Genesis 32 - Jacob Prepares to Meet Esau

Jacob Prepares to Meet Esau

A. Jacob hears of Esau’s approach.

1. (Genesis 32:1-2) Jacob meets the angels of God at Mahanaim.

[Genesis 32:1-2 ESV] Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them he said, “This is God’s camp!” So he called the name of that place Mahanaim.

“I do not ask that you may see angels: still, if it can be, so be it. But what is it, after all, to see an angel? Is not the fact of God’s presence better than the sight of the best of his creatures? Perhaps the Lord favored Jacob with the sight of angels because he was such a poor, weak creature as to his faith.” (Spurgeon)

2. (Genesis 32:3-6) Jacob’s message to Esau.

3. (Genesis 32:7-8) Jacob’s fear and panicked preparation.

“Jacob is the type of a believer who has too much planning and scheming about him; he is a wise man according to the judgment of the world… Abraham never descended to any of the tricks by which Jacob sought to increase his flocks; he lived, like a princely man, in simple, childlike confidence in God, willing to be injured rather than to seek his own interests.” (Spurgeon)

4. (Genesis 32:9-12) Jacob’s prayer.

[Genesis 32:9-12 ESV] And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’”

Jacob’s fear was good, because it led him to prayer.

Jacob’s fear was good, because it led him to take a review of his life.

Jacob’s fear was good, because it led him to seek out a suitable promise from God.

Many of our prayers fall short, because there is none of God’s Word within them. Often there is none of God’s Word in them, because there is little of God’s Word in us. Jacob remembered what the LORD had said to him. He said to God, for You said.

5. (Genesis 32:13-21) Jacob sends many gifts to Esau

B. Jacob wrestles with God.

1. (Genesis 32:22-23) Jacob sends all his possessions over the river.

2. (Genesis 32:24-25) A Man wrestles with Jacob.

[Genesis 32:24-25 ESV] And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

“It does not say that he wrestled with the man, but ‘there wrestled a man with him.’ We call him ‘wrestling Jacob,’ and so he was; but we must not forget the wrestling man, — or, rather, the wrestling Christ, — the wrestling Angel of the covenant, who had come to wrestle out of him much of his own strength and wisdom.” (Spurgeon)

“I suppose our Lord Jesus Christ did here, as on many other occasions preparatory to his full incarnation, assume a human form, and came thus to wrestle with the patriarch.” (Spurgeon)

“It was brave of Jacob thus to wrestle, but there was too much of self about it all. It was his own sufficiency that was wrestling with the God-man, Christ Jesus.” (Spurgeon)

3. (Genesis 32:26) Jacob’s plea to the Man.

[Genesis 32:26 ESV] Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

[Hosea 12:3-5 ESV] In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God. He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor. He met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us— the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD is his memorial name:

4. (Genesis 32:27-29) Jacob’s name is changed, and he is a blessed man.

[Genesis 32:27-29 ESV] And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him.

“Dear friends, I am afraid that the lives of many of the Lord’s chosen people alternate between ‘Israel’ and ‘Jacob.’ Sometimes we are ‘strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might,’ and at another time we cry, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ Like princes we prevail with God, and are true Israels; but perhaps ere the sun has gone down we limp with Jacob, and though the spirit be willing, the flesh is weak. We are Jacob before we are Israel; and we are Jacob when we are Israel; but blessed be God, we are Israels with God when we cease to be Jacobs among men.” (Spurgeon)

We note that He blessed him there — at that particular place.

The place of special trial and testing.

The place of intense pleading to God.

The place of seeing the face of God.

The place of conscious weakness.

5. (Genesis 32:30-32) Two memorials of this event.

[Genesis 32:30-32 ESV] So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh.

“The memorial of his weakness was to be with him as long as he lived… How pleased would you and I be to go halting all our days with such weakness as Jacob had, if we might also have the blessing that he thus won!” (Spurgeon)