Genesis 32:13-32 Click here for Bible Verses
Hi GAMErs,
Today’s passage is Genesis 32:13-32. Let’s go!
Genesis 32:13-21 (NIV)
13 He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau:
14 two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,
15 thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.
16 He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, “Go ahead of me, and keep some space between the herds.”
17 He instructed the one in the lead: “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and who owns all these animals in front of you?’
18 then you are to say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.'”
19 He also instructed the second, the third and all the others who followed the herds: “You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him.
20 And be sure to say, ‘Your servant Jacob is coming behind us.'” For he thought, “I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me.”
21 So Jacob’s gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp.
On verses 13-21: To hopefully appease Esau’s anger and soften Esau’s heart, Jacob sends a series of lavish gifts to Esau consisting of one herd of animals after another. The picture of Jacob sending all these gifts to Esau makes me think of the way God sends gift after gift in the form of people and other blessings that God places in our lives. As John 1:16 says, “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.” God sends us many gifts so that we would know His heart. The gifts were always meant to point to the Giver. Yet our tendency is to focus on the gifts and forget about the Giver. So the next time you think about the blessings in your life, remember this: God gives us blessings not just for our enjoyment, but even more so that we would know the Giver of those blessings, because knowing the Giver is the greatest blessing of all.
Genesis 32:22-24 (NIV)
22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.
24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.
On verses 22-24: Notice that it was only when Jacob was alone that a man, who turns out to be an angel from God, wrestles with him. For me it’s a reminder that if you want to experience God and encounter Him, you need to get alone with Him. Getting alone with God and also drawing near to God with others – solitude and community –are both essential. One of my favourites quotes on this point is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his classic book Life Together, once wrote something to the effect of: “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community… Let him who is not in community beware of being alone… Each by itself has profound perils and pitfalls. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and the one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation and despair.”
Genesis 32:25 (NIV)
25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.
On verse 25: It’s interesting that the man (the angel) “could not overpower” Jacob when they wrestled, and yet he could wrench Jacob’s hip with a mere touch. I believe that’s God’s way with us as well. Like a father wrestling with his young child, God is gentle with us and even lets us exert our will over Him, but He could at any moment easily summon His power and show us just how strong and mighty He is. God is gentle in power.
Genesis 32:26 (NIV)
26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
On verse 26: I love Jacob’s tenacity and his refusal to give up. When drawing close to God, may you have that same tenacity. I often find that it’s not in the first few minutes of reading God’s Word that I see something wonderful. Often it’s only after a period of wrestling with the passage, meditating on His Word and waiting in His presence that something powerful is revealed to my attention. Blessed are those who are tenacious in wrestling with God and His Word.
Genesis 32:27-28 (NIV)
27 The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered.
28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”
On verses 27-28: As a result of this wrestling encounter with God, Jacob’s name is changed to “Israel”, which means “he struggles with God”. The angel reveals the reason for the name change: “because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.” I love that. With the change in Jacob’s name came a revelation in Jacob’s true identity and destiny. Jacob learns that with God he was and is an overcomer. Jacob had faced many challenges in life, with more to come, but because Jacob hung on to God and would not let go, Jacob would overcome.
Likewise, you and I were made to “struggle with God”, to wrestle with what it means to believe in Him, trust in Him, follow him and walk with Him. The way we overcome the challenges we face in life is by hanging on to God and knowing that He hangs onto us.
Genesis 32:29-30 (NIV)
29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
On verses 29-30: Jacob probably had an inkling he wasn’t wrestling any ordinary man. But now in verses 29-30 he realizes with certainty that he just had an encounter with God. He calls the place of their wrestling match “Peniel”, meaning “face of God”, saying, “because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared” (v30). Why? It’s because God is so holy that sinners like us could not stand in His presence. It is only by His mercy – particularly the mercy He expressed by sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins – that we can experience God face to face and be spared.
Genesis 32:31-32 (NIV)
31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.
32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.
On verses 31-32: As Pastor Jon Courson points out, 20 years before when Jacob first encountered God, he left with “happy feet” (see my earlier comments on Genesis 29:1). Now after this encounter with God, Jacob leaves with a limp.
What’s the lesson behind the limp? I believe that one reason God gave Jacob a limp was to remind Jacob not to depend on himself and his own limited power, but to depend on God and His unlimited power. It’s similar to Paul’s thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12. His weakness was a reminder of God’s strength in his life. It would be through Jacob’s brokenness that God would reveal His power.
Have you been broken by God in some way? Is there a limp in your life that God has allowed in your life? See the limp as a reminder to rely on God and not on ourselves, and as an opportunity for God to reveal His power through your weakness.
Heavenly Father, thank You for every gift You have given to me. I realize today that the big reason why You allow those gifts in my life is that I would look to You and have a soft heart toward You, knowing that You love me. Thank You also for the limp You allow in my life, for it reminds me to depend on You. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
