THE TWOFOLD WRESTLE--
GOD'S WITH JACOB AND JACOB'S WITH GOD
by Alexander Maclaren
'And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and
God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy
country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee: I am not worthy
of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which Thou hast
shewed unto Thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and
now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of
my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and
smite me, and the mother with the children. And Thou saidst, I will surely
do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be
numbered for multitude.' -- GENESIS xxxii. 9-12.
Jacob's subtlety and craft were, as is often the
case, the weapons
of a timid as well as selfish nature. No wonder,
then, that the
prospect of meeting his wronged and strong brother
threw him into a
panic, notwithstanding the vision of the camp of
angels by the side
of his defenceless caravan of women and children.
Esau had received
his abject message of propitiation in grim silence,
sent no welcome
back, but with ominous haste and ambiguous purpose
began his march
towards him with a strong force. A few hours will
decide whether he
means revenge. Jacob's fright does not rob him of
his ready wit; he
goes to work at once to divide his party, so as to
ensure safety for
half of it. He schemes first, and prays second. The
order might have
been inverted with advantage, but is like the
man--in the lowest
phase of his character. His prayer shows that he is
beginning to
profit by the long years of schooling. Though its
burden is only
deliverance from Esau, it pleads with God on the
grounds of His own
command and promise, of Jacob's unworthiness of
God's past mercies,
and of His firm covenant. A breath of a higher life
is stirring in
the shifty schemer who has all his life been living
by his wits. Now
he has come to a point where he knows that his own
power can do
nothing. With Laban, a man of craft like himself, it
was diamond cut
diamond; and Jacob was equal to the position. But
the wild Bedouin
brother, with his four hundred men, is not to be
managed so; and
Jacob is driven to God by his conscious
helplessness. It is the
germ, but only the germ, and needs much tending and
growth before it
matures. The process by which this faint dawning of
a better life is
broadened into day is begun in the mysterious
struggle which forms
the main part of this lesson, and is God's answer to
his prayer.
1. We have, first, the twofold wrestling. The silent
night-long
wrestle with the 'traveller unknown' is generally
regarded as
meaning essentially the same thing as the wonderful
colloquy which
follows. But I venture to take a somewhat different
point of view,
and to suggest that there are here two well-marked
stages. In the
first, which is represented as transacted in
unbroken silence, 'a
man' wrestles with Jacob, and does not prevail; in
the second, which
is represented as an interchange of speech, Jacob
strives with the
'man,' and does prevail. Taken together, the two are
a complete
mirror, not only of the manner of the transformation
of Jacob into
Israel, but of universal eternal truths as to God's
dealings with
us, and our power with Him.
As to the former stage, the language of the
narrative is to be
noted, 'There wrestled a man with him.' The attack,
so to speak,
begins with his mysterious antagonist, not with the
patriarch. The
'man' seeks to overcome Jacob, not Jacob the man.
There, beneath the
deep heavens, in the solemn silence of night, which
hides earth and
reveals heaven, that strange struggle with an
unknown Presence is
carried on. We have no material for pronouncing on
the manner of it,
whether ecstasy, vision, or an objective and bodily
fact. The body
was implicated in the consequences, at all events,
and the
impression which the story leaves is of an outward
struggle. But the
purpose of the incident is the same, however the
question as to its
form be answered. Nor can we pronounce, as some have
done, on the
other question, of the personality of the silent
wrestler. Angel, or
'the angel of the covenant,' who is a transient, and
possibly only
apparent, manifestation in human form of Him who
afterwards became
flesh and dwelt among us, or some other supernatural
embodiment, for
that one purpose, of the divine presence,--any of
these hypotheses
is consistent with the intentionally reticent text.
What it leaves
unspoken, we shall wisely leave undetermined. God
acts and speaks
through 'the man.' That is all we can know or need.
What, then, was the meaning of this struggle? Was it
not a
revelation to Jacob of what God had been doing with
him all his
life, and was still doing? Was not that merciful
striving of God
with him the inmost meaning of all that had befallen
him since the
far-off day when he had left his father's tents, and
had seen the
opened heavens, and the ladder, which he had so
often forgotten?
Were not his disappointments, his successes, and all
the swift
changes of life, God's attempts to lead him to yield
himself up, and
bow his will? And was not God striving with him now,
in the
anxieties which gnawed at his heart, and in his
dread of the morrow?
Was He not trying to teach him how crime always
comes home to roost,
with a brood of pains running behind it? Was not the
weird duel in
the brooding stillness a disclosure, which would
more and more
possess his soul as the night passed on, of a
Presence which in
silence strove with him, and only desired to
overcome that He might
bless? The conception of a Divine manifestation
wrestling all night
long with a man has been declared 'crude,'
'puerile,' and I know not
how many other disparaging adjectives have been
applied to it. But
is it more unworthy of Him, or derogatory to His
nature, than the
lifelong pleading and striving with each of us,
which He undoubtedly
carries on? The idea of a man contending with God
has been similarly
stigmatised; but is it more mysterious than that
awful power which
the human will does possess of setting at naught His
counsels and
resisting His merciful strivings?
The close of the first stage of the twofold wrestle
is marked by the
laming of Jacob. The paradox that He, who could not
overcome, could
yet lame by a touch, is part of the lesson. If His
finger could do
that, what would the grip of His hand do, if He
chose to put out His
power? It is not for want of strength that He has
not crushed the
antagonist, as Jacob would feel, with deepening
wonder and awe. What
a new light would be thus thrown on all the previous
struggle! It
was the striving of a power which cared not for a
mere outward
victory, nor put forth its whole force, lest it
should crush him
whom it desired to conquer only by his own yielding.
As Job says,
'Will He plead against me with His great power?' No;
God mercifully
restrains His hand, in His merciful striving with
men. Desiring to
overcome them, He desires not to do so by mere
superior power, but
by their willing yielding to Him.
That laming of Jacob's thigh represents the
weakening of all the
life of nature and self which had hitherto been his.
He had trusted
to his own cunning and quick-wittedness; he had been
shrewd, not
over-scrupulous, and successful. But he had to learn
that 'by
strength shall no man prevail,' and to forsake his
former weapons.
Wrestling with his hands and limbs is not the way to
prevail either
with God or man. Fighting with God in his own
strength, he is only
able to thwart God's merciful purpose towards him,
but is powerless
as a reed in a giant's grasp if God chooses to
summon His
destructive powers into exercise. So this failure of
natural power
is the turning-point in the twofold wrestle, and
marks as well as
symbolises the transition in Jacob's life and
character from
reliance upon self and craft to reliance upon his
divine Antagonist
become his Friend. It is the path by which we must
all travel if we
are to become princes with God. The life of nature
and of dependence
on self must be broken and lamed in order that, in
the very moment
of discovered impotence, we may grasp the hand that
smites, and find
immortal power flowing into our weakness from it.
2. So we come to the second stage, in which Jacob
strives with God
and does prevail. 'Let me go, for the day breaketh.'
Then did the
stranger wish to go; and if he did, why could not
he, who had lamed
his antagonist, loose himself from his grasp? The
same explanation
applies here which is required in reference to
Christ's action to
the two disciples at Emmaus: 'He made as though He
would have gone
further.' In like manner, when He came to them on
the water, He
appeared as though He 'would have passed by.' In all
three cases the
principle is the same. God desires to go, if we do
not desire Him to
stay. He will go, unless we keep Him. Then, at last,
Jacob betakes
himself to his true weapons. Then, at last, he
strangely wishes to
keep his apparent foe. He has learned, in some dim
fashion, whom he
has been resisting, and the blessedness of having
Him for friend and
companion. So here comes in the account of the whole
scene which
Hosea gives (Hos. xii. 4): 'He wept, and made
supplication unto
Him.' That does not describe the earlier portion,
but is the true
rendering of the later stage, of which our narrative
gives a more
summary account. The desire to retain God binds Him
to us. All His
struggling with us has been aimed at evoking it, and
all His fulness
responds to it when evoked. Prayer is power. It
conquers God. We
overcome Him when we yield. When we are vanquished,
we are victors.
When the life of nature is broken within us, then
from conscious
weakness springs the longing which God cannot but
satisfy. 'When I
am weak, then am I strong.' As Charles Wesley puts
it, in his grand
hymn on this incident:--
'Yield to me now, for I am weak,
But confident in self-despair.'
And God prevails when we prevail. His aim in all the
process of His
mercy has been but to overcome our heavy earthliness
and
selfishness, which resists His pleading love. His
victory is our
yielding, and, in that yielding, obtaining power
with Him. He
delights to be held by the hand of faith, and ever
gladly yields to
the heart's cry, 'Abide with me.' I will not let
Thee go, except
Thou bless me,' is music to His ear; and our saying
so, in earnest,
persistent clinging to Him, is His victory as well
as ours.
3. We have, next, the new name, which is the prize
of Jacob's
victory, and the sign of a transformation in his
character. Before
this time he had been Jacob, the worker with wiles,
who supplanted
his brother, and met his foes with duplicity and
astuteness like
their own. He had been mainly of the earth, earthy.
But that solemn
hour had led him into the presence-chamber, the old
craft had been
mortally wounded, he had seen some glimpse of God as
his friend,
whose presence was not 'awful,' as he had thought it
long ago, nor
enigmatical and threatening, as he had at first
deemed it that
night, but the fountain of blessing and the one
thing needful. A man
who has once learned that lesson, though
imperfectly, has passed
into a purer region, and left behind him his old
crookedness. He has
learned to pray, not as before, prayers for mere
deliverance from
Esau and the like, but his whole being has gone out
in yearning for
the continual nearness of his mysterious
antagonist-friend. So,
though still the old nature remains, its power is
broken, and he is
a new creature. Therefore he needs a new name, and
gets it from Him
who can name men, because He sees the heart's
depths, and because He
has the right over them. To impose a name is the
sign of authority,
possession, insight into character. The change of
name indicates a
new epoch in a life, or a transformation of the
inner man. The
meaning of 'Israel' is 'He (who) strives with God';
and the reason
for its being conferred is more accurately given by
the Revised
Version, which translates, 'For thou hast striven
with God and with
men,' than in the Authorised rendering. His victory
with God
involved the certainty of his power with men. All
his life he had
been trying to get the advantage of them, and to
conquer them, not
by spear and sword, but by his brains. But now the
true way to true
sway among men is opened to him. All men are the
servants of the
servant and the friend of God. He who has the ear of
the emperor is
master of many men.
Jacob is not always called Israel in his subsequent
history. His new
name was a name of character and of spiritual
standing, and that
might fluctuate, and the old self resume its power;
so he is still
called by the former appellation, just as, at
certain points in his
life, the apostle forfeits the right to be 'Peter,'
and has to hear
from Christ's lips the old name, the use of which is
more poignant
than many reproachful words; 'Simon, Simon, behold,
Satan hath
desired to have you.' But in the last death-bed
scene, when the
patriarch lifted himself in his bed, and with
prophetic dignity
pronounced his parting benediction on Joseph's sons,
the new name
reappears with solemn pathos.
That name was transmitted to his descendants, and
has passed over to
the company of believing men, who have been overcome
by God, and
have prevailed with God. It is a charter and a
promise. It is a
stringent reminder of duty and a lofty ideal. A true
Christian is an
'Israel.' His office is to wrestle with God. Nor can
we forget how
this mysterious scene was repeated in yet more
solemn fashion,
beneath the gnarled olives of Gethsemane, glistening
in the light of
the paschal full moon, when the true Israel prayed
with such sore
crying and tears that His body partook of the
struggle, and 'His
sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling
down to the
ground.' The word which describes Christ's agony is
that which is
often rendered 'wrestling,' and perhaps is selected
with intentional
allusion to this incident. At all events, when we
think of Jacob by
the brook Jabbok, and of a 'greater than our father
Jacob' by the
brook Kedron, we may well learn what persistence,
what earnestness
and effort of the whole nature, go to make up the
ideal of prayer,
and may well blush for the miserable indifference
and torpor of what
we venture to call our prayers. These are our
patterns, 'as many as
walk according to this rule,' and are thereby shown
to be 'the
Israel of God,'--upon them shall be peace.
4. We have, as the end of all, a deepened desire
after closer
knowledge of God, and the answer to it. Some
expositors (as, for
instance, Robertson of Brighton, in his impressive
sermon on this
section) take the closing petition, 'Tell me, I pray
thee, Thy
name,' as if it were the centre point of the whole
incident. But
this is obviously a partial view. The desire to know
that name does
not come to Jacob, as we might have expected, when
he was struggling
with his unknown foe in the dark there. It is the
end, and, in some
sense, the issue, of all that has gone before. Not
that he was in
any doubt as to the person to whom he spoke; it is
just because he
knows that he is speaking with God, who alone can
bless, that he
longs to have some deeper, clearer knowledge still
of Him. He is not
asking for a word by which he may call Him; the name
is the
expression of the nature, and his parting request is
for something
far more intimate and deep than syllables which
could be spoken by
any lips. The certain sequel of the discovery of God
as striving in
mercy with a man, and of yielding to him, is the
thirst for deeper
acquaintance with Him, and for a fuller, more
satisfying knowledge
of His inmost heart. If the season of mysterious
intercourse must
cease, and day hide more than it discloses, and
Jacob go to face
Esau, and we come down from the mount to sordid
cares and mean
tasks, at least we long to bear with us as a
love-token some whisper
in our inmost hearts that may cheer us with the
peaceful truth about
Him and be a hidden sweetness. The presence of such
a desire is a
sure consequence, and therefore a good test, of real
prayer.
The Divine answer, which sounds at first like
refusal, is anything
but that. Why dost thou ask after My name? surely I
need not to give
thee more revelation of My character. Thou hast
enough of light;
what thou needest is insight into what thou hast
already. We have in
what God has made known of Himself already to
us--both in His
outward revelation, which is so much larger and
sweeter to us than
it was to Jacob, but also in His providences, and in
the inward
communion which we have with Him if we have let Him
overcome us, and
have gained power to prevail with Him--sources of
certain knowledge
of Him so abundant and precious that we need nothing
but the loving
eye which shall take in all their beauty and
completeness, to have
our most eager desires after His name more than
satisfied. We need
not ask for more sunshine, but take care to spread
ourselves out in
the full sunshine which we have, and let it drench
our eyes and fire
our hearts. 'And He blessed him there.' Not till now
was he capable
of receiving the full blessing. He needed to have
self beaten out of
him; he needed to recognise God as lovingly striving
with Him; he
needed to yield himself up to Him; he needed to have
his heart thus
cleansed and softened, and then opened wide by
panting desire for
the presence and benediction of God; he needed to be
made conscious
of his new standing, and of the higher life budding
within him; he
needed to experience the yearning for a closer
vision of the face, a
deeper knowledge of the name,--and then it was
possible to pour into
his heart a tenderness and fulness of blessing which
before there
had been no room to receive, and which now answered
in sweetest
fashion the else unanswered desire, 'Tell me, I pray
thee, Thy
name.'
In like manner we may each be blessed with the
presence and
benediction of Him whose merciful strivings, when we
knew Him not,
came to us in the darkness; and to whom, if we
yield, there will be
peace and power in our hearts, and upon us, too, the
sun will rise
as we pass from the place where our foe became our
friend, and by
faith we saw Him face to face, and drank in life by
the gaze.
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