Wrestling with God

Then the Lord told Jacob, “Go back to your relatives in the land of your ancestors, and I will be with you.”

So Jacob sent for Rachel and Leah to come out to the field where his flocks were. “I can see from your father’s face that he isn’t as friendly to me as he used to be,” he told them, “but the God of my father has been with me. You know I have worked for your father as hard as I could. Even so, he has tricked me and changed my pay ten times. But God hasn’t let him do me any harm.

“When he said, ‘You can have the speckled ones for your pay,’ every animal in the flock had speckled young. When he said, ‘You can have the streaked ones for your pay,’ every animal had streaked young. That is how God has taken your father’s animals away from him and given them to me.

“Once, when the flocks were mating, I had a dream. In the dream I looked up, and the male goats that were mating with the flock were all streaked, speckled and gray-spotted. Then the angel of God called to me in the dream, ‘Jacob!’ And I answered, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Look up and see. Every male goat that is mating with the flock is streaked, speckled and gray-spotted, because I have seen all that Laban does to you. I am the God of Bethel. That is where you poured oil on a pillar and made a vow to me. Now get up, leave this land, and go home to the land where you were born.’”

Rachel and Leah answered him, “Is there anything left for us to inherit from our father’s family? Doesn’t he treat us like foreigners? He sold us, and he has spent our money too. All the riches God has taken away from our father are ours and our children’s anyway. So do whatever God has told you.”

Laban was away shearing his sheep, and while he was gone Rachel stole her father’s household idols. Jacob tricked Laban the Syrian by not telling him he was running away. He fled with everything he had, crossed the Euphrates River, and set off toward the hill country of Gilead.

On the third day, someone told Laban that Jacob had run away. Laban took his relatives and chased him for seven days, and he caught up with Jacob in the hill country of Gilead.

But that night God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream and warned him, “Be careful that you don’t say anything to Jacob, good or bad.”

“I have the power to hurt you. But the God of your father spoke to me last night. He said, ‘Be careful that you don’t say anything to Jacob, good or bad.’ Now, you wanted to leave because you were so homesick for your father’s home. But why did you steal my gods?”

“Because I was afraid,” Jacob answered Laban. “I thought you might take your daughters from me by force. As for your gods, anyone you find them with will not live. Here in front of our relatives, see if anything of yours is with me, and take it.” Jacob didn’t know that Rachel had stolen them.

So Laban went into Jacob’s tent, Leah’s tent, and the tent of the two servant women, but he didn’t find them. After he came out of Leah’s tent, he went into Rachel’s. But Rachel had taken the household idols, put them inside her camel’s saddle, and sat on them. Laban felt around everywhere in the tent but didn’t find them.

Rachel said to her father, “Don’t be angry, my lord, that I can’t stand up in front of you. I’m having my period.” So he searched, but he did not find the household idols.

“I have been with you for twenty years. Your sheep and goats have not lost their young, and I have not eaten the rams from your flocks. When wild animals tore one apart, I didn’t bring it to you; I paid for it myself. You made me pay for anything stolen, by day or by night. This is how it was: the heat wore me down by day and the cold by night, and I couldn’t sleep.

“For twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. The God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, was with me. If he hadn’t been, you would surely have sent me away with nothing by now. But God has seen my suffering and how hard I have worked, and last night he warned you.”

So Jacob took a stone and stood it up as a pillar. Then he told his relatives, “Gather some stones.” They gathered stones and piled them up, and they ate a meal there beside the heap. Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed. Both names mean “Witness Heap”, one in Aramaic, the other in Hebrew.

Laban said, “Today this heap is a witness between me and you.” That is why it was named Galeed. It was also called Mizpah, because Laban said, “May the Lord keep an eye on you and me when we can’t see each other. If you treat my daughters badly, or take other wives besides them, remember this: no one else is here with us, but God is the witness between me and you.”

Laban also said to Jacob, “Look at this heap, and look at this pillar, which I have set up between me and you. This heap and this pillar are witnesses. I will not go past this heap to harm you, and you will not go past this heap and this pillar to harm me. Let the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.” Then Jacob swore an oath by the Fear of his father Isaac.

Jacob offered a sacrifice there on the mountain and called his relatives to come and eat. They ate, and they stayed on the mountain all night. Early in the morning Laban got up, kissed his grandchildren and his daughters, and gave them his blessing. Then he left and went back home.

Jacob sent messengers on ahead to his brother Esau, who was in the land of Seir, out in the open country of Edom. He told them, “This is what you must say to my lord Esau: ‘Your servant Jacob says this: I have been living with Laban and have stayed there until now. I have cattle, donkeys, flocks, and male and female servants. I am sending this message to you, my lord, in the hope that you will be kind to me.’”

The messengers came back to Jacob and told him, “We reached your brother Esau. He is on his way to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”

Jacob was terrified and deeply worried. He divided the people with him, and the flocks, herds and camels, into two camps. He thought, “If Esau comes and attacks one camp, the other camp can escape.”

Then Jacob prayed, “God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, Lord, you are the one who told me, ‘Return to your country and your relatives, and I will treat you well.’ I don’t deserve even the smallest part of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown me. When I crossed this river, the Jordan, I had nothing but my walking stick, and now I have become two whole camps. Please save me from my brother Esau. I am afraid of him. He may come and attack me, and the mothers and children too. But you said, ‘I will surely treat you well. I will make your offspring as many as the grains of sand by the sea, too many to count.’”

Jacob spent the night there. Then he chose a gift for his brother Esau from what he had: two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred female sheep and twenty rams, and thirty camels that were nursing, with their young. There were also forty cows and ten bulls, as well as twenty female donkeys and ten foals.

He put each herd in the care of one of his servants and told them, “Go on ahead of me, and leave a space between one herd and the next.” He told the first servant, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks, ‘Whose servant are you? Where are you going? And whose animals are these in front of you?’ then say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. It is a present he has sent to my lord Esau. And look, Jacob himself is coming behind us.’”

He gave the same orders to the second servant, the third, and everyone else driving the herds: “When you find Esau, tell him the same thing. And you must also say, ‘Look, your servant Jacob is behind us.’” Jacob was thinking, “I will calm him down with the gift I am sending ahead of me. After that, when I see him face to face, maybe he will welcome me.” So the gift went on ahead, and Jacob himself spent that night in the camp.

So Jacob was left alone, and he wrestled with a man there until dawn. When the man saw that he could not win against Jacob, he touched Jacob’s hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was wrenched as they wrestled.

Then the man said, “Let me go, because day is breaking.”

But Jacob said, “I won’t let you go unless you bless me.”

“What is your name?” the man asked him.

“Jacob,” he said.

“You will not be called Jacob anymore,” the man said. “Your name will be Israel, because you have fought with God and with people, and you have won.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he said, “Why do you ask what my name is?” And he blessed Jacob there.

Jacob called the place Peniel, which means “Face of God”. “I have seen God face to face,” he said, “and my life has been spared.” The sun rose on Jacob as he went past Peniel, limping because of his hip.

This is why the people of Israel, to this day, don’t eat the tendon by the hip socket. It was at that tendon that Jacob’s hip socket was touched.

But Esau ran to meet him. He hugged him and threw his arms around his neck. He kissed him, and they both wept.

Then Esau looked up. He saw the women and the children and asked, “Who are these with you?”

Jacob answered, “The children God has kindly given me.”

Then the servant women came near with their children and bowed low. Leah and her children came near too and bowed. After them, Joseph came near with Rachel, and they bowed.

Esau asked, “Why did you send all those herds I met?”

“I hoped you would be kind to me, my lord,” Jacob said.

“I have enough, my brother,” Esau said. “Let what’s yours stay yours.”

“No, please,” said Jacob. “If you are pleased with me, accept this gift from me. Seeing your face is like seeing God’s face, now that you have welcomed me. Please take the gift I brought you. God has been kind to me, and I have all I need.” Jacob kept urging him, and Esau took it.

Then Esau said, “Let’s be on our way. I will go ahead of you.”

But Jacob said, “You know, my lord, that the children are young, and that I have to look after sheep and cattle that are nursing their young. If they are driven too hard for even one day, all the animals will die. Please go on ahead of me, my lord. I will come along slowly, as fast as the animals in front of me and the children can go, until I come to you in Seir.”

“Then let me leave you some of the people I have with me,” Esau said.

“Why do that?” Jacob said. “I only want you to be kind to me, my lord.”

So that day Esau went back on his way to Seir. Jacob traveled to Succoth. He built a house for himself there and made shelters for his animals. That is why the place is called Succoth, which means “Shelters”.

On his way back from Paddan Aram, Jacob came safely to the town of Shechem in the land of Canaan, and he camped near the town. He bought the piece of ground where he had set up his tent. He paid the sons of Hamor, the father of a man named Shechem, a hundred pieces of money for it. He built an altar there and named it El Elohe Israel, which means “God, the God of Israel” or “The God of Israel is mighty”.