Chapter 32
2024 - Starts this way:
1 Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. [Gen 32:1 ESV]. Here we have the angels of God, mal-ake elohim. This is a different term than sons of God, which we have seen before. Moving this verse over to "Who Are the Sons of God, as a relevant reference. This is all it says about the angels. They "met him". What does that even mean? Jacob recognized them as sent from God, and he recognized that it was a big deal, and he gave the place a special name because of it. He recognized that this was very significant. But that is all we really know.
As Jacob nears home he sends ahead to Esau. Esau comes to meet him and brings 400 men. Jacob is afraid. He prays, and asks God to keep his promises and do him good. To me, this is the first time in Jacobs life that he "comes clean".
Jacob sends a present ahead of him to Esau, each with a distance between it and the next present, while Jacob stays behind. He hopes each wave of presents will lessen Esau's anger. I suspect he also believes some of the 400 will be assigned to tend flocks, lowering the odds.
Jacob wrestles an angel and is not defeated. His name is changed to Israel, and he received a blessing. BUT, he still hasn't received one freely intended for him. He's deceived someone for pretty much everything he has.
2024 - These verses:
24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, "Let me go, for the day has broken." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." [Gen 32:24-26 ESV]. A "man" wrestled with him. The Hebrew word appear 1,639 times in the KJV and is translated simply "man" 1,002 times. It is never translated angel, never means anything supernatural. So a man able to knock a hip out of joint with a touch but not win a wrestling match. I'm thinking...not JUST a man. It is also quite interesting to me that as the day break, the man wants to be released. Do angles fear the daylight? Do they always appear at night? Well not when they ate with Abraham before Sodom and Gomorrah...but wait...did those verses use this word?
Hmmm....The very same word is used of those who appeared at Abraham's camp:
2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth ... 16 Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way. ... 22 So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the LORD. [Gen 18:2, 16, 22 ESV]
There were three of them that time. So we cannot say this word applies exclusively to the pre-incarnate Christ. We know that two of the "men" who appeared to Abraham were angels, as that comes out in the rest of that particular story. So I think if we put these two stories together, we have a good case that this wrestler was not "just" a man. Angels are spirits. So not just an angel either, or Jacob would never have been able to hold on to him so that he had to ask to be let go. Jacob was not wrestling a spirit but somehow, flesh and blood. The "man" asks Jacob his name, as if he did not know it. And this "man" sort of moves forward the promises that had been made to Abraham and Isaac, and bestows them on Jacob. This does not have to be God, nor does it have to be an angel. God speaks through others more and more. Perhaps this wrestling match is the first instance of God speaking through a messenger instead of speaking directly to a person? No...not the first, because when the three men visited Abraham they told him Sarai would have a son in a year. So that was not God speaking directly to Abraham but instead speaking through a messenger. I don't see that we have any real "requirement" to make this "man" Jesus pre-incarnate.
But...this following verse:
30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered." [Gen 32:30 ESV]. This is how Jacob thought of the event. He thought he was wrestling with actual God, face to face. We have other verses that say no man has seen God. This was a physical person with which Jacob wrestled. God would NEVER need to ask a man to release him because the sun was coming up! So NOT the Father. Why would Jesus need to ask that? Frankly, I don't think this angel in human form needed to either. He could have popped both shoulders and the other leg out of joint and walked away.
So what do these "trappings" of an all night wrestling match that Jacob "wins" tell us? What meaning is being conveyed? All the "lessons" I come up with are just wrong. MSB says, in the note on 32:24 in part, "The site name...given by Jacob and the commentary given by Hosea (Hos 12:4) identifies the man with whom Jacob wrestled as the "Angel of the Lord", who is also identified as God, a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. See note on Ex 3:2." Sorry MSB, but I don't think that's correct.
2024 - Still can't let it go...so this:
4 He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor. He met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us-- [Hos 12:4 ESV]. You DO NOT PREVAIL over God. Jacob "met" God in the sense that God gave him information that he, Jacob, was the son through whom the promises would be fulfilled. God spoke through the angel, not directly, as he had spoken to Abraham. I think God also speaks directly to Isaac. To Jacob, though, was it directly or only in that dream to go home in Chapter 31?
Another really good study. How long is the gap where God stops speaking directly with men? From when until Moses? We know he spoke directly with Moses. I would really like to do that study, but you'd have to re-read all of Genesis to this point!