Jacob and Jesus

David Edwards
April 15, 2008

Interpretive Question: Who was the man whom Jacob wrestled?

Jacob spent 21 years working for Laban, his father-in law. He was rich with livestock when he returned to the Promised Land with his two wives, concubines, children and servants. While passing through Edom, Jacob sent messengers to his brother, Esau. He believed that Esau might try to kill him because of the way he had cheated him years before. He sent herds of animals to his brother as gifts. Next he placed his concubines and their children between himself and Esau. Behind them came his wife, Leah, and her children. In the rear were Rachel and her precious son, Joseph. All of these passed over the river, and only Jacob returned to the far side, and it was night. Genesis 32: 24 tells us that a man wrestled with him.
A Jewish commentary, The First Book of the Bible by Jacob (page 45) states that the man who wrestled with the patriarch that night was an angel. Because he had to ask him his name, he must not have been God. An angel can be a prophet, but not God. John J.Davis in Paradise to Prison cites Hosea 12: 4 as evidence that this was an angel who attacked Jacob.
Bruce K. Waltke in Genesis, A Commentary (Page 116) The invisible God humbled himself and initiated this all night wrestling match. Jacob must have discovered early on that he couldn’t prevail physically over this opponent, but he held on. Jacob was “prayerfully clinging to God’s grace.” He, who had the blessings of prosperity, was clinging to the blessing of overcoming his enemies. He, who in the past had prevailed through trickery, would from then on prevail with God. “God sanctified Jacob’s absolute.” Just as it was God who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, it was God who wrestled with Jacob in the dark. But one cannot see God and live. God is omnipotent so one touch to Jacob’s hip socket should have ended the battle. Suddenly, his hip was out of joint, and he had lost the wrestler’s pivot of strength.
God knew with whom He was wrestling, but when Jacob demanded a blessing, God asked him to repeat his name. This forced him to own up to his past for the name Jacob meant heel grabber or trickster. When he embraced his new name, Israel, God purged him from his old. Only God himself has the authority to impart new life. Jacob did not fight with an angel.

Another exciting writer to address this question was the theologian, George Bush. In his Notes on Genesis, (pages 168 – 177) he began “Here then it is obvious.” Jacob knew a man attacked him. (Esau could have sent an assassin.) but His simple touch dislocated Jacob’s hip. No man can see God and live. This was “no created angel, but that divine person, the sent of God; The Messiah that was to be…was really manifested in flesh and blood.” Jacob had the Son of God in his power, an advantage too precious to be neglected. He needed a blessing on the spot, and he extracted one before dawn.

The Son of God didn’t need any palm pilot to grab Jacob on the far side of the river that night. The fugitive from treachery was returning home to face his brother’s revenge. His wits would not be sufficient. He was coming to collect on a prayer sent up twenty years before.
“If God will be with me …so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God.” Genesis 28: 20-21.
Early in the struggle Jacob realized that his opponent was not an angel, and that this was not mortal combat. This was a contest of endurance with the Son of God. Jacob was prayerfully clinging to Jesus Christ in the flesh. He, who had attained much through subtlety, was for the first time determined to secure God’s guidance in dealing with his enemies. His new name, Israel, meant “God’s fighter.”