Genesis 32:9-12
I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies
The prayer names the promise, the fear and the facts in order: with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands.
Places of the Bible
Peniel
A ford, a night, a wrestling match nobody wins, and a man who walks away with a new name and a limp.
Jacob is coming home and Esau is coming to meet him with four hundred men. He divides the company, sends the present ahead in droves, prays the plainest prayer of his life, and then sends his wives and children over the brook Jabbok with everything he has. And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. The text does not say who the man is and will not say it later either.
Scroll down to the story
The movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Peniel
- 01
- 02
Genesis 32:22-24
Jacob was left alone
He sends everything he owns across the water and stays behind with nothing. The wrestling begins in that emptiness and lasts all night.
- 03
Genesis 32:25-26
I will not let thee go, except thou bless me
He is injured and still holding on. The request is made from a position that has already lost.
- 04
Genesis 32:27-28
Thy name shall be called no more Jacob
The last time he was asked who he was, he answered I am Esau thy firstborn. This time he gives his own name and it is changed.
- 05
Genesis 32:30-31
The sun rose upon him, and he halted
He names the place for the face he saw and crosses over limping. The limp is the only physical mark any patriarch carries out of an encounter.
Why it matters
The contest is settled by a touch rather than a throw. Seeing that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh, and it was out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he asks to be let go because the day breaks, and Jacob answers I will not let thee go except thou bless me. The exchange that follows is a question about his name, an answer that had once been a lie, and a new name given: Israel, for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
1 song
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
