In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel, and as an adult he wrestled with God. Jacob struggled with the Angel and prevailed: he wept and sought his favor. He found him at Bethel, and there He spoke with him. Yahweh is the God of Hosts; Yahweh is His name. But you must return to your God. Maintain love and justice, and always put your hope in God. – Hosea 12:3-6
Jacob means “supplanter”, one who worms his way in where he doesn’t belong, a deceiver, a grasper, a clinger. Jacob supplanted his elder brother as the rightful heir of the Abrahamic covenant and its blessings. He himself was deceived and manipulated by Laban, his father-in-law.
When he returned to Canaan, Jacob knew he would encounter his cheated brother Esau, who had sworn to kill him. Sending his herds, flocks, servants and family on ahead, Jacob halted on the other side of the brook Jabbok. During the night, he was approached by God and there he struggled.
Years earlier, then fleeing his brother’s hot wrath, and possessing nothing but the staff in his hand, Jacob had encountered God in a night vision at a place he named Bethel, "the house of God". He had made a covenant with the Lord, and by God’s blessing, he had prospered materially. Yet he remained essentially the same man, unchanged, still Jacob. What’s more, the threat of conflict with Esau still remains. All he has gained can be lost in an hour to the sword and bow of his own twin. Facing the loss of his own life and everything that gave it meaning, Jacob halts alone to seek God again.
The Genesis account of this same story gives the sense of a desperate wrestling match. The Being with whom the man strives has the upper hand, but Jacob hangs on. Think of it as a clinch. Jacob knows that if his opponent breaks free he has lost, so, like a weary boxer, he clutches and holds. For hours the struggle continues with no change. At last his opponent, seeing that He could not defeat him, touched or struck Jacob’s hip and dislocated it. Still, Jacob clung to Him as dawn was about to break. The Lord demanded to be released, and Jacob demanded a blessing.
He got a name change. He became Israel, and the place of his encounter Jacob called Peniel or Penuel, "the face of God". And when he walked away from it, he walked with a limp.
Paul says in Romans 7:24, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
Like Jacob, I have an “evil twin”, my very own resident Esau, the carnal man. We came out of the same womb together, but his presence forebodes my death and loss. I’ve tried running away from him, but that doesn’t work. God’s answer is not to remove Esau but to remove Jacob. In a sense Jacob dies at Peniel, for no one sees the face of God and lives. He is reborn as Israel, with whom Esau has no quarrel.
To visit the house of God brings blessing. To see the face of God is deliverance.
Israel is crippled in the process of his transformation. He gets a limp along with his new identity. To realize my true identity, it may be necessary for me to hobble a little. When Saul of Tarsus became Paul the Apostle, his initial blindness was healed, but a thorn in the flesh remained. That limp keeps me humble and dependent upon God. It reminds me I am not who I thought I was. Like a war wound, it reminds me that I have been in the battle, and prevailed.
