Genesis 32:22-31
This story raises many questions: Who exactly is Jacob’s attacker? Verse 24 tells us it’s a man but after the wrestling match, the man says, “… you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:28). Why would God bushwhack Jacob? Are we supposed to believe God couldn’t pin Jacob? Did Jacob want God’s blessing because he knew the blessing from his father Isaac was predicated on deceit, or was he just greedy for more blessings? And why does a deceitful and irreverent trickster end up with God’s blessing, anyway?
Jacob is Isaac’s son, Abraham’s grandson. His twin brother Esau was born first, but Jacob was his mother’s favorite, and together they plotted to steal Esau’s birthright and Isaac’s blessing, both due to Esau as the elder son (Genesis 27:1-29). Those plans were put on hold when Esau’s understandable homicidal rage sent Jacob running to his Uncle Laban (Genesis 27:41, 28:5). There, Jacob the trickster was tricked by his uncle into working an extra seven years for the right to marry his true love, Rachel (Genesis 29:15-30). Laban and his sons grew jealous of Jacob’s wealth and success, which he achieved by systematically stealing Laban’s sheep out from under him (Genesis 30:31-43). So one night while Laban was away, Jacob gathered everything he had and took off for Canaan, for home (Genesis 31:1-18).
In these verses, twenty years have passed since Jacob fled Esau’s wrath. Jacob receives word that his brother is coming to meet him with an army of 400 men (Genesis 32:6-8). Terrified, Jacob divides his entourage of wives, servants, livestock and possessions into two parts. That way, if Esau attacks, he won’t lose everything. He sends generous gifts to appease Esau (Genesis 32:13-18), and then he sends his family and belongings across the River Jabbok. Maybe he figures that even if Esau refuses his tribute, he may at least take pity at the sight of his defenseless wives and children. He sits down by the river, alone and a fugitive once again. And then in a few short words we’re told, “a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”
Jacob refuses to let his opponent go even after his own hip is put out of joint. The man, the angel, God, whomever it is, says, “Let me go; it’s almost daylight.” Jacob says he’ll only let go if the man blesses him. The man agrees and gives Jacob a new name. In Jacob’s culture, that means a new identity. No longer Jacob the usurper, the cheat; now he is Israel, a name that means, “You have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” That’s the big “reveal;” it was God all along. The scene concludes with Jacob carrying away God’s blessing along with his new identity. Not only will Jacob and Esau be reconciled in the chapters to come, but Jacob will sire a nation from his twelve sons, and they and their descendants proudly bear his name to this day, a people defined by wrestling with God.
A God who wrestles with us, and what’s more, God started it! This challenges any attempt to make God fit into some easy mold. Further, God blesses Jacob even though he isn’t deserving, holy, or righteous by any stretch of the imagination. So one lesson might be, “Don’t second guess God.”
But what can wrestling with God mean for us, today? What does it look like in our lives – in your life, in my life?
It’s likely a very personal thing. It’s probably ongoing, not once and for all. It may look like when you lost a loved one, lost your health, lost a job, or lost a dream, and you wondered where God was, how God could let it happen, or what’s even the point of a God who doesn’t fix everything. Maybe it’s when you figured out there’s something, some situation, you can’t change, fix, control, explain, or even understand. Maybe it looks like when you found your way to a therapist, a grief group, a twelve-step meeting, a church, or seminary.
It may be about coming to faith or keeping faith. Maybe you wrestle with God when you remember how you used to be able to recite the Apostles Creed without even thinking about it and now, you have to cross your fingers. Maybe it’s when the Dalai Lama makes a lot of sense, and you find yourself wondering, “If scripture isn’t either history or science, what is there to hold on to?” Maybe it’s when you haven’t lost your faith in God, exactly, but you’ve lost faith in the system that promised to help you grasp God by giving you the right language and answers – the Church, a denomination, a belief system.
Or maybe it’s that you can remember when you thought believing in God was stupid, or unsophisticated, and then something happened that shook you to your toes. Maybe you encountered people who trust that God wants the world, this world, here and now, to be more just. Maybe it’s when you figured out God is love, but it turns out love isn’t like unicorns and rainbows. Love is hard. Love is sacrifice. Love is eating with the sick. Love is trouble. Love is rebellious. Love doesn’t make the pain go away. Love sits with us in in the middle of it.[1]. Love inspires us to act.
Maybe God wrestles us into loving our neighbors as ourselves. Maybe God wrestles us into opening our hearts to let God in. Those are life-long wrestling matches from where I sit. In the closing verse of the lesson, Jacob limps away, transformed. When he finally sees his brother Esau, Jacob says, “For truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God” (Genesis 33:11). Jacob looks at the face of his enemy, and he sees the face of God. This is hard. And hopeful. This takes wrestling with God, and not letting go.
Barbara Brown Taylor says it’s times like this that Jacob’s story says to us, “Don’t be so sure that’s an enemy you’re wrestling. Don’t be so sure you can’t find God in the dark. Don’t be so sure you know how this story ends. Above all, don’t be so sure you can’t make it through the night. Faith has a lot more to do with hanging on than with being sure.”[2]
© Joanne Whitt 2026 all rights reserved.
[1] “Brené Brown on Church as Midwife,” posted April 11, 2014, on David Lose, “In the Meantime,” http://www.davidlose.net/2014/04/brene-brown-on-church-as-midwife/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+davidlose%2FIsqE+%28…In+the+Meantime%29
[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Jacob Wrestles,” https://www.fapc.org/sermon/twenty-fifth-sunday-after-pentecost.
Solvitur Ambulando 