An almost universally overlooked fact is that Jacob’s wrestle with God provides momentous lessons for people struggling with addictive behavior. In the last issue of Faith In Focus we saw family loyalties split down the middle in the Isaac household: parental favoritism, spousal disrespect, in-laws trashing family traditions, and brothers at such odds that their animosity reached the level of the will to kill. Jacob fled and spent the next 20 years far away at his uncle’s home where he became a wealthy family-man.
It was at the birth of Joseph to Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel that Jacob’s stirring to return home found first expression (Gen. 30:25). Children bring the heart full circle to memories of home and the desire to show off the fruit of our pride. Jacob was probably no exception. But Laban prevailed upon him to stay longer (Gen. 30:27). More business dealings ensued (Gen. 30:28–43) and Jacob’s profits shot through the roof, only to provoke resentment in Laban’s sons who claimed that Jacob had got everything he earned from their father and left him with nothing (Gen. 31:1). But Jacob had done his best through the heat of day and many a cold, sleepless night. And even though Laban changed his wages ten times (obviously downward!), he had born all of Laban’s losses, and had never supplied even his daily needs from his uncle’s flock (Gen. 31:38–42). Laban’s attitude, nonetheless, shifted by the day and he became less and less friendly towards Jacob (Gen. 31:2).
Our All-seeing God, knowing that the world’s “eye [is] envious because I am generous” (Matt. 20:15 NASB), tells Jacob in a dream that He knows what Laban has been doing to him and that it’s time to return home (Gen. 31:3, 12, 13). God’s word must have met Jacob with a mixture of anticipation and fear. His longings for home were intense (Gen. 31:30). But mere nostalgia shades memory’s unpleasant details. Now God’s command must have brought Jacob up against harsh reality. To return home meant facing his brother. Now those shaded memories likely took on the sharp focus of day, and they would not have been an updated version of two brothers more mature. On the contrary, these would be memories frozen in time, chilling any expectation of a warm homecoming.
Nevertheless, having talked things through with his wives (Gen. 31:4–16) who were equally put out by their father’s shenanigans, they set off secretly, for fear Laban might try to prevent Jacob from taking his wives with him (Gen. 31:17–21). A tense confrontation erupts between the two proverbial men when Laban discovers the family has left without by-or-leave, but it ends peacefully and they go their separate ways (Gen. 31:22–55).
Always the survivor, Jacob decides on a strategy for re-entry into his brother’s world. He directs his servants to go ahead of him to Esau to explain where he’s been all these years, that he’s become very prosperous and hopes to find Esau’s favor (Gen. 32:4, 5). The mention of his prosperity was probably designed to assure Esau that Jacob has no intention of over-reaching, since he’s got more than enough. He reinforces the impression by addressing Esau as “lord” and himself, “servant” (vv. 4, 5). The disclaimer was certainly no renunciation of Jacob’s belief that the birthright was now his, however, for a little later, he affirms his faith in God’s promise to make him heir to all the blessings of Abraham (Gen. 32:9–12). More probably, it was an attempt to wear his new mantel lightly and thus assure Esau of all exclusion of the abuse of power.
But, from Jacob’s viewpoint, his approach appeared to backfire. His servants came back with the news that Esau was on his way to meet Jacob—with four hundred men, no less (Gen. 32:6).
A charge of fear must have shot through Jacob as if he were a lightning rod. He could have waited for his servants to explain what they meant, but panic doesn’t hear; or maybe the servants were caught up in the paranoia as well. Whatever the case, Jacob is “greatly afraid and distressed” (Gen. 32:7). Reality now becomes distorted—such spiritual alchemy do the powers of Guilt and Shame possess to blend themselves in the dark caldron of the mind, until from years of unconscious simmering, the mixture surfaces as a brew of Fear and becomes the soul’s daily, fatal nutrient.
In a frantic effort to avoid the deadly sup, Jacob puts into place one more strategy, dividing the people with him into two companies (Gen. 32:7, 8), in the hopes that if one is attacked, the other might escape.
Then he prays…
and reminds the God of Abraham and Isaac that it was He Who told him to return home, to prosper him. He acknowledges that he’s unworthy of all God’s lovingkindness and faithfulness, and asks God to deliver him and his family from his brother whom he admits he fears. And he quotes God’s promise to him to multiply him like the sand of the sea (Gen. 32:9–12).
Towering prayer of faith? Groveling prayer of anxiety? The unfolding story leaves every impression that this was, rather, the unfinished prayer; indeed, the prayer only just begun. Jacob’s prayer, for instance, doesn’t pursue God as his grandfather, Abraham, had learned to do when he argued with God over the morality of destroying Sodom while there were still godly people living in it (Gen. 18:16–33). Furthermore, Jacob seems only half convinced that God will respond to his prayer, in that, the next morning he devises a frantic backup plan to ward off Esau’s anticipated assault. And finally, the Biblical account itself is taking us where we didn’t expect to go at first reading: to the matter of Jacob and God (of which the prayer is just the introduction) rather than Jacob and Esau, which, it becomes increasingly clear, is only a sub-plot.
And so, after his unfinished prayer, Jacob finds himself still anxious the next morning. He works out another plan: he organizes his people into three droves, each carrying lavish gifts to Esau, each drove a fair distance from the others, in an attempt to appease Esau’s wrath by stages, so that by the time he gets to Jacob, he might have calmed down enough to accept him (Gen. 32:13–20). Finally, having done all he can possibly think of, Jacob has his wives and children cross over Jabbok Ford as the evening falls. And now he is left alone for the night with his thoughts (Gen. 32:21–23). Ah, but no…
“And a man wrestled with him until daybreak” (Gen. 32:24). A wrenching turn to the story, if ever there was one. It doesn’t appear to fit. Who is this man? Why no introduction? Only one fact provides a link between what went before and what is about to happen: Jacob’s state of mind. He is desperate. He is very afraid and distressed (Gen. 32:7). He is in fight or flight mode. Out of the darkness, an unidentified man appears from nowhere, and “wrestles with him”, not at first, anyway, he with the man. It is the man who first takes the offensive. Let’s not be misled by projecting upon Jacob’s mind what we already know from the further unfolding of this story. In the mental distortions panic produces, Jacob must have now been feeling that everything was going wrong, with an enemy under every bush. Probably he thinks the man is one of Esau’s advance-party. If so, his worst nightmare appeared to be coming to pass. Jacob grapples with the man, fighting for his life, so long and fiercely (until just before dawn) that the man has to strike a blow at Jacob’s thigh, to dislocate his hip and slow him down (Gen. 32:25). Weakened now, with pain and lowered mobility yet still struggling on, the history of Jacob’s life and all the attending self-doubt would appear before him in even darker hue. Already, in his earlier prayer the mental anguish had begun (Gen. 32:9–12). It must now have developed full force as Jacob wrestles, “with tears, begging God’s favor” (Hos. 12:4).
I deceived my father and my brother to get the blessing. Maybe it’s not really mine, after all. My motives were all wrong. I despised my brother. This is why this is happening! God is punishing me for this! Oh God, don’t take the blessing away! I used my father and brother selfishly. Father of Abraham, have You turned against me? I know I have failed You, but don’t let me go! I know I don’t deserve it, but don’t let this man kill me! Have you forsaken me, Lord?
And here we are drawn into the epicenter of a mystery, unveiled enough to draw us in yet sufficiently covered to tease further unwrapping. At the beginning of the confrontation a wrestle ensued implying enemies in conflict, intent, obviously, the one on subduing the other; a wrestle involving Jacob, in enormous self-doubt, sobbing out intense appeals to God, which must have included the terrified cry for protection against his opponent. But then, sometime in the middle of the night a remarkable shift in the nature of the wrestle takes place, a shift in which Jacob becomes aware that his opponent is actually his defender. The evidence for this is clear. Just before dawn, Jacob and the man are in some kind of strained conversation. The man asks Jacob to let him go since it’s nearly dawn (Gen. 32:26)—hardly an exchange two mortal enemies would engage in. Jacob’s response gives us even more of a turn, and confirms this radical shift in the nature of the wrestle. He actually refuses to let the man go without blessing Jacob (v. 26).
At some point, then, during the night the dynamic of the wrestle is entirely transformed. Where Jacob strove to subdue the man, he now battled to embrace him. Before it was a struggle to get the man off him; now it became an attempt to draw him to himself. He had seen him as the inflictor of death but now he saw him as the bearer of life. Thus, instead of battling to push him away, he fights to pull him close and to wrest from him the blessing he craved instead of resisting the force he dreaded.
The explanation given for this turn of events is even more astonishing than the introduction of the man in the first place. Somehow, in the mind’s slow dawning, Jacob began to realize that the man he was wrestling was…not human; He was…He was, Divine. “I saw God face to face”, Jacob said later (Gen. 32:30).
It would be a serious mistake to suppose that this discovery was at first a comfort to Jacob. Far from it; it would be a new terror. As if the crisis over his brother were not enough, Jacob is now faced with another—and one of monumental proportions by comparison: Jacob’s crisis with God. Men back then knew something modern man has forgotten: that for a man of the dust to see the Eternal face of God would mean instant extinction. Clearly Jacob knew this and must have begun to feel the onset of its mental terror because after the event he expressed awe that he was still alive after seeing God (Gen. 32:30).
And there was, of course, that other “great fear and distress” (Gen. 32:7) with which the wrestle first started: that this struggle with an adversary was a judgment upon him. The fact that he had come to discover that he was now wrestling with God must have magnified the anxiety. These two great realities impacting a mental state worsened by Jacob’s now painful dislocated hip, probably brought Jacob to near collapse. The impulse to pull away from God would have been immediate. Yet he desperately needed God in his mortal issue with Esau. For a cliff-hanging moment of discouragement and indecisiveness we can imagine his hovering between the terrible exigency of letting go of God to avoid Divine judgment, only to meet death at the hand of his brother, and the desperate need to hold on to God at the unimaginable risk of judgment from the Almighty. And God was about to make Jacob’s mental state worse by pushing him to the edge of a psychic precipice.
“Let me go,” says God, “for the dawn is breaking” (Gen. 32:26). Here God moves mysteriously in even stranger waters. Like the veiled resistance of Jesus towards the Canaanite woman centuries later, a resistance meant to draw faith out of the woman so that Jesus could answer her cry (Matt. 15:21–28; Mark 7:24–30), God tells Jacob to leave him. The heart of Jacob must now have been heavy enough to sink. Faced with the terror of staying and the terror of leaving, God’s command surely confirmed his supreme fear of Divine judgment. Yet at the moment we expect him to cave, he exerts a new force. He tightens his grip and refuses to obey. “I will not let You go unless You bless me” (Gen. 32:26). We are now about to behold the only instance in Scripture in which disobedience is blessed.
I can only conclude from the Biblical data that Jacob’s response was born of holy rage. Hemmed in either way, he could have joined the rest of humanity, sunk in the wordless passivity of despair over God, or he could break through in a holy rage that holds God to the very values that He Himself has placed in the human heart, knowing that beyond all appearances, God’s heart overflows with mercy.
I cannot stand it any more. I cannot live in uncertainty over my life. I cannot live the life of an heir. My brother’s going to kill me. All my efforts to work out Your Providence have failed. Don’t You understand what I am up against? But even if I die in Your Presence I cannot, I will not let you go. How can You ask me to leave you? I must have your blessing. I believe Your promise to me! But only You can fulfill it!
Now Almighty God has Jacob right where he wants Him. He knows Jacob would not have pressed for His blessing without himself being pressed beyond endurance.
“What is your name?”, an odd enquiry from the One Who knows all; and at the oddest of moments an enquiry that appears to have nothing to do with anything (Gen. 32:27).
Jacob is likely bemused by the question. My name? What has my name to do…? My name… All right. It’s about me, isn’t it? It’s not about Esau. It’s not about mapping out a strategy. It’s about me. Me and You.
Every name in Hebrew has a meaning. It is a description of a man’s character. Jacob’s grip probably weakens slightly as he contemplates the meaning of his name and how uncannily his destiny has fulfilled it. His heart most likely sighs out his reply to God: “Jacob”, The Supplanter, The Deceiver, The Overthrower-by-trickery, The One-who-grabs-at-power. I hate my name.
By means of a cryptic question about a name, the Lord prepares Jacob for a new vision of His God, himself and the world.
Do you understand why I brought you to the mat, Jacob? I wrestled you down so that in your desperation you would wrestle me down and win Me for yourself. You were unsure of Me and felt you had to work everything out yourself. You feared My judgment. You feared My neglect. You feared your brother. So I visited you in the things you feared so that you could discover Me in them all. And this you did by wrestling with Me, Jacob, even Me, the Almighty! When I appeared to push you away, it was to provoke you to pull Me to your side. And look! Through my gift of faith you did not let me go even when I told you to! And now, Jacob; now that you know that I come to you even in all the things that frighten you, you don’t need to scheme to escape them, do you? So that name of yours…
“Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with man and have prevailed.” (Gen. 32:28). “Israel” means, A Prince With God. Jacob had fought with God and won! Thus, this grandson of Abraham becomes the third member of the illustrious trio whom Jehovah, hundreds of years later, is still delighted to call His own: “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (Exod. 3:6). Each of these men, through God’s Providence, was brought to the end of humanity’s faint glimmer so that the Kingdom they had received in Promise might be known to be not of this world and gifted to them through faith alone.
And so Jacob receives the blessing (Gen. 32:29) and names the place of his wrestle “Peniel”: The Face Of God, “for,” he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved” (Gen. 32:30). “Yes, he wrestled with the angel and prevailed; He wept and sought His favor. He found Him at Bethel, and there He spoke with us, even the Lord, the God of Hosts; the Lord is His name” (Hos. 12:4, 5).
And now the morning has come and Jacob sets out to meet his brother and his four hundred men. He limps from his dislocated hip but the weakness only reminds him of the strength of heart he now possesses, having fought with God and won. After that, the outcome with his brother is sure (Gen. 33). And the sun rises to warm him after the shadowy uncertainties of night (Gen. 32:31).
It would be a loss of insight to view Jacob’s life as merely instructional. God’s people take on his name as spiritual Israel since to be a descendant of Abraham is a matter of faith, not flesh (Rom. 2:28, 29; 9:6–8). When God names a man after Israel He takes him through Israel’s faith-experience and thus creates similar results in him. Follow your life in Jacob’s:
1. Your struggle with addiction is your Esau which you mistakenly see as an enemy, leading to your defeat.
2. In your wrestle with addiction God reveals that you’re actually wrestling Him, Who comes to you disguised as the enemy—your addiction.
3. God brings you to the mat—wrestles you down, through sin and trial, to bring you to your limits and provoke a wrestle with Him—a fight of faith with God, not the devil.
4. Wrestling with God is essential because the problem is not the power of your “habit” but your state of mind which fears God’s judgment and neglect during trial and temptation.
5. Addiction undergoes massive loss of power when the mode of wrestle shifts from resistance to reception. Trials are resisted when they are seen as a seamless cloak of evil. They are embraced when faith rips the cloak off and discovers grace underneath.
“All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child’s mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!”—Francis Thompson, The Hound Of Heaven