Wrestling with God, seeing God's face

Genesis 32:22-31

22 The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24 Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the 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 is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

I feel compelled to address this story about Jacob at the Ford of Jabbok even though I’m not really sure what to say and haven’t had the time to read many interpretations, of which there are many.  

Our passage takes up at the point in the story when Jacob, having worked for years for Laban and having married both his daughters, Leah and Rachel, and having many children, he’s allowing God’s command and returning to his homeland.  Waiting for him, is his brother Easu, whom Jacob famously cheated out of this birthright.  When Jacob departed years before at the behest of his mother, Rebekah, Esau was in a fit of rage, and had declared his intention to kill Jacob.  And now Jacob is going home, fearful that Esau it’s still in the same state of mind.  The timing of this episode is no coincidence.  Clearly Jacob has a lot to wrestle with.   

The first question is just who it is that Jacob is wrestling with?  The text simply says that, having been left alone, “a man wrestled with him until daybreak”.  Where this “man” came from is left unsaid; it seems he just of appeared.   For this reasons, and others, it’s usually assumed that Jacob wrestles with an angel.  Coincidentally, earlier this week I listened to the U2 song, “Bullet the Blue Sky” which includes the lyric, “Jacob wrestled the angel, and the angel was overcome”.  This is more or less the standard interpretation, and clearly this is no ordinary guy, for he has the authority not only to bless Jacob, but to give him a new name.  This is not just like giving him a new nickname, but changing his very identity and destiny.  

But then maybe this was not “merely” an angel either, for whoever it is declares, “you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.”  And following the counter Jacob himself declares, “I have seen God face to face”.  Just what does Jacob mean by this?  Does he imply that this man is, in some sense, God - a kind of pre-incarnation?  Or maybe even somehow by wrestling God in the flesh he wrestles with Jesus himself, who refuses to disclose his name?   It seems like it can’t be entirely ruled out.    

But then there’s the question of whether or not this is an actual physical encounter, or if it’s more like a dream?   It’s pretty clear that this occurs overnight, in the period “until daybreak”, so perhaps what’s being described here is a vision Jacob has during a restless night of sleep?  And if you’ve got an impious streak you might entertain the possibility that maybe Jacob is really just wrestling with himself, than all of this is happening in his head - but then you also might wonder how the story ever came to be told?  And, of course, there are many episodes in the Bible where someone has a dream/vision, so it would hardly be surprising if this was yet another such instance.  That said, there is also an explicitly flesh and blood aspect to the story, as Jacob is left limping after being struck in the hip socket.  Rarely do you awake physically injured from a dream… 

Whatever you think about that, there’s the question of just what this episode means?  Presumably this is not simply matter-of-fact reporting of an event; rather the story is preserved because it conveys something important.  But what?  Whoever the “man” was, and regardless whether this a real event or a vision, the emphasis is very much on the wrestling itself, on the struggle - and it precisely this successful struggle that results in the blessing.  In his encounter with this divine presence (to whatever degree that presence was “really real”) Jacob does not submit.  We might think that when God shows up you’re just meant to acquiesce, to make yourself open and available, but Jacob seems to take the opposite approach.  He resists, he fights back, and this hardly turn out to be futile.  The match is something like a draw; he even apparently has prevailed.  

I really want to draw the moral that, if we too want to see God face to face, then, like Jacob, we must wrestle with God, that God wants not so much our timid submission but our spirited struggle, that to know God requires (physical?) engagement, even confrontation.  That may be true, but something about this story also seems very specific to Jacob himself.  

This is the guy who came out of the womb grasping the heel of his brother, the great supplanter who deceived and tricked his way into status and wealth - and who was, despite all that, the one whom God chose to bless and to make a nation that would bear his new name.  Jacob stands less as one to emulate and more an instance of God’s prerogative to bless, not those who deserve it, but those who don’t  

But now God has commanded Jacob to return to the fatherland, and Jacob is understandably worried that Esau’s anger is unabated, that he still intends to kill Jacob.  It seems as if Jacob’s luck has run out, that justice has come for him, that he’s about to face the consequences of his actions.  

When the angel(?) says that Jacob has wrestled with God and man, this might be less a statement endorsing Jacob’s behavior but one which names his fast-and-loose relationship to righteousness.  And yet, for all of it, Jacob has prevailed, perhaps exactly so God could bring him to this moment.  Even in the midst of the struggle Jacob demands a blessing, but first he is given a new name.  No longer will be Jacob the supplanter, the one who grasps the heel; from now on we will be known as Israel, the one who wrestles with God.  And, of course, this becomes the name of the nation God brings into existence - a people whose relationship to God recapitulates Jacob’s own, as they repeatedly ignore, forget, and rebel and yet in spite of it all they remain the chosen people.  

And after all of this, Jacob declares that he has “seen God face to face” - but what does this mean?  Maybe you’re more persuaded than I am that he’s plausibly wrestling with God himself here, but even then, given that this takes place in the middle of the night, it’s an additional stretch to say that he has literally seen God’s face.  So what kind of claim is Jacob making?  We might conclude that this is not literal, “strong” claim, but a figurative, “weaker” claim - but that kind of distinction, which comes readily to our minds, is largely an invention of the modern mind.  

The point is that, in this encounter, however we are to interpret it or makes sense of it, Jacob has really experienced God’s presence.   I imagine that most of us would be at the very least reluctant to claim that we have “seen God face to face” - that we wouldn’t understand ourselves to have had the kind of experiences that could justify such a claim, and that, even if we had had a powerful experience, we would be tentative about reaching such a conclusion.   On the one hand, this might be a faithful impulse: God is transcendently other, far above our comprehension, so we should be careful about how we make meaning from our experience.  And yet, God also closer to us than we are to ourselves, that there is no place where God is not present.   

The rest of this story is that Esau comes out to meet Jacob, not to attack him, as Jacob feared, but to embrace him.  (The scene calls to mind the story of the prodigal son - or, more accurately, the prodigal son echoes this story.)  And Jacob exclaims, “for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God.”  He has received, not retribution, not justice, but forgiveness.  His brother, has been gracious to him.  To experience that is like experiencing God.  In fact, it may actually be to see God face to face.