at the end of Strife, At the end of all that we cling to so The sun is settingmust we go?

At dawn of Love, at Dawn of Life, At dawn of Peace that follows Strife, At dawn of all we long for so The sun is rising*let us go!

Conclusion:* Wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city. This is the promise! And God keeps His promises!

How beautiful to be with God,

When earth is fading like a dream,

And from this mist-encircled shore

To launch upon the unknown stream!

No doubt, no fear, no anxious care,

But, comforted by staff and rod,

In the faith-brightened hour of death,

How beautiful to be with God.

Beyond the partings and the pains,

Beyond the sighing and the tears,

Oh, beautiful to be with God

Through all the endless, blessed years

To see His face, to hear His voice,

To know Him better day by day,

And love Him as the flowers love light,

And serve Him as immortals may.

My sinner friend, will you not turn now, and start upon your pilgrimage of faith?

Genesis 32:1-32

2. Jacob’s Reconciliation with Esau: The Biblical Account (Genesis 32:1 to Genesis 33:17)

1 And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. 2 And Jacob said when he saw them, This is God’s host: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim. 3 And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the field of Edom. 4 And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye say unto my lord Esau: Thus saith thy servant Jacob, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now: 5 and I have oxen, and asses, and flocks, and men-servants, and maid-servants: and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favor in thy sight. 6 And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and moreover he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him. 7 *Then Jacob was greatly afraid and was distressed: and he divided the people that were with him, and the flocks, and the herds, and the camels, into two companies; 8 and he said, If Esau come to the one company, and smite it, then the company which is left shall escape. 9 And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, O Jehovah, who saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will do thee good: 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the lovingkindnesses, and of all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two companies. 11 Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he come and smite me, the mother with the children. 12 And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.

13 And he lodged there that night, and took of that which he had with him a present for Esau his brother: 14 two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 15 thirty milch camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty she-asses and ten foals. 16 And he delivered them into the hand of his servants, every drove by itself, and said unto his servants, Pass over before me, and put a space betwixt drove and drove. 17 And he commanded the foremost, saying, When Esau my brother meeteth thee, and asketh thee, saying, Whose art thou? and whither goest thou? and whose are these before thee? 18 then thou shalt say, They are thy servant Jacob’S; it is a present sent unto my lord Esau: and, behold, he also is behind us. 19 And he commanded also the second, and the third, and all that followed the droves, saying, On this manner shall ye speak unto Esau, when ye find him; 20 and ye shall say, Moreover, behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will appease him with the present that goeth before me, and afterward I will see his face; peradventure he will accept me. 21 So the present passed over before him: and he himself lodged that night in the company.

22 And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two handmaids, and his eleven children, and passed over the ford of the Jabbok. 23 And he took them, and sent them over the stream, and sent over that which he had. 24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. 25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was strained, as he wrestled with him. 26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. 27 And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. 28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for thou hast striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed. 29 And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. 30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for, said he, I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. 31 And the sun rose upon him as he passed over Penuel, and he limped upon his thigh. 32 Therefore the children of Israel eat not the sinew of the hip which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip. 1 And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. And he divided the children unto Leah, and unto Rachel, and unto the two handmaids. 2 And he put the handmaids and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost. 3 And he himself passed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. 4 And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept. 5 And he lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, Who are these with thee? And he said, The children whom God hath graciously given thy servant. 6 Then the handmaids came near, they and their children, and they bowed themselves. 7 And Leah also and her children came near, and bowed themselves: and after came Joseph near and Rachel, and they bowed themselves. 8 and he said, What meanest thou by all this company which I met? And he said, To find favor in the sight of my lord. 9 And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; let that which thou hast be thine. 10 And Jacob said, Nay, I pray thee, if now I have found favor in thy sight, then receive my present at my hand; forasmuch as I have seen thy face as one seeth the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me, 11 Take, I pray thee, my gift that is brought to thee; because God hath dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough. And he urged him, and he took it. 12 And he said, Let us take our journey, and let us go, and I will go before thee. 13 And he said unto him, My lord knoweth that the children are tender, and that the flocks and herds with me have their young: and if they overdrive them one day, all the flocks will die. 14 Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant: and I will lead on gently, according to the pace of the cattle that are before me and according to the pace of the children, until I come unto my lord unto Seir. 15 And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me. And he said, What needeth it? let me find favor in the sight of my lord. 16 So Esau returned that day on his way unto Seir. 17 And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built him a house, and made booths for his cattle: therefore the name of the place is called Succoth.*

(1) Jacob’s experience at Mahanaim, Genesis 32:1-2. As Jacob went on his way from Gilead and Mizpah in a southerly direction, the angels of God, literally, messengers of Elohim (not chance travelers who informed him of Esau’s presence in the vicinity, but angels) met him (cf. Hebrews 1:7; Hebrews 1:14; Psalms 104:4), not necessarily coming in an opposite direction, but simply falling in with him as he journeyed. Whether this was a waking vision or a midnight dream is uncertain, though the two former visions enjoyed by Jacob were at night (Genesis 28:12, Genesis 31:10) (PCG, 389). The elevated state and feeling of Jacob, after the departure of Laban, reveals itself in the vision of the hosts of God. Heaven is not merely connected with the saints on the earth (through the ladder); its hosts are warlike hosts, who invisibly guard the saints and defend them, even while upon the earth. Here is the very germ and source of the designation of God as the God of hosts, Zabaoth (Lange, 545). (Cf. Isaiah 1:9, Romans 9:29). The appearance of the invisible host may have been designed to celebrate Jacob’s triumph over Laban, as after Christ’s victory over Satan in the wilderness angels came and ministered unto him (Matthew 4:11), or to remind him that he owed his deliverance to Divine interposition, but was probably intended to assure him of protection in his approaching interview with Esau, and perhaps also to give him welcome in returning home again to Canaan, if not in addition to suggest that his descendants would require to fight for their inheritance (PCG, 389. Met him, lit., came, drew near to him, not precisely that they came from an opposite direction. This vision does not relate primarily to the approaching meeting with Esau (Peniel relates to this), but to the dangerous meeting with Laban. As the Angel of God had disclosed to him in vision the divine assistance against his unjust sufferings in Mesopotamia, so now he enjoys a revelation of the protection which God had prepared for him upon Mount Gilead, through his angels (cf. 2 Kings 6:17).In this sense he well calls the angels -God’s host,-’ and the place in which they met him, double camp. By the side of the visible camp, which he, with Laban and his retainers, had made, God had prepared another, an invisible camp, for his protection. It served also to encourage him, in a general way, for the approaching meeting with Esau (Lange, 544).

Jacob was now receiving divine encouragement to meet the new dangers of the land he was entering. His eyes were opened to see a troop of angels, -the host of God-’ sent for his protection, and forming a second camp beside his own; and he called the name of the place Mahanaim (the two camps or hosts) (OTH, 102). How often we meet this mention of angels in the story of Jacob’s life! Angels on the ladder in the vision at Bethel; the dream of an angel that told him to leave the country of Laban; angels now before him on his way; the memory of an angel at the last when he laid his hands upon the sons of Joseph, and said, -The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads-’ (Genesis 48:16). There had been much earthliness and evil in Jacob, and certainly it was too bold a phrase to say that he had been redeemed from all of it. But the striking fact is the repeated association of angels with the name of this imperfect man. The one great characteristic which gradually refined him was his desirewhich from the beginning he possessedfor nearer knowledge of God. May it be therefore that the angels of God come, even though in invisible presence, to every man who has that saving eagerness? Not only in the case of Jacob, but in that of many another, those who look at the man’s life and what is happening in it and around it may be able to say that as he went on his way the angels of God met him (IBG, 719).

It is not said whether this angelic manifestation was made in a vision by day, or a dream by night. It was most probably the formeran internal occurrence, a mental spectacle, analogous, as in many similar cases (cf. Genesis 15:1; Genesis 15:5; Genesis 15:12; Genesis 21:12-13; Genesis 21:17; Genesis 22:2-3), to the dream which he had on his journey to Mesopotamia. For there is an evident allusion to the appearance upon the ladder (Genesis 28:12); and this occurring to Jacob in his return to Canaan, was an encouraging pledge of the continued presence and protection ofGod: Psalms 34:7, Hebrews 1:14 (Jamieson, 213). Mahanaim, that is, two hosts or camps. Two myriads is the number usually employed to denote an indefinite number; but here it must have reference to the two hosts, God’S host of angels and Jacob’s own camp. The place was situated between Mount Gilead and the Jabbok, near the banks of that brook. A town afterwards rose upon the spot, on the border of the tribal territories of Gad and Manasseh, supposed by Porter to be identified in a ruin called Mahneh (Jamieson, ibid.). When Laban had taken his departure peaceably, Jacob pursued his journey to Canaan. He was then met by some angels of God; and he called the place where they appeared Mahanaim, i.e., double camp or double host, because the host of God joined his host as a safeguard. This appearance of angels necessarily reminded him of the vision of the ladder, on his flight from Canaan. Just as the angels ascending and descending had then represented to him the divine protection and assistance during his journey and sojourn in a foreign land, so now the angelic host was a signal of the help of God for the approaching conflict with Esau of which he was in fear, and a fresh pledge of the promise (ch. Genesis 28:15), -I will bring thee back to the land,-’ etc. Jacob saw it during his journey; in a waking condition, therefore, not internally, but out of or above himself: but whether with the eyes of the body or of the mind (cf. 2 Kings 6:17), cannot be determined. Mahanaim was afterwards a distinguished city, which is frequently mentioned, situated to the north of the Jabbok; and the name and remains are still preserved in the place called Mahneh (Robinson, Pal. Appendix, p. 166), the site of which, however, has not yet been minutely examined (K-D, 301). For other references to Mahanaim, see Joshua 13:26; Joshua 13:30; Joshua 21:38, 1 Chronicles 6:80; 2 Samuel 2:8; 2 Samuel 2:12; 2 Samuel 4:5-8; 2 Samuel 17:24; 2 Samuel 17:27; 1 Kings 2:8; 1 Kings 4:14). Leupold writes: Though Mahanaim is repeatedly mentioned in the Scriptures, we cannot be sure of its exact location. It must have lain somewhere east of Jordan near the confluence of the Jordan and the Jabbok. The present site Machneh often mentioned in this connection seems too far to the north (EG, 862).

(2) Preparations for meeting Esau, Genesis 32:3-23. Having achieved reconciliation with Laban, Jacob now finds his old fears returningthose fears that sent him away from home in the first place. This long passage is a vivid picture of a man who could not get away from the consequences of an old wrong. Many years before, Jacob had defrauded Esau. He had got away to a safe distance and he had stayed there a long time. Doubtless he had tried to forget about Esau, or at any rate to act as if Esau’s oath to be avenged could be forgotten. While in Laban’s country he could feel comfortable. But the time had come when he wanted to go back home; and though the thought of it drew him, it appalled him too. There was the nostalgia of early memories, but there was the nightmare of the later one, and it overshadowed all the rest. Esau was there; and what would Esau do? As a matter of fact, Esau would not do anything. If he had not forgotten what Jacob had done to him, he had stopped bothering about it. Hot-tempered and terrifying though he could be, he was too casual to carry a grudge. As ch. 33 tells, he would meet Jacob presently with the bluff generosity of the big man who lets bygones be bygones, But not only did Jacob not know that; what he supposed he knew was the exact opposite. Esau would confront him as a deadly threat (Bowie, IBG, 719). Thus conscience doth makes cowards of us all (Hamlet’s Soliloquy). Jacob had passed through a humiliating process. He had been thoroughly afraid, and this was the more galling because he thought of himself as somebody who ought not to have had to be afraid. In his possessions he was a person of consequence. He had tried to suggest that to Esau in his first messages. But none of his possessions fortified him when his conscience let him down. Even when Esau met him with such magnanimity, Jacob was not yet at ease. He still kept on his guard, with unhappy apprehension lest Esau might change his mind (see Genesis 33:12-17). Knowing that he had not deserved Esau’s brotherliness, he could not believe that he could trust it. The barrier in the way of forgiveness may lie not in the unreadiness of the wronged to give, but in the inability of the one who has done wrong to receive. Jacob had to be humbled and chastened before he could be made clean. The wrestling by the Jabbok would be the beginning of that. He had to admit down deep that he did not deserve anything, and he had to get rid of the pride that thought he could work out his peace by his own wits. Only so could he ever feel that the relationship with Esau had really been restored. More importantly, it is only so that men can believe in and accept the forgiveness of the love of God (IBG, ibid.) (The expository matter in IBG is superb in the delineation of human character, its foibles, its strengths and its weaknesses. Although the exegesis of this set of books follows closely the speculations of the critics, nevertheless the set is well worth having in one’s library for the expository treatment which deals graphically with what might be termed the human interest narratives of the Bible. From this point of view, the content of the book of Genesis is superbly presented.C.C.),

In this connection, we have some information of great value from Jewish sources, as follows: Laban has departednow Jacob can breathe freely. But he is far from happy contemplating Esau’s natural and justifiable desire for vengeance. He now realizes the enormity of the wrong he has done his brother. That was twenty years ago: maybe Esau’s anger had cooled a bit. He did not fear the angel, but he feared his brother because he had done him a great wrong. Why expect Esau to act differently? He, Jacob, had countered Laban’s deceit with deceit of his own. Why would not Esau do the same? Jacob was getting some of his own medicine. As the rabbis say: Before a man sins, everyone fears him; after he sins, he fears everyone. In prosperity we forget God. But when distress and danger confront us we turn to God. All earthly help seems futile. God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble (Psalms 46:1). So Jacob prayed. But instead of relying on God to whom he prayed, he resorted to his old tricks, cunning plans for his defense. He trusted God only half way. If God will save me from this peril, well and good; but if not, I must spare no effort to save myself. Halfway faith is no faith at all. Then followed an anxious night. Redoubled preparations were made to meet Esau the next morning. Jacob sent his wives and children across the stream hoping their helplessness might touch Esau’s heart. Jacob remained on this side of the stream. He would cross only at the last moment; possibly he would turn back and flee, without sheep and cattle, wives and children, to hinder his escape. But there was no place for him to go. Such was Jacob’s guilt-laden mind (Morgenstern, JIBG). This episode is narrated to illustrate how God saved his servant and redeemed him from an enemy stronger than himself, by sending His angel and delivering him. We also learn that Jacob did not rely upon his righteousness, but took all measures to meet the situation. It contains the further lesson that whatever happened to the patriarchs happens to their offspring, and we should follow his example by making a threefold preparation in our fight against Esau’s descendants, viz., prayer, gifts (appeasement) and war (Nachmanides) (SC, 195).

The matter of the next few verses occasions some differences of view on the part of Jewish commentators. As Isaac lived in the southern part of Canaan, Jacob had to pass through or by Edom. Realizing that he was now approaching Esau’s domain, the land of Seir, the field of Edom, he took certain precautionary measures for protection. (The land of Seir was the region originally occupied by the Horites [Genesis 14:6; Genesis 36:21-30; Ezekiel 35:2 ff.], which was taken over later by Esau and his descendants [Deuteronomy 2:1-29; Numbers 20:14-21; Genesis 32:3; Genesis 36:8; Genesis 36:20 ff.; Numbers 20:14-21; Joshua 24:4; 2 Chronicles 20:10, etc.], and then became known as Edom. This was the mountainous region lying south and east of the Dead Sea. The statement that Esau was already in the land of Seir [Genesis 32:4], or, as it is afterwards called, the field of Edom, is not at variance with chapter Genesis 36:6, and may be very naturally explained on the supposition, that with the increase of his family and possessions, he severed himself more and more from his father’s house, becoming increasingly convinced, as time went on, that he could hope for no change in the blessings pronounced by his father upon Jacob and himself, which excluded him from the inheritance of the promise, viz. the future possession of Canaan. Now, even if his malicious feelings toward Jacob had gradually softened down, he had probably never said anything to his parents on the subject, so that Rebekah had been unable to fulfil her promise [Genesis 27:45]) (K-D, 302). And what about Jacob? Rebekah had not communicated with him either, as she had promised to do as soon as his brother’s anger had subsided. He had no indication that Esau’s intentions were anything but hostile. What was he to do but make an effort to placate this brother whom he had not heard from for more than twenty years? Obviously, some sort of a delegation was in order, a delegation acknowledging Esau as one entitled to receive reports about one who is about to enter the land: such a delegation might produce a kindlier feeling on the part of the man thus honored. Jacob’s first objective was to conciliate Esau, if possible. To this end he sent messengers ahead to make contact with him and to make known his return, in such a style of humility (my Lord Esau, thy servant Jacob) as was adapted to conciliate his brother. As a matter of fact Jacob’s language was really that of great servility, dictated of course by his fear of his brother’s vengeance. He makes no secret where he has been; he had been with Laban. He indicates further that his stay in the land of the east had been temporary: that he had stayed there only as a stranger or pilgrim; that indeed he had only sojourned with Laban (Genesis 32:4) and was now on his way back home. Nor, he made it clear, should Esau get the impression that Jacob was an impecunious beggar dependent on Esau’s charity coming back as a suppliant: on the contrary, he was coming with oxen, and asses, and flocks, and men-servants and maidservants, etc. No wonder he was thrown into the greatest alarm and anxiety when the messengers returned to tell him that Esau was coming to meet him with a force of four hundred men. Note Genesis 32:6, the report of the messengers: We came to thy brother Esauaccording to Rashi, to him whom you regard as a brother, but he is Esau; he is advancing to attack you (SC, 196). Sforno agrees with Rashi’s preceding comment: he is coming with four hundred men to attack you. Rashbam interprets: you have found favor in his sight, and in your honour he is coming to meet you with a large retinue (SC, 196). The obvious reason for Esau’s army seems to have been, rather, that he was just then engaged in subjugating the Horite people in Seir, a fact which would fully explain Genesis 36:6, and thus refute the critical assumption of different source materials. The simplest explanation of the fact that Esau should have had so many men about him as a standing army, is that given by Delitzsch; namely, that he had to subjugate the Horite population in Seir, for which purpose he might easily have formed such an army, partly from the Canaanitish and Ishmaelitish relatives of his wives, and partly from his own servants. His reason for going to meet Jacob with such a company may have been, either to show how mighty a prince he was, or with the intention of making his brother sensible of his superior power, and assuming a hostile attitude if the circumstances favored it, even though the lapse of years had so far mitigated his anger, that he no longer thought of executing the vengeance he had threatened twenty years before. For we are warranted in regarding Jacob’s fear as no vain, subjective fancy, but as having an objective foundation, by the fact that God endowed him with courage and strength for his meeting with Esau, through the medium of the angelic host and the wrestling at the Jabbok; whilst, on the other hand, the brotherly affection and openness with which Esau met him, are to be attributed partly to Jacob’s humble demeanor, and still more to the fact, that by the influence of God, the still remaining malice had been rooted out from his heart (K-D, 302). Here again, in the interest of tracing down sources more or less out of harmony with one another, critics assert that these verses (3-5) assume Isaac’s death and Esau’s occupation of the land which he in reality only took in hand somewhat later, according to Genesis 36:6, which is ascribed to P. Isaac, with his non-aggressive temperament, may have allowed the far more active Esau to take the disposition of matters in hand. So Jacob may well have been justified in dealing with Esau as -master. This is all quite plausible even if Isaac had not died. Furthermore, in speaking of -the land of Seir, the region of Edom,-’ Jacob may only imply that Esau had begun to take possession of the land which was afterward to become his and of whose definite and final occupation Genesis 36:6 speaks. In any case, -master,-’ used in reference to Esau, only describes Jacob’s conception of their new relation. Jacob did not enter into negotiations with Isaac, his father, in approaching the land. His welcome was assured at his father’s hand. But the previous misunderstanding called for an adjustment with Esau. At the same time our, explanation accounts for Esau’s 400 men: they are an army that he has gathered while engaged upon his task of subduing Seir, the old domain of the Horites (cf. Genesis 14:6). Skinner’s further objection: -how he was ready to strike so far north of his territory is a difficulty,-’ is thus also disposed of (Leupold, EG, 863-864).

A number of questions obtrude themselves at this point. E.g., Why was Esau in that territory in the first place? And why was he there in such force, if he was not engaged in dispossessing the occupants? Why would he be that far north, if conquest was not his design? How would he know that he would be meeting up with Jacob? Did Jacob expect to find him there, or somewhere back in the vicinity of Canaan? Had the angelic host (Genesis 32:2) informed him of Esau’s nearness? Is there any evidence from any quarter that Jacob had received any news from home during the entire twenty years he had been in Paddan-aram? What did the messengers mean when they returned and said to Jacob, We came to thy brother Esau? Did they not mean that they had come upon Esau and his contingent unexpectedly, that is, sooner than they had thought to do so? Esau seems to have been about as uncertain in his own mind as to his plans and purposes as Jacob was in reference to these same plans and purposes? Certainly Esau must have been surprised when Jacob’s messengers met him? And certainly the very uncertainties implicit in the report of Jacob’s messengers made it all the more alarming to Jacob. In substance, the message which Jacob’s emissaries took to Esau was nothing but an announcement of his arrival and his great wealth (Genesis 33:12 ff.). The shepherd, with all his success, is at the mercy of the fierce marauder who was to -live by his sword,-’ Genesis 27:40 (ICCG, 406). At the news brought back by his messengers fear overwhelmed Jacob, even though every crisis in the past had terminated in his advantage. But now he was at the point of no return, facing the must critical experience of all in the fact that the word brought back about Esau and his force of 400 men indicated the worst, Dividing all his possessions at the River Jabbok, so that if Esau should attack one part, the other might have a chance to get away, Jacob made ready for the anticipated confrontation in a threefold manner, first by prayer, then by gifts, and finally by actual combat if necessary.

The Prayer, Genesis 32:9-12. Jacob was naturally timid; but his conscience told him that there was much ground for apprehension; and his distress was all the more aggravated that he had to provide for the safety of a large and helpless family. In this great emergency he had recourse to prayer (CECG, 213). Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. (Unfortunately a great many people can pray like a bishop in a thunderstorm, who never think of God at any other time: in the lines of the well-known bit of satirical humor:

God and the doctor we alike adore, Just on the brink of danger, not before; The danger past, both are unrequited God is forgotten, and the doctor slighted.)

Nevertheless, Jacob did the only thing he could do under the circumstanceshe prayed, to the God of his fathers Abraham and Isaac, the living and true God. (Not even the slightest smack of idolatry or polytheism in this prayer!) This is the first recorded example of prayer in the Bible. It is short, earnest and bearing directly on the occasion. The appeal is made to God, as standing in a covenant relation to his family, just as we ought to put our hopes of acceptance with God in Christ; for Jacob uses here the name Jehovah, along with other titles, in the invocation, as he invokes it singly elsewhere (cf. Genesis 49:18). He pleads the special promise made to himself of a safe return; and after a most humble and affecting confession of unworthiness, breathes an earnest desire for deliverance from the impending danger. It was the prayer of a kind husband, an affectionate father, a firm believer in the promises (Jamieson, CECG, 213-214). This prayer strikes a religious note surprising in this purely factual context (JB, 53). Jacob’s prayer, consisting of an invocation (10), thanksgiving (11), petition (12), and appeal to the divine faithfulness (13) is a classical model of OT devotion (Skinner, ICCG, 406). Skinner adds: though the element of confession, so prominent in later supplications, is significantly absent. (Leupold discusses this last assertion as follows: It is hard to understand how men can claim that -the element of confession is significantly absent-’ in Jacob’s prayer. True, a specific confession of sin is not made in these words. But what does, -I am unworthy,-’ imply? Why is he unworthy? There is only one thing that renders us unworthy of God’s mercies and that is our sin. Must this simple piece of insight be denied Jacob? It is so elementary in itself as to be among the rudiments of spiritual insight. Let men also remember that lengthy confessions of sin may be made where there is no sense of repentance whatsoever. And again, men may be most sincerely penitent and yet may say little about their sin, If ever a prayer implied a deep sense of guilt it is Jacob’S. Behind the critics-’ claim that -confession is absent-’ from this prayer lies the purpose to thrust an evolutionistic development into religious experiences, a development which is -significantly absent.-’ It was not first -in later supplications-’ that this element became -so prominent.-’ It was just that in this earlier age the experience of sin and guilt particularly impressed God’s saints as rendering them unworthy of God’s mercies (cf. also Genesis 18:27 in Abraham’s case) (EG, 867). One. might well compare also the case of the publican (Luke 18:13-14) or that of the prodigal son (Luke 15:18-24). Did not Jesus commend both of these -supplications-’? We see no reason for assuming that God must hear us call the roll of our sins, specifying each in its proper order, to have mercy on us? Cf. James 2:10Sin is lawlessness, and a single instance of sin makes one guilty of it (cf. 1 John 3:4). (Cf. John 1:29note the singular here, sin.). Surely the very profession of unworthiness is confession of sin. Human authority has established the custom of enumerating specific sinsin the priestly confessional, of course: whether such an enumeration ever gets as high as the Throne of Grace is indeed a moot question. Jacob’s humble prayer in a crisis of his life, his own comparison of his former status with the present, harmonizes the inner religious theme of the story with the other theme of his experience. This man who understood the consequences of his actions (flight from his father’s house, danger of dependence, trouble with his children), is still a man whom the grace of God had found. So tradition dwells on his many trials of faith, while describing him as a man to whom the election of God came without full merit on his part (Cornfeld, AtD, 89. Note especially Genesis 32:10, this Jordan. Is the Jordan here, instead of the Jabbok, Genesis 32:22, a later elaboration? (as JB would have it, p. 53). The Jabbok was situated near, indeed is a tributary of the Jordan (PCG, 390). The mention of the Jordan here certainly had reference to Jacob’s first crossing, that is, on his way to Paddan-aram: at that time he had only his staff; now he has abundant wealth in the form of sheep, goats, camels, and cows and bulls (Genesis 32:14-15). The measure of these gracious gifts at God’s hands is best illustrated by the contrast between what Jacob was when he first crossed the Jordan and what he now has upon his return to Jordan (EG, 867). Naturally he would think of the Jordan as the dividing line between his homeland and the country to which he had journeyed; on the first trek he was all alone, with nothing but his staff. With this staff, means, as Luther translates, with only this staff (cf. EG, ibid.).

Note that Jacob closed his petition with a specific request that the God of his fathers deliver him, as the mother with the children, from Esau’s vengeance, a proverbial expression for unsparing cruelty, or complete extirpation, taken from the idea of destroying a bird while sitting upon its young (cf. Deuteronomy 22:6, Hosea 10:14). He then pleads the Divine promises at Bethel (Genesis 28:13-15) and at Haran (Genesis 31:3), as an argument why Jehovah should now extend to him protection against Esau. Or, by killing the mother he will smite me, even if I personally escape (SC, 197). Some (e.g., Tuch) have criticized this aspect of the prayer as somewhat inaptly reminding God of His commands and promises, and calling upon Him to keep His word. But is not this precisely what God expects His people to do? (Cf. Isaiah 43:26). According to Scripture the Divine promise is always the petitioner’s best warrant (PCG, 391). (Cf. thy seed as the sand of the sea with the dust of the earth, Genesis 13:16, the stars of heaven, Genesis 15:5, and as the sand upon the sea-shore, Genesis 22:17, which cannot be numbered for multitude.). Thus Jacob changes the imagery of the Abrahamic Promise, ch. Genesis 22:17. Such a destructive attack as now threatens him, would oppose and defeat the divine promise. Faith clings to the promise, and is thus developed (Lange, 549). The objection that it is unbecoming in Jacob to remind God of His promise, shows an utter misconception of true prayer, which presupposes the promise of God just as truly as it implies the consciousness of wants. Faith, which is the life of prayer, clings to the divine promises, and pleads them (Gosman, ibid., 549).Jacob, fearing the worst, divided his people and flocks into two camps, that if Esau smote the one, the other might escape. He then turned to the Great Helper in every time of need, and with an earnest prayer besought the God of his fathers, Abraham and Isaac, who had directed him to return, that, on the ground of the abundant mercies and truth (cf. Genesis 24:27) He had shown him thus far, He would deliver him out of the hand of his brother, and from the threatening destruction, and so fulfil His promises (K-D, 303). Jacob’s prayer for deliverance was graciously answered, God granted His favor to an undeserving sinner who cast himself wholly upon His mercy. Notice, that Jacob acted in accord with the proposition that often we should work as though we had never prayed (HSB, 53). Hence the gifts (for appeasement) that followed, and preparations for conflict, if that should occur.

The Gifts, Genesis 32:14-22. Although hoping for safety and aid from the Lord alone, Jacob neglected no means of doing what might serve to appease his brother. Having taken up his quarters for the night in the place where he received the news of Esau’s approach, he selected from his flocksof that which he had acquireda very respectable present of 550 head of cattle, and sent them in different detachments to meet Esau, as a present unto my lord Esau from thy servant Jacob, who was coming behind. The cattle were selected according to the proportions of male and female which were adopted from experience among the ancients (Varro, de re rustica 2, 3). V. 15-200 she-goats and twenty he-goats. Similarly, in the case of the other animals he sent as many males as were needed for the females (Rashi) (SC, 197). The selection was in harmony with the general possessions of nomads (cf. Job 1:3; Job 42:12). The division of this gift into separate droves which followed one another at certain intervals, was to serve the purpose of gradually mitigating the wrath of Esau (K-D), to appease the countenance, to raise anyone’s countenance, i.e., to receive him in a friendly manner. Jacob designs this gift to be the means of propitiating his brother before he appears in his presence. After dispatching this present, he himself remained the same night, the one referred to in Genesis 32:13, in the camp. Then and there one of the most fascinatingly and mysteriously sublime incidents recorded in the Old Testament occurred. (Preparations to meet anticipated violence: see infra). (Recall that Jacob’s threefold preparation consisted of prayer, gifts, and probability of war.)

(3) Jacob’s Wrestling with the Celestial Visitant, Genesis 32:22-32. The Jabbok is the present Wady es Zerka (i.e., the blue, which flows from the east towards the Jordan, and with its deep rocky valley formed at that time the boundary between the kingdoms of Sihon at Heshbon and Og of Bashan.. The ford by which Jacob crossed was hardly the one which he took on his outward journey, upon the Syrian caravan-road. but one much farther to the west. where there are still traces of walls and buildings to be seen, and other marks of civilization (K-D, 304). The same night (as indicated in Genesis 32:13) Jacob transported his family with all his possessions across the ford of the Jabbok, but he himself remained behind. The whole course of the Jabbok, counting its windings, is over sixty miles. It is shallow and always fordable, except where it breaks between steep rocks. Its valley is fertile, has always been a frontier and a line of traffic (UBD, s.v.) The deep Jabbok Valley supplied an impressive locale for Jacob’s wrestling with an angel and for his reunion with the estranged Esau (Genesis 32:22 ff.). The Jabbok is always shallow enough to ford (Genesis 32:23). Portions of its slopes are wooded, and dotted with patches of orchard, vineyard, and vegetable cultivation. Wheat is cultivated in its upper reaches. Flocks are usually within sight of travelers (HBD, s.v.). The Jabbok flows into the Jordan about 25 miles north of the Dead Sea.

What was Jacob’s purpose in this maneuver, especially his remaining on the north side of the Jabbok? There are differences of opinion about this. To prayer he adds prudence, and sends forward present after present that their reiteration might win his brother’s heart. This done, he rested for the night: but rising up before the day, he sent forward his wives and children across the ford of the Jabbok, remaining for a while in solitude to prepare his mind for the trial of the day (OTH, 103). He rose up. and took, etc. Unable to sleep, he waded the ford in the night-time by himself; and having ascertained its safety, he returned to the north bank, and sent over his family and attendantsremaining behind, to seek anew, in solitary prayer, the Divine blessing on the means he had set in motion (Jamieson, CECG, 215). Another view, as we have noted above, is that Jacob sent his wives and children across the stream hoping their helplessness might touch Esau’s heart; Jacob himself remained on this side of the stream; he would cross only at the last moment; possibly he would turn back and flee, without sheep and cattle, wives and children, to hinder his escape (Morgenstern). The present writer finds it difficult to think of Jacob as being so cowardly as to be willing to sacrifice his household and possessions to save his own hide. Jacob himself remained on the north side [of the stream] (Delitzsch, Keil, Kurtz, Murphy, Gerlach, Wordsworth, Alford), although, having once crossed the stream (Genesis 32:22), it is not perfectly apparent that he recrossed, which has led some to argue that the wrestling occurred on the south of the river (Knobel, Rosenmuller, Lange Kalisch) (PCG, 392). Rashbam would have it that he rose up that night, intending to flee by another way; for that reason he passed over the ford of the Jabbok. As for his household (Genesis 32:22), and his possessions that which he had (Genesis 32:23), according to Nachmanides, he led them all to the edge of the brook, then crossed over himself to see if the place was suitable, then returned and led them across all at the same time. Rashi would have it that having sent on all the others, Jacob himself after crossing, returned, because he had forgotten some small items (SC, 199).

Thus Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day, Genesis 32:24. The natural thing for the master of the establishment to do is to stay behind to check whether all have crossed or whether some stragglers of this great host still need directions. In the solitude of the night as Jacob is -left alone,-’ his thoughts naturally turn to prayer again, for he is a godly man. However, here the unusual statement of the case describes his prayer thus: -a man wrestled with him until dawn arose.-’ Rightly Luther says: -Every man holds that this text is one of the most obscure in the Old Testament.-’ There is no commentator who can so expound this experience as to clear up perfectly every difficulty involved. This much, however, is relatively clear: Jacob was praying; the terms used to describe the prayer make us aware of the fact that the prayer described involved a struggle of the entire man, body and soul; the struggle was not imaginary; Jacob must have sensed from the outset that his opponent was none other than God; this conviction became firmly established before his opponent finally departed.. The Biblical commentary on the passage is Hosea 12:4: -Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed; he wept, and made supplication unto him.-’ … Again, by way of commentary, -wrestling-’ is defined as -he wept and made supplication unto Him.-’ That certainly is a description of agonizing prayer. However, when Genesis 32:3 of Hosea 12 is compared, we learn that this struggle in Jacob’s manhood was the culmination of the tendency displayed before birth, when by seizing his brother’s heel he displayed how eager he was to obtain the spiritual blessings God was ready to bestow. This experience and this trend in Jacob’s character is held up before his descendants of a later day that they may seek to emulate it (Leupold, EG, 875). There wrestled a man with him: to prevent him from fleeing, so that he might see how God kept the promise that he would not be harmed (Rashbam). Undoubtedly the angel was acting on God’s command, and thereby intimated that Jacob and his seed would be saved and blessed, this being the outcome of the wrestling (Sforno). He prevailed not, Genesis 32:26. Because Jacob cleaved so firmly to God in thought and speech (Sforno). Because an angel can do only what he has been commissioned and permitted to do; this one was permitted only to strain his thigh (Nachmanides) (SC, 199).

As Leupold states the case clearly, certain modern interpretations of this experience of Jacob’s [are] instances of how far explanations may veer from the truth and become entirely misleading. It has been described as a -nightmare-’ (Roscher). Some have thought that Jacob engaged in conflict with the tutelary deity of the stream which Jacob was endeavoring to cross (Frazer), and so this might be regarded as a symbolical portrayal of the difficulties of the crossing. [e.g., In the most ancient form of the story, the angel of Jacob may have reflected a folk tale about a night river-demon who must disappear with the morning light. When Israel made this legend its own, it transformed the demon into a angel, a messenger of God (AtD, 88).] But the stream had already been crossed by this time. One interpreter considers the wrestling as a symbol of -the victory of the invading Israelites over the inhabitants of North Gilead,-’ (Steuernagel), but that is a misconstruction of history: the conquest began much later. Some call the experience a dream; others, an allegory. The most common device of our day is to regard it as a legend, -originating,-’ as some say, -on a low level of religion.-’ All such approaches are a slap in the face for the inspired word of Hosea who treats it as a historical event recording the highest development of Jacob’s faith-life. For there can be no doubt about it that the motivating power behind Jacob’s struggle is faith and the desire to receive God’s justifying grace; and the means employed is earnest prayer. Why it pleases the Lord to appear in human guise to elicit the most earnest endeavors on Jacob’s part, that we cannot answer (EG, 876). (Cf. Genesis 18:1. See my Genesis, Vol. III, p. 297ff. See also our discussion of The Angel of Jehovah, my Genesis III, 216-220, 496-500. See also Hosea 12:2-6: This is another proof of the hermeneutic principle that any Scripture passage must be interpreted in the light of the teaching of the entire Bible [see my Genesis, Vol. I, pp. 97-100] in order to get at truth).

When Jacob was left alone on the northern side of the Jabbok, after sending all the rest across, there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.-’ Genesis 32:26-‘And when He [the unknown] saw that He did not overcome him, He touched his hip-socket; and his hip-socket was put out of joint, as He wrestled with Him.-’ Still Jacob would not let Him go until He blessed him. He then said to Jacob, -Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel-’ [God’s fighter]; for thou hast fought with God and with men, and hast prevailed.-’ When Jacob asked Him His name, He declined giving any definite answer, and -blessed him there.-’ He did not tell him His name: not merely, as the angel stated to Manoah in reply to a similar question (Judges 13:18), because it was incomprehensible to mortal man, but still more to fill Jacob’s soul with awe at the mysterious character of the whole event, and to lead him to take it to heart, What Jacob wanted to know, with regard to the person of the wonderful Wrestler, and the meaning and intention of the struggle, he must already have suspected, when he would not let Him go until He blessed him; and it was put before him still more plainly in the new name that was given to him with this explanation, -Thou hast fought with Elohim and with men, and hast conquered.-’ God had met him in the form of a man: God in the angel, according to Hosea 12:4-5, i.e., not in a created angel, but in the Angel of Jehovah, the visible manifestation of the invisible God. Our history does not speak of Jehovah, or the Angel of Jehovah, but of Elohim, for the purpose of bringing out the contrast between God and the creature (K-D, 304).

We are now ready to inquire: Who was this Wonderful Wrestler? Several identifications have been proposed; this writer, however, holds that there is one view, and one only, that is in accord with the teaching of the Bible as a whole (as we shall see infra). In the meantime, let us examine some of the proposed interpretations, some of which are far-fetched, to say the least. This story, the antiquity of which is obvious, is probably the basic legend in the O.T. Jacob prevailed over his supernatural opponent; cf. Hosea 12:3-4.. A point to be noted is the superhuman strength ascribed to Jacob; with this may be compared the implications of Gen 28:18, according to which Jacob himself set up the pillar at Bethel, and of Gen 29:10, where he alone and unaided moved a stone which normally could be moved only through the combined efforts of a number of men (cf. Genesis 29:8-10). All three passages seem to echo the representation of Jacob as a giant (IBG, 724). Concerning Genesis 32:26Let me go, for the dawn is breaking, Skinner writes: It is a survival of the widespread belief in spirits of the night which must vanish at dawn (cf. Hamlet, Act I, Scene 1), and as such, a proof of the extreme antiquity of the legend. This commentator goes on to say, with respect to the blessing imparted in the form of a new name conferred on Jacob in memory of this crowning struggle of his life: Such a name [Israel] is a true -blessing-’ as a pledge of victory and success to the nation which bears it.. This can hardly refer merely to the contests with Laban and Esau; it points rather to the existence of a fuller body of legend, in which Jacob figured as the hero of many combats, culminating in this successful struggle with deity. Again: In its fundamental conception the struggle at Peniel is not a dream or vision like that which came to Jacob at Bethel; nor is it an allegory of the spiritual life, symbolising the inward travail of a soul helpless before some overhanging crisis of its destiny. It is a real physical encounter which is described, in which Jacob measures his strength and skill against a divine antagonist, and -prevails-’ though at the cost of a bodily injury. No more boldly anthropomorphic narrative is found in Genesis; and unless we shut our eyes to some of its salient features, we must resign the attempt to translate it wholly into terms of religious experience. We have to do with a legend, originating at a low level of religion, in process of accommodation to the purer ideas of revealed religion.. In the present passage the god was probably not Yahwe originally, but a local deity, a night-spirit who fears the dawn and refuses to disclose his name. Dr. Frazer has pointed out that such stories as this are associated with water-spirits, and cites many primitive customs which seem to rest on the belief that a river resents being crossed, and drowns many who attempt it. He hazards the conjecture that the original deity of this passage was the spirit of the Jabbok.. Like many patriarchal theophanies, the narrative accounts for the foundation of a sanctuarythat of Peniel.. By J and E the story was incorporated in the national epos as part of the history of Jacob. The God who wrestles with the patriarch is Yahwe; and how far the wrestling was understood as a literal fact remains uncertain. To these writers the main interest lies in the origin of the name Israel, and the blessing bestowed on the nation in the person of its ancestor. A still more refined interpretation is found, it seems to me, in Hosea 12:4-5: -In the womb he overreached his brother, and in his prime he strove with God. He strove with the Angel and prevailed; he wept and made supplication to him.-’ The substitution of the Angel of Yahwe for the divine Being Himself shows increasing sensitiveness to anthropomorphism; and the last line appears to mark an advance in the spiritualising of the incident, the subject being not the Angel (as Gunkel and others hold) but Jacob, whose -prevailing-’ thus becomes that of importunate prayer. We may note in a word Steuernagel’s ethnological interpretation. He considers the wrestling to symbolize a victory of the invading Israelites over the inhabitants of N. Gilead. The change of name reflects the fact that a new nation (Israel) arose from the fusion of the Jacob and Rachel tribes (ICCG, 411-412).

A somewhat modified view of the incident under consideration here is that of JB (53, n.): This enigmatic story, probably -Yahwistic,-’ speaks of a physical struggle, a wrestling with God from which Jacob seems to emerge victor. Jacob recognizes the supernatural character of his adversary and extorts a blessing from him. The text, however, avoids using the name of Yahweh and the unknown antagonist will not give his name. The author has made use of an old story as a means of explaining the name -Peniel-’ (-face of God-’) and the origin of the name -Israel.-’ At the same time he gives the story a religious significance; the patriarch holds fast to God and forces from him a blessing; henceforth all who bear Israel’s name will have a claim on God. It is not surprising that this dramatic scene later served as an image of the spiritual combat and of the value of persevering prayer (St. Jerome, Origen).

It should be noted, in this connection, that the assumptions which form the basis of the views presented in the foregoing excerpts are completely without benefit of any external (historical) evidence whatsoever. They simply echo the general conclusions which originated largely in the thinking of Sir James Frazer (1854-1941), the Scottish anthropologist, as set forth in his monumental work, The Golden Bough. (Incidentally, many of these conclusions have been quite generally abandoned). As a matter of fact, the general theory under consideration had its first beginnings in the early twentieth-century effort to apply the evolution yardstick to every phase of human history and life. On this view religion is explained as a progressive refinement of human thinking about the various aspects of the mystery of being, especially those of death and life, originating with primitive animism according to which practically everythingand especially every living thingwas supposed to have its own particular tutelary spirit (either benevolent or demonic); then advancing to polytheism, in which the numerous gods and goddesses became personifications of natural forces; then to henotheism, in which a particular deity emerged as the sovereign of the particular pantheon; this leading naturally, it was said, to monotheism. But, according to this view, monotheism (such as that of the Bible) is yet not the end product. That end is, and will be, pantheism, in which God becomes one with the totality of being, the sum total of all intelligences constituting the mind of God and the sum total of all material things becoming the body of God, so to speak. This, we are assured, the so-called religion of the intellectual, is bound to prevail universally. We are reminded of the man who once said that if he were a pantheist his first act of devotion on awakening each morning would be that of turning over and reverently kissing his pillow. It should be clearly seen that these various speculations as to the purpose of this account of Jacob’s wrestling, and as to the identity of the mysterious Wrestler himself, ignore completely the claim which the Bible makes for itself on almost every page, viz., that of bearing the imprimatur of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth (John 15:26-27; John 16:13-15). Generally speaking, anthropologists and sociologists are in the same class with those disciples of John whom the Apostle Paul found at Ephesus (Acts 19:3) who declared that they did not even know that there is a Holy Spirit.

Of course, the identity of the Mysterious (Wonderful) Wrestler is inseparably linked with the divine purpose implicit in the whole incident. On this latter subject, Dr. Speiser writes as follows: On several occasions, Abraham was favored with an insight into the divine purpose: the Covenant [ch. 15], the Cities of the Plain [ch. 18], the Ordeal of Isaac [ch. 22]. The wonder is greater in the case of Jacob, who would not appear offhand to be marked as an agent of destiny. Yet Jacob is afforded a glimpse of a higher role through the medium of his vision at Bethel, on the eve of his long sojourn with Laban. Now that he is about to return to Canaan, he is given a forewarning at Mahanaim, and is later subjected to the supreme test at Penuel. The general purpose of the Penuel episode should be thus sufficiently clear. In the light of the instance just cited, such manifestations either serve as forecasts or as tests. Abraham’s greatest trial came at Moriah (ch. 22). That the meaning of Mahanaim was similar in kind, though clearly not in degree, is indicated by the [Hebrew text]. The real test, however, was reserved for Penuela desperate noctural struggle with a nameless adversary whose true nature did not dawn on Jacob until the physical darkness had begun to lift. The reader, of course, should not try to spell out details that the author himself glimpsed as if through a haze. But there can surely be no doubt as to the far-reaching implications of the encounter. Its outcome is ascribed to the opponent’s lack of decisive superiority. Yet this explanation should not be pressed unduly. For one thing, Jacob’s injury was grave enough to cost him the contest, if such a result had been desired. And for another thing, the description now embodies three distinct aetiologies: (1) The basis for the name Israel; the change of names is itself significant of an impending change in status (as with Abraham and Sarah: see Genesis 17:5; Genesis 17:15); (2) the origin of the name Penuel, for which a basis is laid in Genesis 32:21-22 by their fivefold use of the stem pny (von Rad); (3) the dietary taboo about the sciatic muscle. Any one of these motifs would suffice to color the whole account. One may conclude, accordingly, that the encounter at Penuel was understood as a test of Jacob’s fitness for the larger tasks that lay ahead. The results were encouraging. Though he was left alone to wrestle through the night with a mysterious assailant, Jacob did not falter. The effort left its marka permanent injury to remind Jacob of what had taken place, and to serve perhaps as a portent of things to come. Significantly enough, Jacob is henceforth a changed person. The man who could be a party to a cruel hoax that was played on his father and brother, and who fought Laban’s treachery with crafty schemes of his own, will soon condemn the vengeful deed by Simeon and Levi (ch. 34) by invoking a higher concept of morality (ABG, 256).

The Heavenly Visitant: an unknown person, writes Jamieson, appeared suddenly to oppose his [Jacob’S] entrance into Canaan. Jacob engaged in the encounter with all the mental energy, and grasped his opponent with all the physical tenacity he could exert; till the stranger, unable to shake him off or to vanquish him, touched the hollow of Jacob’s thighthe socket of the femoral jointwhich was followed by an instant and total inability to continue the contest, This mysterious person is called an angel by Jacob himself (Genesis 48:15-16) and God (Genesis 32:28; Genesis 32:30; Hosea 12:3-4); and the opinion that is most supported. is, that he was -the angel of the covenant,-’ who, in a visible form, preluding the incarnation, as was frequently done, appeared to animate the mind, and sympathize with the distress, of his pious servant (CECG, 215). It should be noted here, as pointed out infra by C.H.M. (Mackintosh), that it was not Jacob wrestling with a man, but a man wrestling with Jacob. The Mysterious Wrestler sought to accomplish some special end in and for Jacob, not vice versa. Mackintosh continues: in Jacob’s case, the divine object was to bring him to see what a poor, feeble, worthless creature he was, etc, We must not lose sight of this most important aspect of the whole incident. Jacob simply had to get away from (crucify) self, in order to steadily and happily walk with God. (Just as Christiansindeed the saints of all agesmust take up the yoke of self-crucifixion before they can truly company with Christ: cf. Matthew 11:29-30; Galatians 6:14).

Who was the man who wrestled with Jacob? Lange writes: Some have absurdly held that he was an assassin sent by Esau. Origen: The night-wrestler was an evil spirit (Ephesians 6:12). Other fathers hold that he was a good angel. The correct view is that he was the constant revealer of God, the Angel of the Lord. Delitzsch holds -that it was a manifestation of God, who through the angel was represented and visible as a man.-’ The well-known refuge from the reception of the Angel of the Incarnation! In his view, earlier explained and refuted, Jacob could not be called the captain, prince of God, but merely the captain, prince of the Angel. -No one writer in the Pentateuch,-’ Knobel says, -so represents God under the human form of things as this one.-’ Jacob surely, with his prayers and tears, has brought God, or the Angel of the Lord, more completely into the human form and likeness than had ever occurred before. The man with whom he wrestles is obviously not only the angel, but the type also of the future incarnation of God. As the angel of his face, however, he marks the development of the form of the angel of revelation which is taken up and carried on in Exodus. The angel and type of the incarnation is at the same time an angel and type of atonement. When Kurtz says -that God here meets Jacob as an enemy, that he makes an hostile attack,-’ the expressions are too strong. There is an obvious distinction between a wrestler and one who attacks an enemy, leaving out of view the fact, that there is nothing said here as to which party made the assault. After the revelations which Jacob received at Bethel, Haran, and Mahanaim, a peculiar hostile relation to God is out of the question. So much, certainly, is true, that Jacob, to whom no mortal sins are imputed for which he must overcome the wrath of God (Kurtz, the divine wrath is not overcome, but atoned), must now be brought to feel that in all his sins against men he has striven and sinned against God, and that he must first of all be reconciled to him, for all the hitherto unrecognized sins of his life. The wrestling of Jacob has many points of resemblance to the restoration of Peter (John 21). As this history of Peter does not treat of the reconstituting of his general relation to Jesus, but rather of the perfecting of that relation, and with this of the restitution of his apostolic calling and office, so here the struggle of Jacob does not concern so much the question of his fundamental reconciliation with Jehovah, but the completion of that reconciliation and the assurance of his faith in his patriarchal calling. And if Christ then spake to Peter, when thou wast young thou girdedst thyself, etc., in order that he might know that henceforth an entire reliance upon the leading and protection of God must take the place of his sinful feeling of his own strength and his attachment to his own way, so, doubtless, the lameness of Jacob’s thigh has the same significance, with this difference, that as Peter must be cured of the self-will of his rash, fiery temperament, so Jacob from his selfish prudence, tending to more cunning. A like relation holds between their old and new names. The name Simon, in the narrative of Peter’s restoration, points to his old nature, just as here the name Jacob to the old nature of Israel (CDHCG, 554-555).

Let the following excerpt give the conclusion of the whole matter, the only conclusion that is in harmony with Biblical teaching as a whole: Vv. 24-28. The Son of God in human form appeared to Jacob as if he intended to cast him down; but Jacob, enabled of God with bodily, and chiefly spiritual strength, in fervent prayer prevailed over what opposition Christ gave him. To render him sensible of his weakness, Christ disjointed his thigh, 2 Corinthians 12:7; but after encouraging his supplications, he changed his name as a token of bettering his condition. Hence, when the church is represented as infirm, she is called Jacob, Amos 7:2; Amos 7:5; Amos 7:8; Isaiah 41:14; but when her valor and excellency are signified, she is called Israel, Galatians 6:16.Thus God gave Jacob strength to overcome, and also the reward and praise of the victory (SIBG, 266). (On The Angel of Jehovah, see again my Genesis, Vol. III, pp. 216-220, 375-377, 496-500).

(4) The Change of Name, Genesis 32:26-29. Genesis 32:26The Mysterious Wrestler said to Jacob, Let me go, that is to say, literally, send me away; meaning that he yielded the victory to Jacob, assigning as his reason, for the day breaks, that is, the dawn is ascending; meaning, it is time for you to proceed to your other duties. Or, perhaps the heavenly Visitant was not willing that the vision which was meant for Jacob only should be seen by others, or perhaps that His own glory should be seen by Jacob, And Jacob replied, I will not let you go, except you bless me. And the Heavenly Wrestler said, What is your name? (not as if demanding to be informed, but to direct attention to it in view of the change about to be made in it). And the patriarch replied, Jacob. Said the Other, Your name shall be called no more, Jacob, that is, Heel-catcher or Supplanter (cf. Genesis 25:26), but Israel, prince of God, or perhaps wrestler with God. Instead of a supplanter, he has now become the holy wrestler with God, hence his name is no longer Jacob, but Israel. There is no trace in his after-history of the application of his wisdom to mere selfish and cunning purposes. But the new name confirms to him in a word the theocratic promise, as the name Abraham confirmed it to Abram (Genesis 35:10) (Lange). And hast prevailed: having overcome in his wrestling with God, he need have no fears concerning his approaching meeting with Esau. The question about Jacob’s name is rhetorical. The object is to contrast the old name with the new and thereby mark the change in Jacob’s status (Speiser). The name [Israel] is best explained etymologically as -May El persevere.-’ But both Jacob and Israel are treated here symbolically, to indicate the transformation of a man once devious (Jacob) into a forthright and resolute fighter (Speiser, 255). Just as God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, He now changes Jacob’s name to Israel, by which the Hebrews are henceforth to be known. It is a name for the people and for an individual. The normative use of Israel in the Bible denotes the people just as American denotes a citizen of the United States (HSB, 54, n.). It shall no more be said that you attained the blessings by -supplanting-’ (root akab), but through -superiority-’ (root sar). God will appear to you at Bethel, change your name and bless you; I will be there too and admit your right to the blessings (Rashi) (SC, 200). In Scripture the name indicates the nature of the office; here the change of a name denoted the exaltation of person and of dignity. Jacob was raised to be a prince, and a prince with God! A royal priesthood was conferred upon him; the privilege of admission into the Divine presence, and the right of presenting petitions, and of having them granted. And all this was granted to him, not as an individual merely, but as a public personagethe head and representative ofthose who in after-times should possess like faith and a similar spirit of prayer. Nothing could be more dissimilar than Israel’s real dignity and his outward conditionan exile and a suppliant, scarcely escaped from the hands of Laban, and seemingly about to perish by the revenge of his brotheryetpossessing an invisible power that secured the success of his undertakings. By prayer he could prevail with God; and through Him who overrules all the thoughts of the heart, he could prevail with men also, though they are harder to be entreated than the King of kings.. The word men is in the plural, as indicating that he had not only prevailed over Isaac and over Laban, who presented obstacles to the fulfilment of the Divine promise, but that he would prevail in overcoming the wrath of his vindictive brother, and giving him a pledge that, wherever he might go, he would be an object of the Divine care and protection (Jamieson, 216). Man is a child of two worlds, Genesis 2:7. His body is of the dust, but his spirit is the Breath of God, inbreathed by God Himself, For twenty years these two natures had striven with each other [in Jacob]. This struggle is typical. There is no assurance that good will triumph of itself; it must be supported by strength of will and determination for the right, which endure for all time and under all circumstances. Men become changed, blessed by the very evil powers with which they have striven, No longer the old Jacob, but now the new Israel, Yet man never remains unscathed. Victory over evil is never gained in the darkness of the night. So with the dawn Jacob became a new man, with an appropriate new name, -Champion of God.-’ Then he crossed the river (Morgenstern).

A like relation holds, writes Lange, between the old and new names of Jacob and Peter. The name Simon, in the narrative of Peter’s restoration (John 21), points to his old nature, just as here the name Jacob to the old nature of Israel. Simon’s nature, however, was not purely evil, but tainted with evil. This is true also of Jacob. He must be purified and freed from his sinful cunning, but not from his prudence and constant perseverance. Into these latter features of his character he was consecrated as Israel. The name Abram passes over into the name Abraham, and is ever included in it; the name Isaac has in itself a two-fold significance, which intimates the laughter of doubt, and that of a joyful faith; but the name Jacob goes along with that of Israel, not merely because the latter was preeminently the name of the people, nor because in the new-birth the old life continues side by side, and only gradually disappears, but also because it designates an element of lasting worth, and still further, because Israel must be continually reminded of the contrast between its merely natural and its sacred destination. The sacred and honored name of the Israelitish people, descends from this night-wrestling of Israel, just as the name Christian comes from the birth and name of Christ. The peculiar destination of the Old-Testament children of the covenant is that they should be warriors, princes of God, men of prayer, who carry on the conflicts of faith to victory. Hence the name Israelites attains completeness in that of Christians, those who are divinely blessed, the anointed of God. The name Jews, in its derivation from Judah, in their Messianic destination, forms the transition between these names. They are those who are praised, who are a praise and glory to God. But the contrast between the cunning, running into deceit, which characterized the old nature of Jacob, and the persevering struggle of faith and prayer of Israel, pervades the whole history of the Jewish people, and hence Hosea (ch. Hosea 12:1 ff.) applies it to the Jewish people.. The force of this contrast lies in this, that in the true Israelite there is no guile, since he is purified from guile (John 1:47), and that Christ, the king of Israel (John 1:44), is without guile, while the deceit of the Jacob nature reaches its most terrible and atrocious perfection in the kiss of Judas (CDHCG, 555).

Genesis 32:29Jacob now requests the Mysterious Wrestler to reveal His name. The actual meaning of this request was obviously equivalent to asking the latter to reveal His identity. The reply is in part the same as that of the Angel who was asked the same question by Manoah (Judges 13:18), only here the continuation of the answer is omitted’Seeing it is wonderful.-’ Several reasons for the somewhat evasive reply may be discerned. The one that presents itself first is that the question in reply practically means: -Why ask to know My identity, seeing you already know it?-’ Add to this the fact that, as Luther indicates, the failure to reply leaves the name as well as the whole experience shrouded in mystery, and mysteries invite further reflection. In spiritual experiences there is and must be the challenge of the mysterious. In spiritual experiences there is and must be the challenge of the mysterious. A spiritual experience so lucid that a man sees through and is able to analyze every part of it must be rather shallow. And lastly, the blessing about to be imparted is a further revelation of His name and being, that carries Jacob as far as he needs to be brought.. The blessing spoken of is an added blessing. The substance of this added blessing we do not know. Luther’s supposition is as much to the point as any when he remarks that it may have been the great patriarchal blessing concerning the coming Messiah through whom as Jacob’s -seed-’ all the families of the earth were to be blessed (EG, 280-281).

(5) Peniel, Genesis 32:30. The remembrance of the mysterious struggle with the celestial Wrestler Jacob now perpetuated in the name which he gave to the place where it had occurred. He named the place Peniel: for, said he, I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. The significance of this statement is the fact that he had seen God face to face, and yet lived (cf. Exodus 33:11, Deuteronomy 34:10, Isaiah 6:5); cf. especially Exodus 33:20. Peniel, also called Penuel, meant face of God. This was one of the two towns east of the Jordan which was destroyed by Gideon because it had refused to aid him in his pursuit of the Midianites (Judges 8:8 ff., esp. Judges 8:17, also 1 Kings 12:25). The common belief in ancient Israel was that no mortal could see God’s face and live, Exodus 33:20 (Morgenstern).

The reason for the name is assigned in the sentence, I have seen God face to face, etc. Divine manifestations deserve to be commemorated in every possible way. Jacob marks this one for himself and for his descendants by giving a distinctive name to the place where it occurred. Though -Peniel-’ like -Mahanaim-’ has not been definitely located, it may still be a used ford of the Jabbok near Jordan and is mentioned in Judges 8 and 1 Kings 12:25. This name should not be said to be -derived from an incidental feature of the experience.-’ That would be the equivalent of saying: Jacob was unhappy in his choice of a name for this memorable spot. Of course, his experience was a purifying one that was to break self-trust and cast him wholly upon God’s mercy. But this experience centered in a personal encounter with God, a direct meeting of God, a seeing of Him, though not with the eye of the body. Does not the whole experience, then, sum itself up as a seeing of God and living to tell of it, though sinful nature should perish at so holy a contact? The name touches upon the essence of Jacob’s experience. For Peni-’el means -face of God.-’ The explanation really says more than -my life, or soul, was spared.-’ For natsal means -delivered-’ or -preserved.-’ God did more than let no harm come to Jacob; He again restored him who otherwise would surely have perished.. With an adequate and historically accurate account of the origin of the name -Peniel-’ before us, we may well wonder at those who under such circumstances gor far afield and try to account for its origin by comparing the Phoenician promontory of which Strabo speaks, which was called theou prosopon (-face of God-’). Those who have lost their respect for God’s Word no longer hear what it says and make fools of themselves in their wisdom by inventing fanciful explanations for that which has been supplied with an authentic explanation (EG, 881-882). (Cf. 1 Corinthians 2:14; 1 Corinthians 1:18-30).

Penielthe face of God. The reason of this name is assigned in the sentence, I have seen God face to face. He is at first called a man. Hosea terms him the angel (Genesis 12:4-5 (3, 4). And here Jacob names him God. Hence some men, deeply penetrated with the ineffable grandeur of the divine nature, are disposed to resolve the first act at least into an impression on the imagination. We do not pretend to define with undue nicety the mode of this wrestling. And we are far from saying that every sentence of Scripture is to be understood in a literal sense. But until some cogent reason be assigned, we do not feel at liberty to depart from the literal sense in this instance. The whole theory of a revelation from God to man is founded upon the principle that God can adapt himself to the apprehension of the being whom he has made in his own image. This principle we accept, and we dare not limit its application further than the demonstrative laws of reason and conscience demand. If God walk in the garden with Adam, expostulate with Cain, give a specification of the ark to Noah, partake of the hospitality of Abraham, take Lot by the hand to deliver him from Sodom, we cannot affirm that he may not, for a worthy end, enter into a bodily conflict with Jacob. These various manifestations of God to man differ only in degree. If we admit any one, we are bound by parity of reason to accept all the others (Murphy, MG, 414).

Genesis 32:31-32: The sun rose upon Jacob as he passed over Penuel, and he limped upon his thigh. The run rose upon him: there was sunshine within and sunshine without. When Judas went forth on his dark design, we read, -It was night,-’ John 13:30. He halted on his thigh: thus carrying with him a memorial of his conflict, as Paul afterwards bore about with him a stake in his flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7) A new day of light and of hope was dawning for Jacob after the night of gloom and despair. Note the phrases, the hollow of Jacob’s thigh and in the sinew of the hip. With the rising of the sun after the night of his conflict, the night of anguish and fear also passed away from Jacob’s mind, so that he was able to leave Penuel in comfort, and go forward on his journey. The dislocation of the thigh alone remained. For this reason the children of Israel are accustomed to avoid eating the nervus ischiadicus, the principal nerve in the neighborhood of the hip, which is easily injured by any violent strain in wrestling. -Upon this day-’: the remark is applicable still (K-D, 307). There is no mention of this ancient food-law elsewhere in the Bible (JB, 55). God did not demand this ritual observance in the Mosaic law, but the descendants of Israel of their own accord instituted the practice because they recognized how extremely important this experience of Jacob was for him and for themselves. Some interpret this gidh hannasheh to be the sciatic nerve. Delitzsch tells us that Jewish practice defines it as the inner vein on the hindquarter together with the outer vein plus the ramifications of both (EG, 883). The author explains the custom of the Israelites, in not eating of the sinew of the thigh, by a reference to this touch of the hip of their ancestor by God. Through this divine touch, this sinew, like the blood (ch. Genesis 9:4) was consecrated and sanctified to God, This custom is not mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament; the Talmudists, however (Tract, Cholin, Mischna, 7), regard it as a law, whose transgression was to be punished with several stripes (Knobel) (Lange, 550).

Hebrew, nervus ischiaticus, the nerve or tendon that extends from the top of the thigh down the whole leg to the ankles.. Josephus (Antiquities, Bk. I, ch. 20, sec. 2) renders it more correctly the broad sinew. -Jacob himself,-’ continues that historian, abstained from eating that sinew ever afterwards; and for his sake it is still not eaten by us.-’ The practice of the Jews in abstaining from eating this in the flesh of animals is not founded on the law of Moses, but is merely a traditional usage. The sinew is carefully extracted; and where there are no persons skilled enough for that operation, they do not make use of the hind legs at all. Abstinence from this particular article of animal food is universally practised by the Jews. and is so peculiar a custom in their daily observance, that as the readers of -The Jews in China-’ will remember, the worship of that people is designated by the name of the Teaou-kin-keaou, or -Pluck-sinew-religion.-’ This remarkable incident formed a turning-point in the life of Jacoba point at which he was raised above the deceit and the worldliness of his past life into higher and more spiritual relations with God. Those who regard it as a vision, an ecstasy during which all the powers of his nature were intensely excited, so that, in fact, he was above and out of himself, consider the impression made upon his limb as the effect of -a mental struggle, involving a strain so severe, not on the moral only, but also on the physical being of the terrified man, that the muscles of his body bore the mark ever after. Such results of wild emotion are not of infrequent occurrence in persons of enthusiastic temperament, as is exemplified by the proceedings of the dancing dervishes of our own time.-’ But that it was not merely a vision or internal agony of the soulthat it was a real transactionappears not only from a new designation given to Jacob himself, which was always in memory of some remarkable event, and from the significant name which he bestowed upon the scene of this occurrence, but from the fact of the wound he received being in a part of his body so situated that Jacob must have been assured no mere man could have so touched it as to effect a dislocation. No objection can be urged against the appearance of the Divine Being on this occasion in the form of humanity that will not equally militate against the reality of similar manifestations already regarded as being made in the experience of the patriarchs. There was a special propriety in the appearance of -the angel of the Lord-’ as a man on this occasion, and in his assuming the attitude of a foe, to convince Jacob that, in order to overcome his formidable brother, he must first overcome God, not by the carnal weapons with which he had heretofore obtained his advantages over men, but by the spiritual influence of faith and prayer. Hence, when the contest was at first carried on as between man and man, Jacob appeared more athletic and powerful. But his antagonist having wounded him in such a manner as could only have been done by a being of a superior nature, his eyes were opened: he found himself unconsciously striving with God, and his self-confidence utterly failed, so that forthwith he desisted from the struggle, and had recourse to supplication and tears (Hosea 12:4). In short, this wrestling was a symbolic act, designed to show Jacob that he had no hope of conquering his powerful foe by stratagem, reliance on his own strengthas his lameness indeed provedor by any other means than a firm, unwavering trust in the word of that covenant God who had promised (ch. Genesis 28:13-15), and would establish him in, the possession of Canaan as an inheritance to his posterity. -Hosea clearly teaches that Jacob merely completed, by his wrestling with God, what he had already been engaged in from his mother’s wombviz., his striving for the birthright; in other words, for the possession of the covenant promise and the covenant blessing-’ (Delitzsch) (Jamieson, CECG, 216, 217).

(6) Reconciliation with Esau (Genesis 33:1-17). All preparations as recorded in chapter 32 having been completed, at daybreak Jacob had just crossed the stream when he looked ahead and behold, Esau was coming, and one glance was sufficient to show that the brother was accompanied by his contingent of four hundred men. Jacob then took certain other precautionary measures. He arranged his wives and his children in climactic order so that the most beloved came last and hence were in the proper position to be spared if none else, were. The maids with their children were in the front, Leah with hers were in the middle, and Rachel with Joseph were at the rear of the procession. Jacob then put himself in the forefront, thus to be first in the way of danger should any develop. As he proceeded toward his brother he bowed himself seven times. The manner of doing this is by looking towards a superior and bowing with the upper part of the body brought parallel to the ground, then advancing a few steps and bowing again, and repeating this obeisance till, at the seventh time, the suppliant stands in the immediate presence of his superior. This seems to mean that Jacob, on approaching his brother, stopped at intervals and bowed, and then advanced and bowed again, until the seventh bow brought him near to his brother. This was a mark of profound respect, nor need we suppose there was any simulation of humility in it, for it was, and is, customary for elder brothers to be treated by the younger with great respect in the East (SIBG, 267). The sevenfold prostration is a widespread custom attested also in the Amarna letters and those of Ugarit (AtD, 91). Jacob approaches his brother with the reverence befitting a sovereign; the sevenfold prostration is a favorite formula of homage in the Tel Amarna tablets: -At the feet of my Lord, my Sun, I fall down seven and seven times.-’ It does not follow, however, that Jacob acknowledged himself Esau’s vassal (ICCG, 413). Other commentators differ somewhat: e.g., By this manifestation of deep reverence (not complete prostrastion, but a deep Oriental bow, in which the head approaches the ground, but does not touch it), Jacob hoped to win his brother’s heart. He humbled himself before him as the elder, with the feeling that he had formerly sinned against him. Esau, on the other hand, -had a comparatively better, but not so tender a conscience.-’ At the sight of Jacob he was carried away by the natural feelings of brotherly affection, and running up to him, embraced him, fell on his neck, and kissed him; and they both wept.. Even if there was still some malice in Esau’s heart, it was overcome by the humility with which his brother met him, so that he allowed free course to the generous emotions of his heart; all the more, because the -roving life-’ which suited his nature had procured him such wealth and power, that he was quite equal to his brother in earthly possessions (K-D, 307, 308). Commentators differ in their interpretation of the emotions of the two brothers in this confrontation. It is difficult to characterize, writes Skinner, the spirit in which the main incident is conceived. Was Esau’s purpose friendly from the first, or was he turned from thoughts of vengeance by Jacob’s submissive and flattering demeanor? Does the writer regard the reconciliation as equally honorable to both parties, or does he only admire the skill and knowledge of human nature with which Jacob tames his brother’s ferocity? The truth probably lies between two extremes. That Esau’s intention was hostile, and that Jacob gained a diplomatic victory over him, cannot reasonably be doubted. On the other hand, the narrator must be acquitted of a desire to humiliate Esau. If he was vanquished by generosity, the noblest qualities of manhood were released in him; and he displays a chivalrous magnanimity which no appreciative audience could ever have held in contempt, So far as any national feeling is reflected, it is one of genuine respect and goodwill towards the Edomites (ICCG, 412). Only God working in the heart of Esau explains the change in him as he greets Jacob in a friendly, not in a hostile, manner (HSB, 55).Speiser seems to present the most sensible view: The meeting between the two brothers turned out to be an affectionate reunion. Jacob’s apprehensions had proved unfounded and his elaborate precautions altogether unnecessary. While the intervening twenty years could not erase Jacob’s sense of guilt, Esau’s resentment had long since vanished (ABG, 260). Esau ran. fell on his neck and kissed him. What a sudden and surprising change! Whether the sight of the princely present and the profound homage of Jacob had produced this effect, or it had proceeded from the impulsive character of Esau, the cherished enmity of twenty years in a moment disappeared; the weapons of war were laid aside, and the warmest tokens of mutual affection reciprocated between the brothers. But doubtless the efficient cause was the secret, subduing influence of grace (Proverbs 21:1) which converted Esau from an enemy into a friend. This is an exact description of a meeting between relatives in the East, especially to a member of the family who has returned home after a long absence. They place their hands on his neck, kiss each cheek, and then lean their heads for some seconds, during their fond embrace, on each other’s shoulders. It is their customary mode of testifying affection, and though it might not have been expected from Esau to Jacob, his receiving his brother with such a cordial greeting was in accordance with the natural kindness and generosity of his character (Jamieson, 217). (Cf. Luke 15:20). So it comes about that in this chapter, as in some of the earlier ones, Esau seems at first the better of the two brothers. Jacob is full of inhibitions; Esau has none, and lets himself go wherever the flood of his emotion turns. Jacob makes his elaborate plans to placate what he thinks will be Esau’s long-cherished wrath. Esau has dismissed that long ago, and the instinct uppermost in him is just the old one of kinship. So he ran to meet Jacob, and fell on his neck, and-’ kissed him. He is unconcerned with all the presents Jacob tries to urge upon him; he does not want them. And note the difference in the way each of the two speaks to the other. Jacob, fearful and anxious, says of the presents he is offering, These are to find grace in the sight of my lord. But Esau waves them aside, because he has enough, and because Jacob is my brother. How strange are the mingled elements in human characters! Esau was to be reckoned as the -profane-’ man; and in the end, of the two he was the failure. Yet in immediate ways he seemed often so much more attractive: for he was vigorous, warmhearted, and too essentially good-natured to carry a grudge. One can see men like him in every generationimpulsive, friendly men who seem to like everybody, and whom it is easy for everybody to like. Yet their fatal weakness may be, as with Esau, that they are too easygoing to care greatly about the values of life that matter most. Consider, on the other hand, Jacob. Even yet he was not finished with the consequences of old wrongs. He is distrustful of Esau because he knows that he has not deserved kindness at his hands. That is always one of the possible penalties of wrongdoing. A man projects into the imagined feelings of others the condemnation he inwardly visits upon himself. He dares not assume their good will, or even take the risk of believing in it when it is made plain. So Jacob not only tried anxiously to buy Esau’s favor, but when Esau showed that he had it without any price, Jacob was still incredulous; and the one thing he wanted to do was to separate from Esau as soon as he plausibly could (Genesis 32:12-15). And yet, and yetthis Jacob is the one who at Peniel had -prevailed,-’ had -seen God face to face,-’ and who would prevail. The reason was in the fact which the earlier Chapter s already had prefigured, that this man in spite of his faults never lost the consciousness that his life must try to relate itself to God (IBG, 730, 731). We must conclude that in this closing scene in the lives of these two brothers, Esau was still being Esau. After all, the only charge against him is that he was profane: he lived his life outside the temple of God, out in this present evil world. And Jacob, in spite of the fact of his growth in his spiritual life, was still, to some extent; Jacob. And as Jacob he would before much time had elapsed suffer the loss of his beloved Rachel and in his later years experience a more terrible deception, one that would involve profound tragedy leading to what was equivalent to exile from the Land of Promise and subsequent galling bondage for his posterity.

Genesis 32:5-7: We read that Esau’s eyes fell on the women and children who were following Jacob, and naturally he inquired as to who they were. Jacob replied, The children with whom Elohim has graciously favored me. Whereupon the mothers and their children approached in order, also making reverential obeisance. Genesis 32:8-11: Esau then inquired about the company (A.V., drove) that had met him, that is, the presents of cattle that were sent to meet him, and, assuring Jacob that he had enough of this world’s goods, at first refused to accept this gift; on Jacob’s insistence however, he was finally persuaded to do so. Note Genesis 32:10 especially: The thought is this: In thy countenance I have been met with divine (heavenly) friendliness (cf. 1 Samuel 29:9, 2 Samuel 14:17). Jacob might say this without cringing, since he -must have discerned the work of God in the unexpected change in his brother’s disposition toward him, and in his brother’s friendliness a reflection of the divine.-’ Genesis 32:11I have enough, literally, all. Not all kinds of things; but viz., as the heir of the Divine Promise.

Genesis 32:12-15. Esau proposes to accompany Jacob on his way. The latter, however, declines. Some commentators persist in thinking that Jacob was still suspicious of Esau’s intentions. This hardly seems possible. We prefer the explanation which Jacob himself made: it has the ring of truth. Lastly, Esau proposed to accompany Jacob on his journey. But Jacob politely declined not only his own company, but also the escort, which Esau afterwards offered him, of a portion of his attendants; the latter as being unnecessary, the former as likely to be injurious to his flocks. This did not spring from any feeling of distrust; and the ground assigned was no mere pretext. He needed no military guard, for he knew he was defended by the hosts of God; his refusal was dictated by the exigencies of his household and his animals: a caravan, with small children and cattle that required care, could not possibly keep pace with Esau and his horsemen, without suffering harm. And Jacob could hardly expect his brother to accommodate himself to the pace at which he was traveling. For this reason he wished Esau to go on first, explaining that he would drive gently behind, according to the pace at which the cattle and the children could go (Luther). Genesis 32:14until I come unto my lord unto Seir. These words are not to be understood as meaning that he, Jacob, intended to go direct to Seir; consequently they were not a wilful deception for the purpose of getting rid of Esau. Jacob’s destination was Canaan, and in Canaan probably Hebron, where his father Isaac still lived. From thence he may have thought of paying a visit to Esau in Seir. Whether he carried out this intention or not, we cannot tell; for we have not a record of all that Jacob did, but only of the principal events of his life. We afterwards find them both meeting together as friends at their father’s funeral (Genesis 35:29). Again, the attitude of inferiority which Jacob assumed in his conversation with Esau, addressing him as lord, and speaking of himself as servant, was simply an act of courtesy suited to the circumstances, in which he paid to Esau the respect due to the head of a powerful band; since he could not conscientiously have maintained the attitude of a brother, when inwardly and spiritually, in spite of Esau’s friendly meeting, they were so completely separated, the one from the other (K-D, 308-309). (We cannot agree that there was any fawning, any cringing demeanor, on Jacob’s part, in these various exchanges with Esau; that in fact there was anything more involved than the conventional courtesies which have always been given such strict observance among the heads of different clans or tribes of the Near East.)

Here, in chapter 33, the long and fascinating story of the relationship of Esau and Jacob comes to its end. Esau, we are told, sets out on his way unto Seir (not the prospective Mount Seir or the Edom which was the equivalent of Mount Seir, which Esau and his people occupied after Isaac’s death, Genesis 35:27-29, Genesis 36:1-8, but the Land of Seir, the Field of Edom, south and east of Beersheba, over which Esau first extended his occupancy, Genesis 32:3). And Jacob and his retinue pushed on to Shechem (Genesis 33:18) and finally to Hebron (Genesis 35:27).

Jacob journeyed first to Succoth, Genesis 32:17 (that is, booths). Succoth is now usually identified with Tell Deir–‘Alla, a short distance east of the Jordan and north of the Jabbok, i.e., near the point of confluence of the two rivers. The fact that he built a house indicates a residence there of several years, as also does the fact that when Dinah came to Shechem (ch. 34) she was already mature. Jacob erected at this stage his (moveable) house or tent for his family while the booths were for his cattle, The flocks in the East being generally allowed to remain in the open fields by night and day during winter and summer, and seldom put under cover, the erection of booths by Jacob is recorded as an unusual circumstance; and perhaps the almost tropical climate of the Jordan valley may have rendered some shelter necessary. Succoth, which is mentioned here by a prolepsis, was the name given to the first station at which Jacob halted on his arrival in Canaan. His posterity, when dwelling in houses of stone, built a city there and called it Succoth, to commemorate the fact of their ancestor having made it a halting-place (Jamieson, 218). The town itself stood, if its position is rightly indicated on the maps, south of the Jabbok, in the angle formed by this stream and the Jordan, and almost equidistant from both. The name Succoth was derived from the peculiar type of hut or booth built for sheltering cattle. These booths, reported by travelers as being still occupied by Bedouins of the Jordan valley, are described as rude huts of reeds, sometimes covered with long grass, and sometimes with a piece of tent (Whitelaw, PCG, 401). Evidently Succoth was the other town east of the Jordan that was destroyed by Gideon (Judg., ch. 8). The reference to the name and its meaning, booths, seems to indicate that this was a singular circumstance. Jacob’s motive here does not appear, but it was, and is, unusual in the East to put the flocks and herds under cover. They remain night and day, winter and summer, in the open air (SIBG, 267).

Some commentators hold that Jacob was still distrustful of Esau, even at the time of their parting, it would seem, amicably. E.g., the following comment on Genesis 32:14Jacob was still distrustful of Esau. He had himself practised cunning and deception, and now he was harassed by the fear of others, when in reality there was no cause. His words to Esau must have left the impression that he would follow him to Seir at such a pace as the cattle and children could bear; but the moment Esau and his formidable escort set out southward, Jacob turned westward and crossed the Jordan (SIBG, 267). How long Jacob remained in Succoth we cannot determine from the text. We may conclude that he stayed there some years, from the circumstance, that by erecting a house and huts he prepared for a lengthened stay. The motives which induced him to remain there are also unknown to us. But when Knobel adduces the fact, that Jacob came to Canaan for the purpose of visiting Isaac (Genesis 31:18), as a reason why it is improbable that he continued long at Succoth, he forgets that Jacob could visit his father from Succoth just as well as from Shechem, and that, with the number of people and cattle that he had about him, it was impossible that he should join and subordinate himself to Isaac’s household, after having attained through his past life and the promises of God a position of patriarchal independence (K-D, 310). (According to Joshua 13:27, Succoth was in the Jordan valley and was allotted to the tribe of Gad as a part of the district of the Jordan, -on the other side of Jordan eastward,-’ and this is confirmed in Judges 8:4-5.)

(Parenthetically, we call attention to the word -cattle-’ as it is used in the translation of these patriarchal narratives. The student may find the word confusing, because it is used with varying degrees of ambiguity. When the children of Israel arrived in Egypt, they were assigned to the land of Goshen, with its pastoral facilities, where they became herdsmen and shepherds to Pharaoh. The Egyptian economy was that of a feudal system: the land was owned by the Pharaoh.) In the Old Testament, the word mikneh, translated cattle, signifies possessions. The specific words for animals of the bovine species, and for sheep and goats, are occasionally rendered cattle, as is also the word behemah, which means beast in general. Cattle, therefore, in the Old Testament, include varieties of oxen, bullocks, heifers, goats, sheep, and even asses, camels, and horses. (Cf. Genesis 13:2, Exodus 34:19, Leviticus 1:2, Numbers 32:1-5, 1 Kings 1:19, Psalms 50:10, etc.).

3. Jacob at Shechem, Genesis 32:18-20

18 And Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram; and encamped before the city. 19 And he bought the parcel of ground, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of money. 20 And he erected there an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel.

From Succoth, after an indeterminable length of time, Jacob crossed a ford of the Jordan and came in peace to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan. He came in peace: lit. -whole-’ in body, having been healed of his limping; whole financially and in his learning, having forgotten nothing of it in Laban’s house (Rashi) (SC, 204). What Jacob had asked for in his vow at Bethel (Genesis 28:21), prior to his departure from Canaan, was now fulfilled. He had returned in safety to the land of Canaan. Succoth, therefore, did not belong to the land of Canaan, but must have been on the eastern side of the Jordan (K-D, 311).

Jacob came to the city of Shechem: so called from Shechem, the son of the Hivite prince Hamor, Genesis 32:19; Genesis 34:2 ff (K-D). But most writers, following the Septuagint, take Shalem as a proper namea city of (prince) Shechem (cf. ch. 34, Judges 9:28) (Jamieson). (Cf. marginal rendering, A.S.V., to Shalem, a city). There seems very good reason, however, for the view that the original word was adjectival (not a proper name meaning to Shalem) signifying, safe, peaceful, hence enforcing the twofold reference to Jacob’s return in peace (Genesis 32:18. cf. Genesis 28:21). Genesis 12:6 seems to indicate that the city of Shechem was not known in Abraham’s time; we may conclude that Hamor founded it and called it by the name of -his son. In the allocation of the land to the twelve tribes, Shechem fell to Ephraim (Joshua 20:7), but was assigned to the Levites and became a city of refuge (Joshua 21:20-21). It was the scene of the promulgation of the law, when its blessings were announced from Gerizim and its curses from Ebal (Deuteronomy 27:11 ff., Joshua 8:33-35). It was here that Joshua assembled the people just before his death and delivered his farewell address (Joshua 24:1-25). The later history of the site is closely associated with the Samaritans and their sacred mount, Gerizim. The memory of Jacob’s abode there is preserved by Jacob’s Well at Sychar (John 4:1-26): the ruins of Shechem itself have been unearthed by archeologists, at the east end of the pass between Ebal and Gerizim. Sychar is called Shechem in the old Syriac Gospels. (See UBD, HBD).

Jacob pitched his tent before the town, that is, to the east of it. The population of Canaan apparently had risen greatly in numbers, as in the social scale, from the time Abraham had fed his flocks on the free, unoccupied pasture land (or place of Shechem, Genesis 12:6). In Jacob’s day a city had been built on the spot, and the adjoining grounds was private property, a segment of which he had to purchase for the site of his encampment. He bought this piece of ground from the sons of Hamor for 100 Kesitaa coin stamped with the figure of a lamb; it has been supposed from Genesis 23:15-16, that the kesitah was equivalent to four shekels. It is uncertain, however, whether this was its actual value in Canaan in Jacob’s time. (The transliteration here is kesitah; the translation is piece of money; cf. Job 42:11). In all likelihood it was an ingot of precious metal of recognized value. The LXX of Gen 33:19 renders it -lamb-’. In the ancient Middle East precious metals carved in animal shapes were used in various sizes for standard weights and as currency (HBD, s.v.). The circulation of coined money, however, is another proof of the early progress of the Canaanites in social and cultural advancement. This purchase undoubtedly shows us that Jacob, relying on God’s promise, regarded Canaan as his own home and as the home of his seed. Was it not in this field that he afterward sank a well (cf. John 4:6)? This piece of field, which fell to the lot of the sons of Joseph, and where Joseph’s bones were buried (Joshua 24:32), was, according to tradition, the plain which stretches out at the southeastern opening of the valley of Shechem, where Jacob’s well is still pointed out (John 4:6), also Joseph’s grave, a Mahometan wely (grave) two or three hundred paces to the north (K-D, 311). (It is interesting to note the over-all correspondence between Abraham’s purchase of a field and cave from the children of Heth and Jacob’s purchase of a field from the children of Hamor: Genesis 23:16; Genesis 33:19). (The student will find the echoes of this narrative of Jacob at Shechem in Genesis 49:5-7, especially with respect to the deeds of Simeon and Levi, as reported in ch. 34). (Note also the reference in this story to Hamor as a Hivite; cf. Genesis 10:17. Probably, however, we should read with the Greek -Horite,-’ one of an enclave of nonsemitic, uncircumcised groups from the north, Deuteronomy 2:12 ff. (JB, 55). These names, Horites, Philistines, Amorites, Arameans, Canaanites, etc., are used with considerable license throughout the Pentateuch.)

Finally, we read that Jacob erected there (i.e., on his field in the vicinity of Shechem) an altar (as Abraham had done previously after his entrance into Canaan Genesis 12:7), and called it El-Elohe-Israel (God, the mighty, is the God of Israel). That is, he named it with this name or he dedicated it to El-Elohe-Israel. Delitzsch views this title as a kind of superscription. But Jacob’s consecration means more than that his God is not a mere imaginary deity; it means, further, that he has proved himself actually to be God (God is the God of Israel); God in the clear, definite form El, the Mighty, is the God of Israel, the wrestler with God. Israel had experienced both, in the almighty protection which his God had shown him from Bethel throughout his journeyings, and in the wrestlings with him, and learned his might. In the Mosaic period the expression, Jehovah, the God of Israel, takes its place (Exodus 34:23). -The chosen name of God in the book of Joshua-’ (Delitzsch) (Lange, 560).The name of the altar embraces, and stamps upon the memory of the world, the result of the past of Jacob’s life, and the experiences through which Jacob had become Israel (Gosman, in Lange, 560).

The purchase of the ground is referred to in Joshua 24:32 in the story of Joseph’s burial. It is significant that Israel’s claim to the grave of Joseph is based on purchase, just as its right to that of Abraham, ch. 23, writes Skinner (ICCG, 416): in this statement, of course, Israel is used as the name of the nation. This tendency on the part of the earlier critics to identify these names of the patriarchs as being in reality the names of the various peoples or tribes which the patriarchs sired, has been pretty generally exploded by present-day archaeological discoveries; the same is true of the critical presupposition that in all cases in which an altar is said to have been erected by one of the patriarchs, it was in reality a stone pillar (matstsebah) that was set up and regarded as the abode of a tutelary deity. The fact is that the patriarchal altars were preeminently places of sacrifice, hence used for the worship of the living and true God of Hebrew revelation (Genesis 12:8, Genesis 13:18, Genesis 22:9, etc.) The patriarchal altar was the place of communion with God who, in the sacrifice, was approached with a gift. These altars in several instances took on the nature of memorials. Though probably made of earth originally, the law of Moses allowed, as an alternative, the use of unhewn stone (Exodus 20:24-25).

El-elohe-Israel. This does not mean that the altar was called -the God of Israel,-’ but that he gave it a name which commemorated the fact that the miracles were wrought for him by Israel’s (Jacob’S) God. Similarly, we find Moses calling an altar Adonai-nissi (-the Lord is my banner,-’ Exodus 17:15), which likewise does not mean that the altar bore that name, but it testified that -the Lord is my (Moses-’) banner,-’ in praise of Him (Rashi). Nachmanides cites Rashi with approval, and draws attention to such names as Zuriel, Zurishaddai, which also honor God, as they signify, -God is my Rock,-’ -The Almighty is my Rock.-’ Sforno explains that, in his prayer, Jacob called Him His God, employing his changed name, Israel (SC, 204).

After the example of Abraham (Genesis 12:8) as he entered the land, Jacob also builds an altar unto the Lord. The name of the altar embodies the sum of Jacob’s spiritual experience, which he sought to transfer to coming generations. So he gives the altar a name which is in itself a statement to the effect that -the God of Israel-’ is an -el, i.e., -a Strong One,-’ i.e., -a mighty God.-’ Jacob is remembering God’s promise, and God has in an outstanding way proved Himself a God well able to keep His promises. The common name for God, -el, covers this thought. By the use of his own name, -Israel,-’ Jacob indicates that the restored, new man within him was the one that understood this newly acquired truth concerning God. We believe those to be in the wrong who assume that while Jacob was in Paddan-aram he lapsed into the idolatrous ways of men like Laban and so practically forsook the God of his fathers. Nothing points in that direction. The meager evidence available rather points to a fidelity on Jacob’s part, which, though it was not of the strong ethical fibre as was that of Abraham, yet kept him from apostasy. Since it stood in need also of some measure of purification, God took Jacob in hand, especially at Peniel, and raised his faith-life to a higher level (Leupold, EG, 895).

Abraham had, on his landing on the same spot in Canaan, erected an altar; and now Jacob, on his arrival from Paddan-aram, imitates the example of his grandfather from special reasons of his own (cf. Genesis 27:21, last clause, with Genesis 27:28-29). Whether, on its erection, it was dedicated with the formal bestowment of a name which, according to patriarchal usage, would perpetuate the purpose of the monument, or it was furnished with an inscription, we are not informed. The Septuagint omits the name. But it was a beautiful proof of his personal piety, a most suitable conclusion to his journey, and a lasting memorial of a distinguished favour, to raise an altar to -God, the God of Israel.-’ Wherever we pitch a tent, God should have an altar (Jamieson, CECG, 219; italics mineCC).

FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING

Jacob’s Wrestlings

The following comments by Morgenstern (JIBG) are excellent: Then follows an anxious night. Redoubled preparations were made to meet Esau in the morning. Jacob sent his wives and children across the stream hoping their helplessness might touch Esau’s heart. Jacob remained on this side of the stream. He would cross only at the last moment. Possibly he would turn back and -flee, without sheep and cattle, wives and children, to hinder his escape. But there was no place for him to go. Such was Jacob’s guilt-laden mind.. Someone wrestled with him all night long. The Bible calls it a man. Tradition has come to call it an angel (Hosea 12:5).. Was it Jacob’s other self: his wicked, selfish earthly nature, with which he strove all night long?. Man is still a child of two worlds, Genesis 2:7. His body is of dust, but his spirit is the Breath of God, inbreathed by God Himself. For twenty years these two natures had striven with each other. This struggle is typical.. There is no assurance that good will triumph of itself. It must be supported by strength of will and determination for the right, which endure for all time and under all circumstances. Men become changed, blessed by the very evil powers with which they have striven. No longer the old Jacob, but now the new Israel. Yet man never remains unscathed.. Victory over evil is never gained in the darkness of the night. So with the dawn Jacob became a new man, with an appropriate new name, -The Champion of God.-’ Then he crossed the river.

To prayer he [Jacob] adds prudence, and sends forward present after present that their reiteration might win his brother’s heart. This done, he rested for the night; but rising up before the day, he sent forward his wives and children across the ford of the Jabbok, remaining for a while in solitude to prepare his mind for the trial of the day. It was then that -a man-’ appeared and wrestled with him till the morning rose. This -man-’ was the -Angel Jehovah,-’ and the conflict was a repetition in act of the prayer which we have already seen Jacob offering in words. This is clearly stated by the prophet Hosea: -By his strength he had power with God: yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him-’ (Hosea 12:3-4). Though taught his own weakness by the dislocation of his thigh at the angel’s touch, he gained the victory by his importunity*-‘I will not let thee go except thou bless me-’*and he received the new name of ISRAEL (he who strives with God, and prevails), as a sign that -he had prevailed with God, and should therefore prevail with man-’ (Genesis 32:28). Well knowing with whom he had dealt he called the place Peniel (the face of God). -for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.-’ The memory of his lameness, which he seems to have carried with him to his grave (Genesis 32:31), was preserved by the custom of the Israelites not to eat of the sinew in the hollow of the thigh. Its moral significance is beautifully expressed by Wesley:

-Contented now, upon my thigh

I halt till life’s short journey end;

All helplessness, all weaknesses, I

On Thee alone for strength depend;

Nor have I power from Thee to move,

Thy nature and thy name is Love.-’

(OTH, 103).

Dividing all his possessions at the River Jabbok in preparation for meeting Esau, he [Jacob] turned to God in prayer. He humbly acknowledged that he was unworthy of all the blessings that God had bestowed upon him. But in the face of danger he pleaded for deliverance. During the loneliness of the night he wrestled with a man. In this strange experience, which he recognized as a divine encounter, his name was changed from -Jacob-’ to -Israel.-’ Thereafter Jacob was not the deceiver; instead he was subjected to deception and grief by his own sons (OTS, 37). This remarkable occurrence is not to be regarded as a dream or an internal vision, but fell within the sphere of sensuous perception. At the same time, it was not a natural or corporeal wrestling, but a -real conflict of both mind and body, a work of the spirit with intense effort of the body-’ (Delitzsch), in which Jacob was lifted up into a highly elevated condition of body and mind resembling that of ecstasy, through the medium of the manifestation of God, In a merely outward conflict, it is impossible to conquer through prayer and tears. As the idea of a dream or vision has no point of contact in the history; so the notion, that the outward conflict of bodily wrestling, and the spiritual conflict with prayer and tears, are two features opposed to one another and spiritually distinct, is evidently at variance with the meaning of the narrative and the interpretation of the prophet Hosea, Since Jacob still continued his resistance, even after his hip had been put out of joint, and would not let Him go till He had blessed him, it cannot be said that it was not till all hope of maintaining the conflict by bodily strength was taken from him, that he had recourse to the weapon of prayer. And when Hosea (Hosea 12:4-5) points his contemporaries to their wrestling forefather as an example for their imitation, in these words, -He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and in his human strength he fought with God; and he fought with the Angel and prevailed; he wept and made supplication unto Him,-’ the turn by which the explanatory periphrasis of Jacob’s words, -I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me,-’ is linked on to the previous clause. without a copula or vav consec., is a proof that the prophet did not regard the weeping and supplication as occurring after the wrestling, or as only a second element, which was subsequently added to the corporeal struggle. Hosea evidently looked upon the weeping and supplication as the distinguishing feature in the conflict, without thereby excluding the corporeal wrestling. At the same time, by connecting this event with what took place at the birth of the twins (Genesis 25:26), the prophet teaches that Jacob merely completed, by his wrestling with God, what he had already been engaged in even from his mother’s womb, viz. his striving for the birthright; in other words, for the possession of the covenant promise and the covenant blessing. This meaning is also indicated by the circumstances under which the event took place. Jacob had wrested the blessing of the birthright from his brother Esau; but it was by cunning and deceit, and he had been obliged to flee from his wrath in consequence. And now that he desired to return to the land of promise and his father’s house, and to enter upon the inheritance promised him in his father’s blessing, Esau was coming to meet him with 400 men which filled him with great alarm. As he felt too weak to enter upon a conflict with him, he prayed to the covenant God for deliverance from the hand of his brother, and the fulfilment of the covenant promises. The answer of God to this prayer was the present wrestling with God, in which he was victorious indeed, but not without carrying the marks of it all his life long in the dislocation of his thigh. Jacob’s great fear of Esau’s wrath and vengeance, which he could not suppress notwithstanding the divine revelations at Bethel and Mahanaim, had its foundation in his willful and treacherous appropriation of a blessing of the firstborn. To save him from the hand of his brother, it was necessary that God should first meet him as an enemy, and show him that his real opponent was God Himself, and that he must first of all overcome Him before he could hope to overcome his brother. And Jacob overcame God; not with power of the flesh however, with which he had hitherto wrestled for God against man (God convinced him of that by touching his hip, so that it was put out of joint), but by the power of faith and prayer, reaching by firm hold of God even to the point of being blessed, by which he proved himself to be a true wrestler of God, who fought with God and with men, i.e., who by his wrestling with God overcame men as well. And whilst by the dislocation of his hip the carnal nature of his previous wrestling was declared to be powerless and wrong, he received in the new name of Israel the prize of victory, and at the same time directions from God how he was henceforth to strive for the cause of the Lord.By his wrestling with God, Jacob entered upon a new stage in his life. As a sign of this, he received a new name, which indicated, as the result of this conflict, the nature of his new relation to God. But whilst Abram and Sarai, from the time when God changed their names (Genesis 17:5; Genesis 17:15), are always called by their new names; in the history of Jacob we find the old name used interchangeably with the new. -For the former two names denoted a change into a new and permanent position, effected and intended by the will and promise of God; consequently the old names were entirely abolished. But the name Israel denoted a spiritual state determined by faith; and in Jacob’s life the natural state, determined by flesh and blood, still continued to stand side by side with this. Jacob’s new name was transmitted to his descendants, however, who were called Israel as the covenant nation. For as the blessing of their forefather’s conflict came down to them as a spiritual inheritance, so did they also enter upon the duty of preserving this inheritance by continuing in a similar conflict.

Genesis 32:31. The remembrance of this wonderful conflict Jacob perpetuated in the name which he gave to the place where it had occurred, viz. Pniel or Pnuel. because there he had seen Elohim face to face, and his soul had been delivered (from death, Genesis 16:13).

Genesis 32:32,33. With the rising of the sun after the night of his conflict, the night of anguish and fear also passed away from Jacob’s mind, so that he was able to leave Pnuel in comfort, and go forward on his journey. The dislocation of the thigh alone remained. For this reason the children of Israel are accustomed to avoid eating the nervus ischiadicus, the principal nerve in the neighborhood of the hip, which is easily injured by any violent strain in wrestling. -Unto this day-’: the remark is applicable still (K-D, 305-307).

Jacob seems to have gone through the principles or foundations of faith in God and repentance towards him, which gave a character to the history of his grandfather and father, and to have entered upon the stage of spontaneous action. He had that inward feeling of spiritual power which prompted the apostle to say, -I can do all things.-’ Hence we find him dealing with Esau for the birthright, plotting with his mother for the blessing, erecting a pillar and vowing a vow at Bethel, overcoming Laban with his own weapons, and even now taking the most prudent measures for securing a welcome from Esau on his return. He relied indeed on God, as was demonstrated in many of his words and deeds; but the prominent feature of his character was a strong and firm reliance on himself. But this practical self-reliance, though naturally springing up in the new man and highly commendable in itself, was not yet in Jacob duly subordinated to that absolute reliance which ought to be placed in the Author of our being and our salvation. Hence he had been betrayed into intrusive, dubious, and even sinister courses, which in the retributive providence of God had brought, and were yet to bring him, into many troubles and perplexities, The hazard of his present situation arose chiefly from his former unjustifiable practices towards his brother, He is now to learn the lesson of unreserved reliance on God. A man appeared to him in his loneliness; one having the bodily form and substance of a man. *Wrestled with him,*encountered him in the very point in which he was strong, He had been a taker by the heel from his very birth (Genesis 25:26), and his subsequent life had been a constant and successful struggle with adversaries. And when he, the stranger, saw that he prevailed not over him: Jacob, true to his character, struggles while life remains, with this new combatant. He touched the socket of his thigh, so that it was wrenched out of joint. The thigh is the pillar of a man’s strength, and its joint with the hip the seat of physical force for the wrestler. Let the thigh bone be thrown out of joint, and the man is utterly disabled. Jacob now finds that this mysterious wrestler has wrested from him, by one touch, all his might, and he can no longer stand alone. Without any support whatever from himself, he hangs upon the conqueror, and in that condition learns by experience the practice of sole reliance on one mightier than himself. This is the turning-point in this strange drama. Henceforth Jacob now feels himself strong, not in himself, but in the Lord, and in the power of his might. What follows is merely the explication and the consequence of this bodily conflict.

And he, the Mighty Stranger, said, Let me go, for the dawn ariseth. The time for other avocations is come: let me go. He does not shake off the clinging grasp of the now disabled Jacob, but only calls upon him to relax his grasp. And he, Jacob, said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. Despairing now of his own strength, he is Jacob still: he declares his determination to cling on until his conqueror bless him. He now knows he is in the hand of a higher power, who can disable and again enable, who can curse and also bless. He knows himself also to be now utterly helpless without the healing, quickening, protecting power of his victor, and, though he die in the effort, he will not let him go without receiving this blessing. Jacob’s sense of his total debility and utter defeat is now the secret of his power with his friendly vanquisher. He can overthrow all the prowess of the self-reliant, but he cannot resist the earnest entreaty of the helpless.

Genesis 32:28-30. What is thy name? He reminds him of his former self, Jacob, the supplanter, the self-reliant, self-seeking. But now he is disabled, dependent on another, and seeking a blessing from another, and for all others as well as himself. No more Jacob shall thy name be called, but Israel,a prince of God, in God, with God. In a personal conflict, depending on thyself, thou wert no match for God. But in prayer, depending on another, thou hast prevailed with God and with men. The new name is indicative of the new nature which has now come to its perfection of development in Jacob. Unlike Abraham, who received his new name once for all, and was never afterwards called by the former one, Jacob will hence be called now by the one and now by the other, as the occasion may serve. For he was called from the womb (Genesis 25:23), and both names have a spiritual significance for two different aspects of the child of God, according to the apostle’s paradox, -Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure-’ (Philippians 2:12-13). Tell now thy name. Disclose to me thy nature. This mysterious Being intimates by his reply that Jacob was to learn his nature, so far as he yet required to know it, from the event that had just occurred; and he was well acquainted with his name. And he blessed him there. He had the power of disabling the self-sufficient creature, of upholding that creature when unable to stand, of answering prayer, of conferring a new name, with a new phase of spiritual life, and of blessing with a bodily renovation, and with spiritual capacity for being a blessing to mankind. After all this, Jacob could not any longer doubt who he was. There are, then, three acts in this dramatic scene: first, Jacob wrestling with the Omnipresent in the form of a man, in which he is signally defeated; second, Jacob importunately supplicating Jehovah, in which he prevails as a prince of God; third, Jacob receiving the blessing of a new name, a new development of spiritual life, and a new capacity for bodily action.

We have also already noted the divine method of dealing with man. He proceeds from the known to the unknown, from the simple to the complex, from the material to the spiritual, from the sensible to the super-sensible. So must he do, until he have to deal with a world of philosophers. And even then, and only then, will his method of teaching and dealing with men be clearly and fully understood. The more we advance in the philosophy of spiritual things, the more delight will we feel in discerning the marvellous analogy and intimate nearness of the outward to the inward, and the material to the spiritual world. We have only to bear in mind that in man there is a spirit as well as a body; and in this outward wrestling of man with man we have a token of the inward wrestling of spirit with spirit, and therefore an experimental instance of that great conflict of the Infinite Being with the finite self, which grace has introduced into our fallen world, recorded here for the spiritual edification of the church on earth.

My life is preserved. The feeling of conscience is, that no sinner can see the infinitely holy God and live. And he halted upon his thigh. The wrenching of the tendons and muscles was mercifully healed, yet so as to leave a permanent monument, in Jacob’s halting gait, that God had overcome his self-will (Murphy, MG, 412-415).

Genesis 32:24-25. The Struggle in the Dark.Who was the antagonist coming out of the darkness to seize Jacob for a struggle that would last until the breaking of the day? Not Esau, as in the first fearful moment of surprise Jacob might have imagined. Not any human foe, however terrible. Not a river-god. No; but the Almighty God of Righteousness, forcing him to make his reckoning. The O.T. story is dramatizing here the consequence that comes to every soul that has tried too long to evade the truth about itself. Thus far Jacob’s life had seemed successful. By one stratagem and another he had outwitted Esau, Isaac, and Laban. Coming home prosperous, all the outward circumstances might have made him boastful. But his conscience saw something else. He saw his world shadowed by his guilt. Old memories awakened, old fears rose up from the past in which he had tried to bury them. He had to face these memories and submit to their bruising recollection. Now that he was to meet Esau, he knew that he was not the masterful person he had liked to imagine he was. He had made his smooth way ahead among people who had not known him; now he had to encounter people who had known him, and would remember him as a liar and a coward. He was brought up short to a reckoning with himself, which was a reckoning with God. He could ignore the prospect of that in the busy daytime, but now it was night, and he was alone; and when a man is alone, then least of all can he get away from God. When the mysterious antagonist touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh, and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, it was a symbol of the fact that Jacob was in the grip of a power which his self-assurance could not match. Jacob knew that henceforth he could never walk in lofty arrogance again.

Genesis 32:26, *Holding On.*Another strange mingling of elements is in the picture here. The exclamation of the unnamed wrestler, Let me go, for the day breaketh seems to have its origin in the dim old belief that spirits could walk the earth only during the darkness, and that when the day began to break they had to go back to the place of shadows from which they had come. But the timeless meaning is in the words of Jacob, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. In the good and evil that made up Jacob there were two factors of nobility that saved him. The first was his awareness that life has a divine meaning above its material factthe awareness that made him seek the birthright and made possible his vision at Bethel. The second quality, revealed here in his wrestling, was his determination. He had struggled all night until he was lame and agonized; but when his antagonist wished to separate himself, Jacob desperately held on. When a man is forced to wrestle with moral reality and its consequences, he may try to get rid of them as quickly as he can. But Jacob’s quality was otherwise, Caught in the grip of judgment, his prevailing desire was not for escape. He would hold on until something decisive happened. In punishment and in prosperity, he would not let the experience go until he had wrung a blessing from it. The shallow man may ignore his sins; the cowardly man may try to evade their consequences; but Jacob now was neither one. Hurt and humiliated though he was, and needing to repent, he still dared believe that his great desire could prevail. In Charles Wesley’s hymn one can hear his cry:

-Yield to me now, for I am weak,

But confident in self-despair;

Speak to my heart, in blessing speak;

Be conquered by my instant prayer.-’

Frederick W. Robertson has given a further interpretation to Jacob’s answer to the demand of his antagonist, Let me go: -Jacob held Him more convulsively fast, as if aware that the daylight was likely to rob him of his anticipated blessing: in which there seems concealed a very deep truth. God is approached more nearly in that which is indefinite than in that which is definite and distinct. He is felt in awe, and wonder and worship, rather than in clear conceptions. There is a sense in which darkness has more of God than light has.. In sorrow, haunted by uncertain presentiments, we feel the infinite around us. The gloom disperses, the world’s joy comes again, and it seems as if God were gonethe Being who had touched us with a withering hand, and wrestled with us, yet whose presence, even when most terrible, was more blessed than His absence.. Yes, in solitary, silent, vague darkness, the Awful One is near-’ (Bowie, IBG, 723-724). (The quotation is from Robertson, Sermons on Bible Subjects, 17, 18). (Recall in this connection Genesis 28:16-17).

When the messengers brought back to Jacob the news that Esau was approaching with a force of four hundred men, Jacob’s first thought was, as always, a plan, and inthis we have a true picture of the poor human heart. True, he turns to God after he makes his plan, and cries to Him for deliverance; but no sooner does he cease praying than he resumes the planning. Now, praying and planning will never do together. If I plan, I am leaning more or less on my plan; but when I pray, I should lean exclusively upon God. Hence, the two things are perfectly incompatiblethey virtually destroy each other. When my eye is filled with my own management of things, I am not prepared to see God acting for me; and, in that case, prayer is not the utterance of my need, but the mere superstitious performance of something which I think ought to be done, or it may be, asking God to sanctify my plans. This will never do. It is not asking God to sanctify and bless my means, but it is asking Him to do it all Himself, (No doubt, when faith allows God to act, He will use His own agency; but this is a totally different thing from His owning and blessing the plans and arrangements of unbelief and impatience. This distinction is not sufficiently understood.)

Though Jacob asked God to deliver him from his brother Esau, he evidently was not satisfied with that, and therefore he tried to -appease him with a present.-’ Thus his confidence was in the -present,-’ and not entirely in God. -The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.-’ It is often hard to detect what is the real ground of the heart’s confidence. We imagine, or would fain persuade ourselves, that we are leaning upon God, when we are, in reality, leaning upon some scheme of our own devising. Who, after hearkening to Jacob’s prayer, wherein he says, -Deliver me, I pray Thee, from the hand of my brotherfrom the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children,-’ could imagine him saying, -I will appease him with a present.-’ Had he forgotten his prayer? Was he making a god of this present? Did he place more confidence in few cattle than in Jehovah, to whom he had just been committing himself? These are questions which naturally arise out of Jacob’s actions in reference to Esau, and we can readily answer them by looking into the glass of our own hearts. There we learn, as well as on the page of Jacob’s history, how much more apt we are to lean on our own management than on God; but it will not do; we must be brought to see the end of our management, that it is perfect folly, and that the true path of wisdom is to repose in full confidence upon God. Nor will it do to make our prayers part of our management. We often feel very well satisfied with ourselves when we add prayer to our arrangement, or when we have used all lawful means, and called upon God to bless them. When this is the case, our prayers are worth about as much as our plans, inasmuch as we are leaning upon them instead of upon God. We must really be brought to the end of everything with which self has aught to do; for until then, God cannot show Himself. But we can never get to the end of our plans until we have been brought to the end of ourselves. We must see that -all flesh is-’ grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field-’ (Isaiah 40:6). [Cf. also Psalms 90:5-6; James 1:9-11].

Thus it is in this interesting chapter: when Jacob had made all his prudent arrangements, we read, -And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.-’ This is the turning-point in the history of this very remarkable man, To be left alone with God is the only true way of arriving at a just knowledge of ourselves and our ways. We can never get a true estimate of nature and all its actings until we have weighed them in the balance of the sanctuary, and there we ascertain their real worth. No matter what we may think about ourselves, nor yet what men may think about us; the great question is, What does God think about us? and the answer to this question can only be heard when we are -left alone.-’ Away from the world; away from self; away from all the thoughts, reasonings, imaginations, and emotions of mere nature, and -alone-’ with God; thus, and thus alone, can we get a correct judgment about ourselves. -Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him.-’ Mark, it was not Jacob wrestling with a man, but a man wrestling with Jacob. This scene is very commonly referred to as an instance of Jacob’s power in prayer. That it is not this is evident from the simple wording of the passage. My wrestling with a man, and a man wrestling with me, present two totally different ideas to the mind. In the former case, I want to gain some object from him; in the latter, he wants to gain some object from me, Now, in Jacob’s case, the divine object was to bring him to see what a poor, feeble, worthless creature he was; and when Jacob pertinaciously held out against the divine dealing with him, -He touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint as He wrestled with him.-’ The sentence of death must be written on the fleshthe power of the cross must be entered into before we can steadily and happily walk with God. We have followed Jacob so far, amid all the windings and workings of his extraordinary characterwe have seen him planning and managing during his twenty years-’ sojourning with Laban; but not until he -was left alone-’ did he get a true idea of what a perfectly helpless thing he was in himself. Then, the seat of his strength being touched, he learnt to say, -I will not let Thee go.-’

-Other refuge have I none; Clings my helpless soul to Thee.-'

This was a new era in the history of the supplanting, planning Jacob. Up to this point he had held fast to his own ways and means; but now he is brought to say, -I will not let Thee go.-’ Now, let my reader remark, that Jacob did not express himself thus -until the hollow of his thigh was touched.-’ This simple fact is quite sufficient to settle the true interpretation of the whole scene. God was wrestling with Jacob to bring him to this point. We have already seen that, as to Jacob’s power in prayer, he had no sooner uttered a few words to God than he let out the real secret of his soul’s dependence, by saying, -I will appease him (Esau) with a present-’. Would he have said this if he had really entered into the meaning of prayer, or true dependence on God? Assuredly not. If he had been looking to God alone to appease Esau, could he have said, -I will appease him with a present-’? Impossible. God and the creature must be kept distinct, and will be kept so in every soul that knows much of the sacred reality of a life of faith.

But, alas! here is where we fail (if one may speak for another). Under the plausible and apparently pious formula of using means, we really cloke the positive infidelity of our poor deceitful hearts; we think we are looking to God to bless our means, while, in reality, we are shutting Him out by leaning on the means instead of leaning on Him. Oh! may our hearts be taught the evil of thus acting. May we learn to cling more simply to God alone, that so our history may be more characterized by that holy elevation above the circumstances through which we are passing. It is not, by any means, any easy matter so to get to the end of the creature, in every shape and form, so as to be able to say, -I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me.-’ To say this from the heart, and to abide in the power of it, is the secret of all true strength. Jacob said it when the power of his thigh was touched; but not till then. He struggled long, ere he gave way, because his confidence in the flesh was strong. But God can bring down to the dust the stoutest character. He knows how to touch the spring of nature’s strength, and write the sentence of death thoroughly upon it; and until this is done, there can be no real -power-’ with God or man. We must be -weak-’ ere we can be -strong.-’ -The power of Christ-’ can only -rest on us-’ in connection with the knowledge of our infirmities. Christ cannot put the seal of His approval upon nature’s strength, its wisdom, or its glory: all these must sink that He may rise. Nature can never form, in any one way, a pedestal on which to display the grace or power of Christ; for if it could, then might flesh glory in His presence; but this, we know, can never be.

And inasmuch as the display of God’s glory and God’s name or character is connected with the entire setting aside of nature, so, until this latter is set aside, the soul can never enjoy the disclosure of the former. Hence, though Jacob is called to tell out his nameto own that his name is -Jacob,-’ or a -supplanter,-’ he yet receives no revelation of the name of Him who had been wrestling with him, and bringing him down into the dust. He received for himself the name of -Israel,-’ or -prince,-’ which was a great step in advance; but when he says, -Tell me, I pray, Thy name,-’ he received the reply, -Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after My name?-’ The Lord refuses to tell His name, though He had elicited from Jacob the truth as to himself, and He blesses him accordingly. How often is this the case in the annals of God’s family! There is the disclosure of self in all its moral deformity; but we fail to get hold practically of what God is, though He has come so very close to us, and blessed us, too, in connection with the discovery of ourselves. Jacob received the new name of -Israel-’ when the hollow of his thigh had been touchedhe became a mighty -prince-’ when he had been brought to know himself as a weak man; but still the Lord had to say, -Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after My name?-’ There is no disclosure of the name of Him who, nevertheless, had brought the real name and condition of Jacob. From all this we learn that it is one thing to be blessed by the Lord, and quite another thing to have the revelation of His character, by the Spirit, to our hearts. -He blessed him there,-’ but He did not tell His name. There is blessing in being brought, in any measure, to know ourselves; for therein we are lead into a path in which we are able more clearly to discern what God is to us in detail. Thus it was with Jacob. When the hollow of his thigh was touched, he found himself in a condition in which it was either God or nothing. A poor halting man could do little, it therefore behooved him to cling to one who was almighty.

I would remark. that the book of Job is, in a certain sense, a detailed commentary on this scene in Jacob’s history. Throughout the first thirty-one Chapter s, Job grapples with his friends, and maintains his point against all their arguments; but in chapter 32, God, by the instrumentality of Elihu, begins to wrestle with him; and in chapter 38, He comes down upon him directly with all the majesty of His power, overwhelms him by the display of His greatness and glory, and elicits from him the well-known words, -I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes-’ (ch. Genesis 42:5-6). This was really touching the hollow of his thigh. And mark the expression, -Mine eye seeth Thee.-’ He does not say, -I see myself-’ merely; no; but -Thee.-’ Nothing but a view of what God is can really lead to repentance and self-loathing. Thus it will be with the people of Israel, whose history is very analogous with that of Job. When they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, they will mourn, and then there will be full restoration and blessing. Their latter end, like Job’S, will be better than their beginning. They will learn the full meaning of that word, -0 Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine help-’ (Hosea 13:9) (C.H.M., NG, 297-304).

We must not pass from these scenes in Jacob’s history without noticing the admirable tact with which he appeased his justly-offended brother. He sends an embassy to him from a long distance. This itself was a compliment, and, no doubt, the ambassadors were the most respectable he could command. Then the terms of the message were the best possible to flatter and conciliate an Oriental. He calls Esau his lord, himself his servantor slave, as it might be rendered; and he thus tacitly, and without alluding to the old trick by which he cheated him of his birthright, acknowledges him to be the elder brother, and his superior. At the same time, by the large presents, and the exhibition of great wealth, Esau is led to infer that he is not returning a needy adventurer to claim a double portion of the paternal estate; and it would not be unoriental if there was intended to be conveyed by all this a sly intimation that Jacob was neither to be despised nor lightly meddled with. There was subtle flattery mingled with profound humility, but backed all the while by the quiet allusion to the substantial position of one whom God had greaty blessed and prospered. All this, however, failed, and the enraged brother set out to meet him with an army. Jacob was terribly alarmed; but, with his usual skill and presence of mind, he made another effort to appease Esau. The presents were well selected, admirably arranged, and sent forward one after another; and the drivers were directed to address Esau in the most respectful and humble terms: -They be thy servant Jacob’S, a present unto my lord Esau; and be sure to say, Behold thy servant Jacob is behind us; for he said, I will appease him with the present that goeth before me, and afterward I will see his face.-’ Jacob did not miscalculate the influence of his princely offerings, and I verily believe there is not an emeer or sheikh in all Gilead at this day who would not be appeased by such presents; and, from my personal knowledge of Orientals, I should say that Jacob need not have been in such great terror, following in their rear. Far less will now -make room,-’ as Solomon says, for any offender, however atrocious, and bring him before great men with acceptance.

Esau was mollified, and when near enough to see the lowly prostrations of his trembling brother, forgot everything but that he was Jacob, the son of his mother, the companion of his childhood. He ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him; and they wept. All this is beautiful, natural, Oriental; and so is their subsequent discourse.. It was obviously the purpose of God to bring his chosen servant into these terrible trials, in order to work the deeper conviction of his former sin, and the more thorough repentance and reformation. And here it is that Jacob appears as a guide and model to all mankind. In his utmost distress and alarm, he holds fast his hope and trust in God, wrestles with Him in mighty supplication, and as a prince prevails: -I will not let thee go except thou bless me. And he said, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed-’ (Genesis 32:24; Genesis 32:27-28) (Thomson, LB, 371-372).

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART FORTY-TWO

What conditions prompted Jacob to take to flight from Paddan-aram?

What attitude did his wives take toward their father? What accusations did they bring against him?

Of what did Jacob’s entire retinue (household) consist?

What route did he take from Paddan-aram? What and where was Gilead?

In consulting his wives about his proposed flight, what charges did he bring against Laban?

What was the dream he reported to have experienced himself?

Would you agree with the view that this dream was the product of an excited imagination? Explain your answer.

Would you agree with the interpretation of Delitzsch, or with that of Kurtz, of Jacob’s reported dream? Explain your answer.

Is there any Scripture support for the notion that increase of material goods is an unfailing concomitant of religious stedfastness? Explain your answer.

Does God guarantee the obedient believer, in Scripture, any material good beyond bread to eat and raiment to put on (Genesis 28:20)? Justify your answer.

What was (or were) the teraphim which Rachel stole on leaving her father?

What are some of the suggestions offered to explain why Rachel stole the teraphim? State which seems the most reasonable to you and why.

For what purposes were such objects used as indicated elsewhere in the Old Testament?

In what respect did the teraphim probably have legal significance for Laban?

Would you agree that Rachel stole the teraphim? Explain your answer.

Are we justified in thinking that Laban had lapsed into a more corrupt form of religion and that his daughters had not escaped the infection?

Is there any ground on which we can excuse or justify Rachel’s sin?

What other evidence do we have that Abraham’s kinsmen in the region of Haran had drifted into idolatry?

What information regarding such objects do we obtain from the Nuzi records?

Do we find intimations that Jacob himself was not immunized against this form of idolatry? Explain your answer.

What device did Rachel use to prevent Laban’s finding the teraphim in her tent?

What special support did Jacob give Laban in authorizing the latter to search the tents occupied by members of his own household?

What evidence do we have that Jacob did not know about Rachel’s theft of the teraphim?

What restrictions did God put upon Laban on the latter’s way to catch up with Jacob?

Who were the Arameans? What was their origin and what territories did they occupy in the Near East?

Trace briefly their relations with the Israelites as recorded in the Old Testament.

How did Laban address Jacob on catching up with him? Why do we pronounce his approach hypocritical?

What was the substance of Jacob’s angry reply? Of what illegal practices did he accuse Laban? How long had he served Laban faithfully?

What hardships of his twenty years of service to Laban did Jacob recall? What attempts by Laban to defraud him of his hire did he specify?

In what way or ways, probably, had his wages been changed ten times?

What specific law in the Code of Hammurabi bears upon this particular case?

Explain what Jacob meant by The Fear of Isaac.

What was Laban’s reply to Jacob’s outburst of anger? Did he avoid the issues? Was he merely bluffing or trying to put on a front? Or was he making an effort to save face?

Are we justified in saying that Laban was more concerned about the teraphim than anything else? Why should he have been so concerned about the stolen teraphim?

How did Hurrian law bear upon the relation between the teraphim and Jacob’s status in Laban’s household?

What did Laban mean by his proposal to cut a covenant?

What proposals did Jacob make in return?

Explain the cairn of witness. What particular witness did Jacob set up? Distinguish between the pillar and the cairn.

What two names were given to the memorials set up between Jacob’s and Laban’s territories? What was the meaning of each?

What were the twofold provisions of the treaty between the two? How was Hurrian law related to the stipulation against Jacob’s taking other wives?

What fallacy is involved in the traditional churchly use of what is called the Mizpah Benediction?

By what deities did Laban and Jacob respectively swear fidelity to their covenant?

Explain what is meant by the statement in Genesis 31:50, no man is with us.

What factors in this story indicate that Laban was a polytheist?

What phrase in this story indicates that Laban swore by the God of Abraham, Nahor, and Terah?

What ceremonies concluded the covenant of reconciliation between Jacob and Laban?

For what different special purposes were stones used in Old Testament times?

List the circumstances of the transactions between Jacob and Laban which reflect details of Hurrian law.

With what acts did Laban leave the members of Jacob’s household to proceed on his journey homeward?

In what various incidents did angels appear in the course of Jacob’s life?

What was Jacob’s experience at Manahaim? Why the name and what did it signify? What was the location?

Who made up the two camps or hosts on this occasion?

What probably were Jacob’s feelings as he approached his confrontation with Esau?

What preliminary steps did Jacob take looking toward reconciliation with Esau? What information about himself and his household, etc., did he communicate to Esau through the messengers he sent forward to meet him?

What report about Esau did Jacob’s messengers bring back to him?

What probably was Esau doing in Seir at that time with what was equivalent to a military force? How many men did Esau have with him? How reconcile Genesis 32:3; Genesis 36:6-8?

How did Jacob acquire the information in the first place as to Esau’s whereabouts?

What threefold preparation did Jacob resort to, for the purpose of placating his brother?

Explain the double phrase, the land of Seir, the field of Edom, Genesis 32:3.

Why was it the natural and proper thing to do to resort to prayer? What were the chief characteristics of Jacob’s prayer?

Did this prayer include the element of confession? Explain your answer.

Explain the last phrase of Gen 32:11, the mother with the children.

Are Jacob’s closing words of his prayer designed to remind God of His promises and to call on Him to keep His word? Explain your answer.

What was the present which Jacob dispatched to Esau to propitiate him? How, and for what purpose, were these gifts staggered, so to speak?

What preparation did Jacob make for battle in case Esau should be belligerent?

What explanations are given for Jacob’s sending his wives and children across the ford of the Jabbok while remaining himself on the north side? What do you consider the most plausible explanation?

What was the stream over which the crossing was made? What is the meaning of the phrase, this Jordan, Genesis 32:10, in relation to the final crossing?

What marvelously sublime event occurred to Jacob on that intervening night?

Where was the river Jabbok in relation to the Jordan?

What probably was Jacob’s purpose in remaining on the north side of the Jabbok?

What are some of the views of his motives in so doing? With whom do you agree?

What are some of the fantastic theories of this event? What are our reasons for rejecting them?

Why do we reject the folklorish interpretation of Old Testament events generally?

Whom does the Bible itself claim to be the Source of its content? Can we, therefore, treat the Bible like any other book?

How long did Jacob’s wrestling with the mysterious Visitant continue?

How does the text itself describe (identify) this Visitant? How does the prophet Hosea speak of Him?

What are some of the anthropological explanations of this incident? How does Sir James Frazer explain it? What are the objections to these views?

What is the anthropological theory of the evolution of religious belief and practice?

What significance is in the fact that this is not said to be the story of Jacob wrestling with the Other but that of the Visitant wrestling with Jacob?

What is the traditional Christian interpretation of the identity of this Visitant? Show how this interpretation is in harmony with Biblical teaching as a whole.

Does this story have any relation to the idea of importunity in prayer?

What was the Visitant’s purpose in asking Jacob what his name was?

What new name did the Visitant confer on Jacob and what did it mean?

Do you consider that this incident, and especially this new name, changed Jacob’s life in any way? Explain.

What significance is in the fact that this new name became the historical name of the people who sprang from the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?

Explain: In spiritual experience there is and must be the challenge of the mysterious. Distinguish between the mysterious and the mystical.

What name did Jacob give to the place of this Visitation, and why?

What physical defect did the Celestial Visitant impose on Jacob and what spiritual significance did it have?

What profound spiritual truths did this experience impress upon Jacob? Did it produce any change in his outlook and his life, and if so, to what extent?

In what order did Jacob organize his retinue for the meeting with Esau, and for what purposes?

Why did Jacob do obeisance to Esau seven times on approaching him? How was this done?

Was this a form of flattery or was it simply the prevailing custom or convention? Explain your answer.

How would you describe the emotions of each of the two brothers when they faced each other at this meeting?

After reading the views of the various commentators on this subject, with whom do you agree, and why?

How did the brothers openly greet each other when they met?

Do you believe that Jacob was still distrustful of Esau? If so, on what do you base your opinion?

Why did Jacob reject Esau’s offer to accompany him on his way? What reason did Jacob give for rejecting also the offer of an escort? Do you think he was sincere? Explain your answer.

Where did Jacob first stop on his journey to Canaan? What reasons have we for thinking that he stayed there for several years?

What did the word Succoth mean? How did it get this name?

What are the various meanings of the word cattle in the Old Testament?

Where did Jacob first settle after crossing the Jordan?

Show how all that Jacob asked for in his vow at Bethel was now fulfilled.

What was the probable location of Shechem? From whom did it get its name? What was the name of the king of Shechem at the time Jacob settled there? What was his son’s name?

Why did Jacob purchase a parcel of ground near Shechem? What did he pay for it?

Explain the correspondence between Genesis 23:17-20; Genesis 33:18-20.

What preparation for worship did Jacob make on settling on this piece of ground?

To whom did he dedicate this place of worship? What is the meaning of the name of deity whom he invoked at this time?

What do these acts indicate regarding Jacob’s spiritual life and growth?

What was the relation between Shechem and the later history of the Samaritans and Mount Gerizim?

Explain the relation between the story of Jacob’s well, as found in the fourth chapter of John, and the Old Testament story of Jacob’s sojourn at Shechem. How does Shechem figure throughout Old Testament history?

For further research: 111.

What significance is there in the fact that Israel and Israeli are the names adopted in our day for the new nation of the Jews and its citizens?

What is, to this writer, perhaps the most intriguing phase of the incident of Jacob’s wrestling with the Mysterious Visitant is the fact that the latter, on being asked what His name was, ignored the question (Genesis 32:29). What reasons are we justified in assigning to this silence? Instead the Heavenly Visitant blessed Jacob then and there (Genesis 32:29). What may we rightly assume to have been indicated by, or included in, this divine blessing?