Jacob Wrestles: insights from Alastair Roberts

Laban ‘feels’ about in the tent (v.34), just as Isaac ‘felt’ Jacob (27:21-22). The description of Laban’s actions in terms of ‘feeling’ might suggest a recurrence of the darkness/blindness motif. He had used the darkness of the wedding night to cheat Jacob and Rachel out of their rightful marriage.

Now Laban receives poetic justice at Rachel’s hand, as he gropes in vain for his idols. The woman the tyrant had tricked now tricks him. As we have seen, the deception of tyrants is a key exodus motif, and also, as this deception typically occurs through the actions of a woman (e.g. the Hebrew midwives and Pharaoh, Rahab and the men of Jericho, Jael and Sisera, Michal and Saul, Esther and Haman), a reversal of the Fall. The father who is deceived by the daughters that he treated shamefully recalls the story of Lot.

The Jabbok is an important location in a number of respects (the word may be a play on the verb for wrestling, and perhaps also even a confusion of Jacob’s name). The Jabbok is a tributary of the Jordan (v.10). To cross the Jabbok is to cross the Jordan and symbolically to re-enter the land.

The reference to wrestling with God is important. Jacob’s entire life has been characterized by wrestling with God and man, with Esau, Isaac, and Laban. By connecting Jacob’s wrestling with these figures with Jacob’s wrestling with God, Jacob learns that all of the time God has been wrestling with him through these persons. Wrestling with the unknown person in the dark, Jacob may have wondered whether it was Laban or Esau, but it turned out to be God. Later on he will make the significant statement that seeing Esau’s face is like seeing the ‘face of God’ (33:10; cf. 32:30 – ‘Peniel’). Perhaps this is a reference to the fact that Jacob now recognized that it had been God wrestling with him all of the time. While Abraham was marked out by patience, Jacob was a man marked out by patienceand wrestling, a man who struggled with God and man to receive that which was promised.

After wrestling with God, Jacob’s eyes are opened to the fact that God has been dealing with him throughout, that all of the things that had befallen him had been used by God as means of preparing him as a champion and a sacrifice. We see a similar realization in the story of Joseph (45:7-8). The Angel on the banks of the Jabbok is like the ‘boss’ at the end of the game. Having wrestled with the Angel and prevailed, Jacob’s life as a wrestler largely comes to an end. He is given a new name as a mark of his success.