(Reading: Genesis, Chapters 29-32.)

After Jacob left Bethel, he continued on his way to his mother’s relatives in Paddan Aram. He arrived at the local well, inquiring where he might find Uncle Laban. He’s told the pretty girl approaching the well to water a herd of sheep is his cousin, Rachel. But she can’t water the sheep because lifting and opening the heavy stone lid of the well requires a couple of male shepherds. Jacob does it all by himself for Rachel, setting two hearts aflutter — his from the exercise, hers from the impressive man.

Jacob will spend almost a generation in Paddan Aram, where the swindler of blessings met his match. If “the measure with which one measures will be measured back to you” (Matthew 7:2), Jacob found in Laban the perfect measuring cup for atonement. Jacob goes to work as a shepherd for Laban, on the understanding that after seven years, he will receive Rachel as his bride. But when the nuptial festivities took place, Laban left Leah, his elder daughter, in place of Rachel in Jacob’s apparently dark tent.

When Jacob later discovered he was cheated and complained to Laban, the father-in-law then made the excuse that he could not hand over a younger over an older daughter — but that Jacob could also marry Rachel after another seven years of work. He did and they married. Then Laban got another seven years of work out of Jacob, for which Jacob eventually got a flock of sheep and goats to take back to his old home.

We won’t go into Jacob’s children’s issues (through Leah, Leah’s and Rachel’s servant girls, and — finally — the beloved Joseph from a hitherto thought-to-be-barren Rachel). Eventually, however, Jacob decides it is time to go home … even though he is unsure how warmly brother Esau might greet him.

He sets out. Sly Laban suddenly follows him with a horde of men, accusing Jacob of being a sheep thief. They have it out with words but part in peace, Jacob keeping the sheep. Jacob then sends messengers ahead of him to brother Esau, seeking to live in peace with him and offering him a considerable herd of animals. (Spoiler alert: Jacob and Esau reconcile generously in Genesis 33.) Jacob also prays, reminding God of his promise of protection decades ago at Bethel (something that might especially be useful with Esau). Then Jacob sent his wives and children and goods ahead of him and spent a night alone on the River Jabbok (today identified with the Zarqa), a tributary of the Jordan.

That’s when the next prophetic episode occurs, in Genesis 32:24-32. All alone, someone approaches Jacob. He’s often described as an “angel.” It really is God. But the biblical text calls him a “man” (אִישׁ֙). Who is he? Here, I’ll rely on Roman Brandstaetter. He’s God. He’s God’s messenger. And he’s Jacob.

Jacob wrestles with himself, with the man he was, is, and wants to be: as Brandstaetter observes, it’s been Jacob’s quandary, ever since (if not before) Bethel: “Is God with me or not?” Jacob wrestles with the world: an uncle who unjustly exploited him, and a brother waiting for him who has a claim in justice. And Jacob wrestles above all with God: he wants God’s blessing but needs to learn blessings should be obtained on God’s, not Jacob’s, terms. In a sense, God already favored him from the womb. But even if God didn’t, Jacob had seemed ready to try to force his hand.

All that came together that night on the Jabbok: “Is God with me or not?” It was an intense struggle, a fight that goes not nine rounds but all night, during which Jacob holds his own. And the Jacob that finishes that wrestling match at dawn is both the same and changed. He’s the same in his stubbornness, demanding his opponent “bless” him (v. 26b). God does, but he asks Jacob’s name. Why? God knows, but it’s a sign that God affirms Jacob is a changed man. When Jacob answers with the name of whom he was, God answers by it: “Your name will no longer be Jacob but Israel” (v. 28). And since names in the Bible speak of whom their bearers are, Israel is “you have struggled with God and man and overcome” (v. 28). As in Bethel, Jacob also renames this place because “I saw God face to face, yet my life was spared” (v. 30). (Jacob would also return once more to Bethel and speak to God: Genesis 35:1-15.)

In a sense, Jacob is somewhat like the dishonest steward who cooked his employer’s books to indebt his boss’s debtors to him (Luke 16:1-15). Jesus lauded him, not because he cheated but because he was so single-mindedly fixed on protecting his interests. Jesus asks whether somebody is really as determined when it comes to what matters: our salvation. Like the dishonest steward, Jacob also was ready to do everything — good and bad — to get God’s blessing. His labors for Laban over 20 years and his wrestling match with God himself one night along the Jabbok all point both to his obstinate determination and God’s intent to reset that determination down right paths.

In that sense, doesn’t every sinner fighting for salvation undergo a similar wrestling match?

Jacob’s match was depicted by many classical artists, but today’s choice is Frenchman Gustave Doré’s engraving from around 1866. Doré’s lasting fame has been as an engraver, especially of a collection of religious engravings for an edition of the Bible. His works were very popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries, often reproduced in religious publications.

God is represented by an angel, lighter in shading but greater in stature than Jacob (suggesting perhaps the sin Jacob carries?). They are engaged in a vigorous struggle on a precipice. Notice the faces. Jacob is intense but, still, he averts his face from his opponent. The angel is serious but not aggressive: as Brandstaetter puts it, the fight is more like a father wrestling with his beloved boy, teaching him about life but wanting him to win. In the background, dawn is breaking, signaling the fight will soon come to an end. But does the Bible also suggest a spiritual meaning to the time: a long struggle through the dark night of the soul to a new day and new man? Also in the background lies the Jabbok, the river whose crossing will take the new Israel to his unknown future reconciliation with his brother.