Why Did God Wrestle With Jacob? | In-depth Textual Analysis | Genesis 32

ever wondered why God wrestled with Jacob that night at the river and why did he touch his hip what's up with that let's take a [Music] look Welcome To Masterpiece my name is Chris and in this video I want to go back to that famous story in Genesis 32 where Jacob is on his way back home after he's been away for 20 years you remember he had to flee because his brother Esau wanted to kill him because he had gotten the blessing through deception so he went to live with his uncle laan got married twice

and had kids acquired great wealth and now 20 years later he's on his way back and he's afraid of Esau who's coming to meet him with 400 men and on the last night before they meet Jacob is all alone at the river jabu and a man starts wrestling with him whom Jacob later on recognizes as God so God met Jacob there that night and wrestled with him and the question is why I mean didn't Jacob already have enough on his plate why didn't God come and comfort him why wrestling now I'll be honest this is

not an easy story it's challenging and I don't fully understand everything about it but in this video I just want to share some things that have helped me to get a better understanding and one of those things has been to view this story not as an isolated text but as part of the entire Jacob narrative and once you look at the whole thing you start to realize that wrestling or struggling is a theme that runs through the ENT entire story I mean it already starts at Jacob's birth right you remember in Genesis 25 it says

that Rebecca is Barren but then Isaac prays for her and she becomes pregnant and then it says in verse 22 but the children struggled together within her so there it is right from the start struggle and it just continues from there not in a literal but in a figurative sense because throughout his life Jacob is always wrestling with his brother who has the birthright that Jacob wants with his father who wants to bless Esau and then he leaves home and goes to laan and again there's the struggle because Jacob wants Rachel but laan gives him

Leah and then there's the struggle over the flocks so the more you look at it the more you realize that wrestling is an essential part of Jacob's life in fact the Hebrew word that's translated as wrestle here in Genesis 32 is called abak and it plays not just on the name of the river which is yabok but also on his name which is Yakov so this word play really highlights the connection Jacob is a wrestler always struggling with people throughout his life but here's the thing in the end it's not just a struggle with other

human beings but really it's a struggle with God because the reason he's struggling in particular in connection with the birthright and the blessing is because he's unwilling to trust God he always wants to do things in his own strength instead of relying on God to provide for him and in that sense he's wrestling with God which means that this wrestling match here in Genesis 32 with a man whom Jacob later identifies as God is Not Just One of several dramatic episodes in Jacob's life no this is really paradigmatic it really encapsulates and represents his entire

story up to that point Jacob has fought in his own strength and from a human point of view he's been successful the man is unable to overcome him which brings us to the hip because as they are wrestling it says in verse 25 now when he saw that he did not Prevail against him he touched the socket of his hip and the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint as he wrestled with him and the question is why the hip well I did some research on this and it turns out that the hip bone

is actually the largest and the strongest bone in the entire body and I mean it makes sense because this is the center of your body and it's the thing that kind of keeps everything together right and it's crucial for wrestling it's the wrestlers pivot of strength you have to be stable in the hip in order to wrestle but there's another interesting aspect about the hip and that is that it's not just the seat of strength in a literal physical sense but also in a figurative sense in that the hip is the region of the body

that constitutes the seed of procreative power and that's obviously also something that plays a crucial role in the Jacob narrative so what's the point the point is that through the touch the man's Supernatural nature is revealed because it takes a mere touch to dislocate Jacob's hip which means that Jacob is unable to continue wrestling in his own strength he's found his match and at that point he could have just given up and pied himself or he could have gotten angry at the man but he doesn't do that instead he now invests the tenacity and drive

that has characterized him all his life he now invests that into clinging to that man and refusing to let go until he's been blessed by him and the story ends with a man saying you've struggled with God and with men and you've prevailed which means it's here that Jacob gains the true Victory because in the moment of greatest weakness and helplessness he acknowledges who he truly is he's Jacob he's the deceiver who always tried to succeed in his own strength but instead of letting go in that moment he clings to The God Who came down

to him as a man and that's the Victory and we're like seriously I mean look at the guy he's a he's going to limp for the rest of his life yeah exactly because he's not walking in his own strength anymore but in the strength of God and that's how he crosses over into the promised land because that's where he is he's at the border of the land and the question is how's he going to get back into that land and the story says he's going to get in not in his own strength but through an

encounter with the Living God who has come down to him and by clinging to that God and by by receiving a new identity from him that's how he gets in and not just him of course but also his descendants both literal and spiritual they also will not enter the land through their own strength just as their existence does not come from Human strength because remember it's God who opens the wombs of both Leah and Rachel and it's God who opens the womb of Sarah and it's God who changes Abram's name and tells him to get

circumcised which is basically another body part in the same region that's painfully fected as a reminder that God's promise will not be fulfilled through human strength the true Heir is not the sunborn of the flesh but the son born of God himself which means that from the very beginning a true son of Abram a true son of Isaac a true son of Jacob is one who's born from above and the fact that Jacob's name is changed to Israel underscores this point once more and that's why this experience in Genesis 32 is so significant because Jacob

here experiences a spiritual rebirth becomes the identifying Mark of the descendants of Abraham who are called Israel and if that's true then this story is also significant for you and me and it raises the question have we experienced this spiritual rebirth are we clinging to Jesus the one who came down to us aware of our own weakness and helplessness or are we still walking in our own strength trying to get the blessing on our own our way without trusting God and waiting on him the story is very clear there's just one way in into the

promised land and it's the way of Israel the way of surrender and holding on to Jesus as our only hope and let's be honest that's hard it's painful because it goes full force against our ego but the good news is Jesus knows because many years later he also wrestled at night in a garden all alone so yeah Jesus knows all about the struggle but he also knows all about trusting God because that's what he always did even unto death and it's that life of perfect trust that he's offering to us all we have to do

is keep hanging on to him remain in him and he in us and his life will become our life so those are my thoughts on the Wrestling episode in Genesis 32 let me know what you think in the comments below and if you want to learn even more about this story and in particular why the man asked Jacob what his name is then go watch this video next and I'll see see you there [Music]