Grappling with the Mystery of Genesis 32

 Mystery as a Clarifying Lens

Jacob gives and receives blessings at nearly every significant milestone in his story as recorded in Genesis.  He is blessed by Isaac while impersonating Esau, and again as he is sent out to live with his Uncle Laban.  He is blessed by God during a fitful night of sleep on a stone pillow.  His own blessings (and in some cases curses) conferred on his sons conclude the book of Genesis.  The most mysterious blessing comes from an unnamed stranger who wrestles with Jacob in the dark.  This shroud of mystery, however, actually can bring other blessings into clarity.  

Wrong Answers Only

Genesis 32:22-32 invites conjecture as to the identity of this mysterious wrestler.  Not only is he not introduced, but his arrival doesn’t seem to warrant its own sentence. Verse 24 tells us Jacob was left alone and adds, almost as an aside, “and a man wrestled with him until daybreak”.  My favorite wrong answer as to the stranger’s identity is that it’s Esau turning the tables on Jacob.  The poetic justice is alluring:  For Esau to disguise himself as a god-like blessing-vendor while pulling the wool over the deceptive Jacob’s eyes seems fitting.  The text even seems to hint at this:  Jacob concludes his wrestling match by saying, “I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”  Similarly shocked at his survival in the following chapter, he greets Esau and his army by saying, “to see your face is like seeing the face of God.”  It almost seems as if Jacob is turning to the "camera", breaking the 4th wall, and inviting us to smirk at the irony.

With my tin-foil hat removed however, this conspiracy theory won’t hold up. The “face of God” reference does serve to remind us that Esau shows grace to Jacob in a way that recalls the wrestler, but the wrestler exhibits abilities that aren't consistent with what we know about Esau. The mystery of the wrestler’s identity actually serves to take our focus off of the chosen family and direct it toward a much more powerful entity.  

A Growing Concern

The reader’s experience of Genesis 32 is one of growing concern that Jacob may be desperately overmatched.  At first, we wonder who will win the match, but when the unidentified wrestler disables Jacob’s hip at a seemingly super-human touch, we get our first sign that this may not end at wrestling.  Jacob is engaged with a higher power.  

As recently as chapter 19, we’ve seen angels strike the men of Sodom with blindness.  God himself hasn’t participated in combat prior to this in Genesis, but a string of catastrophes from Eden to the Flood, and from Babel to Sodom have shown us that he is not to be trifled with.  Whomever this unidentified man is, his seeming inability to prevail at wrestling doesn’t calm our fears that Jacob is in peril.  

Our concerns for Jacob only ratchet up when, still holding the other wrestler captive in some way, he announces, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”  Jacob, who defrauded Laban of his best livestock, swindled Esau out of his birthright, and utilized a disguise to obtain Isaac’s blessing, has fallen into the hands of God incognito.  Surely the limitation of his wrestling strength is only part of God’s costume.  How can Jacob survive a confrontation with almighty God in which he foolishly makes demands?  

Because of this growing concern, the readers’ question has now changed.  Where we were once asking, “who is this?”, we now ask, “is this God or man?”.  Because if it’s God, Jacob is in mortal danger.

Is this God or is it Man?

You could rightly wonder why Jacob has been blessed so many times.  He is blessed by Isaac in Chapter 27 and again in chapter 28 before being blessed by the Lord himself (who, in that instance, immediately introduces himself as such) only sentences later.  Isaac, for comparison, receives no recorded blessing from Abraham.  

Given the drama of Jacob’s disguise and Esau’s vow to kill him, the first of these blessings could be mistaken for the most impactful one, but it is not.  Both of Isaac’s blessings focus on the familiar benefits of being chosen by God:  “You’ll be a great nation”, “your descendants will be numerous”, “this land will be yours” and the like.  Neither of Isaac’s blessings for Jacob mention a key responsibility though:  When God blesses Jacob in 28:13-15, he repeats a phrase from his call to Abraham:  “All the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants.”  (see Genesis 12:3)  

This is the original charge to Abraham when God calls him out of Ur.  It is God’s charge to Jacob, and in a more developed form, it immediately precedes the giving of the 10 commandments to Moses:  “Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”  (Exodus 19:6)  God’s chosen family is meant to grow into a kingdom of priests, administering God’s will and grace in the world, blessing the world, and drawing them toward God.  One could argue that the story of the Old Testament is of God’s people, generation after generation, continuing to pursue greatness as an isolated entity while failing to be a godly blessing to the world at large.  

Isaac is human and his interpretation of God’s blessing is human-centric.  He even leaves God out of describing the blessing to Esau in 27:4 - an omission made more obvious by Rebekah’s tactful re-introduction of the phrase “in the presence of the Lord” when relaying Isaac’s words to Jacob.  Isaac leaves out the duty to “be a blessing” to God’s beloved world in both his blessings to Jacob.

With this in mind then, when we see a blessing conferred on the chosen family, it's important to ask, “Is the person conferring the blessing God or man?”  

The Answer is the Question

Genesis chapter 32 gives us our answer only after we’ve had time to wonder about it for a while.  The mysterious wrestler turned bless-er is God.  While he refuses to give his name, he demonstrates his authority by renaming Jacob with the name his ancestors still wear with pride:  Israel.  Knowing the almighty power of his assailant, our fears for Jacob’s safety linger until the moment the wrestler is fully identified:  “I saw God face to face and yet my life was spared”. (32:30)  

Like a parable, this story draws questions out of the reader that are themselves the point of the narrative.  By causing us to linger in the presence of a blessing with the question, “is this God or is it man?”, this mysterious wrestling match serves to deepen and confirm the story Genesis is telling:  The post-fall world-wide rescue is underway.  God is gracious and therefore humankind is in good hands.  The chosen family is human, however, and therefore things may get worse before they get better.  

A Changed Man

As he limped away from his encounter with God, Jacob’s days of dominating the wrestling mats of Canaan were over.  So also were his days of grappling his way to the top at all costs.  He goes on to make peace with Esau - another demonstration of the prominence of God’s blessing. By comparison, the blessings and curses of Isaac and Esau respectively have faded into the background.  For the remainder of Genesis Jacob no longer acts the trickster but instead tries to piece together life as the father of 12 challenging boys and at least one terribly mistreated girl.  As the story of the chosen family continues toward Egypt, if we learn to ask, “is it God, or is it man?”  We’ll find the answers helpful and the conclusions hopeful:  “You [a gaggle of very human brothers] intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done.”  (Gen. 50:20)

We too, can depart the ring better informed.  The fog of mystery in Genesis 32 turns our minds inward on the question of blessings, and the one doing the blessing.  As we shape our own lives, we can also do so in the blessed tradition of Jacob:  By asking ourselves, is this for God's plans or mine?  Strong men - Patriarchs and Kings - have succumbed to the temptation of the pursuit of greatness.  The great ones seek first God’s Kingdom and His righteousness and get the rest in the bargain.