And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.- Gen_32:24.
1. “Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.” On his leaving the Holy Land he had a vision of angels; and with a corresponding glad welcome did the angels greet him on returning, at the very threshold of the same. “And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's host.” It is indeed as if God had “given his angels charge over him, to keep him in all his ways,” and had bidden them as it were to “encamp round about” him. Great were the difficulties that confronted him now that he was in the heaven-directed path. There was in Jacob's past a dark memory. There was an ancient sin, a family quarrel, a feud that had never been healed, a sin of twenty years' standing that had never been dealt with, an old score that had never been settled. And “Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.” He then engaged in earnest prayer for deliverance, and sent his family and herds across the ford to encamp for the night; and Jacob was left alone. But not to sleep. Twenty years ago he could sleep on the hillside, but not now; he is older, his cares are many, his danger is great. Whilst others sleep, he paces beside the stream wrapped in thought and gloom. No doubt, as he listens to the brawling Jabbok wrestling its way through the gully on to the river, and the night winds moaning round about him, with the fear of his brother still nearer to him than the winds, surrounding his soul with its chill, Jacob was inclined to pray to God for, comfort: “O God! comfort me. O God! help me. O God! be good to me. O my Father! kiss me, and put thy arms round about me.” And God did, but not to kiss him, at least, not at first-not to kiss him, but to crush him, to take the Jacob in him, and simply pulverize it once for all.
2. Behold the supplanter by Jabbok's ford! It is an hour in which everything that he holds dear-the safety of his family, the lives of his dependants, the fruit of twenty years of toil-is at stake. Suddenly, as the sand-cloud of the desert rises up in the path of the caravan, there is lifted up before Jacob the wrathful cloud of four hundred armed men; and in the midst of this cloud, and glaring out upon him from its blackness, the face of his wronged brother Esau. What shall be the result? Shall the angry cloud tear a path of ruin through his possessions? Shall a cruel death sweep from before his very eyes the forms of his loved ones? The hour is critical, and the smart and successful man trembles before it. No sooner is he alone in the presence of his danger than the void about him grows tremulous, palpitating with life, and he himself is wrestling with that which to a lighter hour had been vacancy and nothingness.1 [Note: S. S. Mitchell, The Staff Method, 137.]
There, under the still night-sky, these two wrestle in dreadful embrace, the stranger to subdue Jacob, Jacob to shake off the stranger and save his life. Presently the dawn breaks, and the stranger, determined to prevail, by one touch lames the weary man so that he can contend no more. His end is gained. He can depart then, he does not want to kill Jacob but to conquer him, and that is done.
But, by that conquering touch, or perhaps by the voice now heard for the first time, “Let me go, for the day breaketh,” Jacob's eyes are opened; he sees that he has wrestled not with man but with God, and that God has subdued him; then quick as thought, in a triumph of faith, he resolves that he in turn will prevail with Him. He can resist no more, ha is past that; he is in pain, his thigh is out of joint, the sweat beads his pale wild face, he cannot stand. But he can cling-he can cling; so in an agony of determination he flings his arms round the Holy One, and clasps Him close and cries, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.” Nor did he; Jacob conquered now: “He blessed him there.”
Much of Modern Painters consists of brilliant active thoughts, born of the intellect rather than of the heart, which came lightly and fancifully, and were swiftly and gracefully set down. But in Fors it is as though one saw some awful spiritual combat proceeding, like the wrestling of Jacob by night with the angel on Penuel, whose form he could not see and whose nature he could not guess, whether he meant to test his strength, or to overcome him and leave him maimed. And just as the angel, though he was an angel of light, made the sinew of the halting thigh shrink at his fiery touch, so Ruskin, too, emerged from the conflict a shattered man; and to myself, I will frankly confess, it is just this heart-breaking conflict, this appalling struggle with mighty thoughts and dreadful fears, that made at once the tragedy and the glory of Ruskin's life, because it broke his pride and humbled his complacency, and crowned him with the hero's crown. For let me say once and for all, that under all his irony and humour, under his unbalanced vehemence and his no less unbalanced sorrow, Ruskin's work, if not severely logical, was neither eccentric nor irresponsible. Its soundness, its ultimate sanity, was confirmed and not depreciated by subsequent events.1 [Note: A. C. Benson, Ruskin: A Study in Personality, 134.]
3. Jacob now triumphant must be transformed, and so the angel asks him, “What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.” He had to confess it. It was the last drop in his cup of humbling. Supplanter, deceiver, sinner-is that thy name? Crafty, cunning, defeated Jacob-is that thy name? Thanks be to God, thy name shall be no more called Jacob, thou shalt have another name. Thou shalt rise above thine old self, thou shalt be called Israel, a prince with God. “For as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.”
But God was not now the same to Jacob as twenty years before. This was a more awful, closer, more intense communion; it was not the inexperienced youth realizing another world than that of the senses; it was the deeper passion and power of manhood in struggle with the invisible. And mark how much Jacob's character had gained: mark the unfailing perseverance, the abiding determination which would not let go his purpose, but held on to it for hour after hour till he won. That is what made him worthy to be the founder of that people whose intense clinging to life in history and indomitable force have kept them as a power in the world even to the present day. Scattered as they are, the Jews have never perished. The ancient Greek is no more, the ancient Roman has died, but the Jew is living still. Israel is still a people.
4. Jacob was satisfied that he had seen God face to face; “and Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for,” he said, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” This confirms the opinion that the person with whom Jacob wrestled was none other than a Divine being. Jacob knew too much about God to mistake any created being for Him. He does not say that he has seen an angel, but he has seen God face to face, and his life was preserved.
This struggle had, therefore, immense significance for the history of Jacob. It is, in fact, a concrete representation of the attitude he had maintained towards God throughout his previous history; and it constitutes the turning-point at which he assumes a new and satisfactory attitude. Year after year Jacob had still retained confidence in himself; he had never been thoroughly humbled, but had always felt himself able to regain the land he had lost by his sin. And in this struggle he shows this same determination and self-confidence. He wrestles on indomitably. As Kurtz says: “All along Jacob's life had been the struggle of a clever and strong, a pertinacious and enduring, a self-confident and self-sufficient person, who was sure of the result only when he helped himself-a contest with God, who wished to break his strength and wisdom, in order to bestow upon him real strength in Divine weakness, and real wisdom in Divine folly.” All this self-confidence culminates now, and in one final and sensible struggle, his Jacob-nature, his natural propensity to wrest from the most unwilling opponent what he desires and win what he aims at, does its very utmost and does it in vain. The Lord who was the author, at Bethel, was now the finisher, of the patriarch's faith.
In this scene of early morning prayer we have vividly placed before us struggling humanity in wretched helplessness and Divine power manifesting itself so as to make man's extremity God's opportunity. It would be hard to imagine a case more in need of Divine help than is the case of Jacob. The Lord had promised to be with him, and now he pleads the fulfilment of that promise. He feels the need of a greater blessing. There is nothing that so unnerves a man in the presence of danger as a guilty conscience. This causes him to fear where there is no danger, and magnifies everything that appears to be harmful. Jacob was, no doubt, in this state of mind; and although he had the promise of Divine protection, his own consciousness of guilt robbed that promise of comforting power.1 [Note: L. L. Nash, Early Morning Scenes in the Bible, 76.]
5. Years afterwards, when Jacob was on his death-bed, we are told that Joseph brought his two sons to receive the blessing of their grandfather: and the words in which he gave it, “The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads,” seem to point to some definite personal experience in the old man's memory, which can hardly be other than this story of Peniel. And so we may look on this episode as the central crisis in Jacob's life: the moment of awakening, of conversion, of permanent change, when a higher life was grasped and begun, when the meannesses and cunning of selfishness and over-reaching disappeared, and a worthier, nobler life began because he had seen God face to face.
God calls us that we may know Christ, in order that we may accept His covenant, and having accepted it, may be righteous, and being righteous, that He may be able to show us His presence. We are not to rest contented with knowing Christ, nor with being righteous, but, going on, to desire to see the presence of God, and with continuous prayer to supplicate of God that He may show it us daily less veiled and more clearly, until that in the life eternal we may see Him face to face, even as He is. This ought to be our aim; in this we ought evermore to occupy ourselves.2 [Note: Juan de Valdes.]
