Genesis 32:25, commentary and pictures

Alone through the night beside the Jabbok, Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the covenant, Christ himself, and near break of day the Angel touched the hollow of his thigh and put it out of joint with superhuman power. The touch ended Jacob's power to win by bodily strength and left him crippled, helpless and suffering keen pain, yet unable to be diverted from holding fast. Disabled, he clung penitent and broken and would not let go without blessing, and he prevailed not by strength but by humiliation, repentance, self-surrender and unyielding trust in the promises, receiving assurance of pardon and a new name as a prince having power with God and with men. His night of wrestling for deliverance from Esau represents the experience of God's people in the final time of trouble, when the righteous, with sins repented and forgiven, cry day and night amid Satan's assaults until God delivers them speedily. The verse is therefore the pattern for earnest, importunate, persevering prayer that humbles self, holds to Christ's strength, refuses to let go, and gains assurance, transformation and power to prevail with God and men.

Setting and Opponent

Genesis 32:25 belongs to Jacob's return to his homeland after twenty years of exile, undertaken at God's command with wives and children and flocks and herds. He was retracing the road he had taken as a fugitive, remembering his deception to gain his father's blessing intended for Esau and his brother's deadly threats, remembering also God's favor and promises of help and guidance. On reaching the borders he was filled with terror by tidings of Esau's approach at the head of armed warriors doubtless bent on revenge, while his own company was unarmed and defenseless and seemed about to fall helpless victims of violence and slaughter. To anxiety and fear was added crushing self-reproach, because his own sin had brought the danger, leaving his only hope in the mercy of God and his only defense in prayer.

The wrestling happened through the lonely night beside the stream near the Jabbok after Jacob had sent his family away and was left alone to intercede. There he confessed his sin and gratefully acknowledged God's mercy, pleading with deep humiliation the covenant with his fathers and the promises made to himself at Bethel and in exile when everything was at stake. It was a night of anguish and mysterious conflict in which he wrestled all night until break of day, with persevering faith inspired by Christ, renouncing cherished sins and holding on until strengthened. That night of wrestling for deliverance from Esau represents the trial God's people will face just before Christ's second coming, pleading day and night for deliverance.

The antagonist was a heavenly messenger, the Angel of the covenant, Christ the Son of God, the Majesty of Heaven. He wrestled through the night with Jacob, holding fast until Jacob received blessing and assurance that his sins were pardoned. Near the break of day the display of superhuman power by the touch to the hollow of the thigh revealed His divine identity and explained why Jacob's almost superhuman effort had not gained the victory. At daybreak that divine touch made clear Jacob had been contending with the Angel of the covenant, had not prevailed by bodily strength, and was now helpless and weeping yet ready to receive the blessing he longed for, showing that trials and the Lord's correction can bring benefit and reveal His presence.

At first Jacob mistook the visitor for an enemy seeking his life and wrestled with all the energy of despair. When the stranger saw he prevailed not and could not persuade Jacob to release him, he tried to escape from his grasp. In that testing he recalled Jacob's past wrongs to test and prove him, revealing strength of faith, perseverance, and unshaken confidence that God can deliver. So the verse means God's coming can be mistaken for hostile opposition, and when the Spirit comes with quickening power to lead to confession and cleansing of moral impurities, to judge His work as spurious shuts out His blessing and leaves His people destitute of His quickening influences.

Disabling Touch and Pain

Near the break of day, after the night-long struggle, the stranger put forth superhuman power and with a finger touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh, instantly putting it out of joint and dislocating it. The touch was an exercise of divine power that wounded Jacob and displayed the superhuman strength of his opponent. It was the turning point of the lonely wrestling, ending Jacob's bodily strength and making clear he could not win by force.

At that touch the strong man was left paralyzed, crippled, helpless and prostrate, suffering the keenest bodily pain. He fell as a helpless weeping suppliant upon the neck of his antagonist. Yet bodily pain could not divert his mind from seeking blessing and assurance that his sin was pardoned.

The injury had lasting bodily cost, for Jacob went forward pale and walking painfully, leaning on his staff. His bodily weakness was made his strength, teaching him that human help and power could not save him and that his only help was God, against whom he had sinned. The disabling showed he had not prevailed by bodily strength, for though he persisted when he did not prevail, his victory came only after he was made lame and helpless through self-surrender and steadfast faith rather than his own strength.

Helpless Clinging Prevails

Though crippled by the touch that put his thigh out of joint, Jacob would not loosen his hold or relinquish his purpose but clung through the night to the Angel as He seemed about to depart. Disabled and suffering keenest bodily pain, fallen as a helpless weeping suppliant upon the neck of his antagonist, he held fast penitent and broken and pleaded with weeping and supplication for a blessing. Bodily pain could not divert his mind from seeking God, and what he sought was assurance that his long-endured perplexity, remorse and trouble for sin was pardoned. The display of superhuman power in the touch revealed the stranger as the Angel of the covenant, yet helplessness did not end the struggle but turned it to clinging.

His determination grew stronger and his faith more earnest and persevering to the last, holding on until the conflict ended. He continued with confidence, firmness and unyielding trust, pleading for mercy with steadfast refusal to fail or be discouraged despite delay, weakness, severe trial, accusation and distress. He knew he would perish without heaven's help, having sincerely repented, and therefore persisted through pain and Satan's pressing sense of guilt unto despair. Such earnest, persistent laying hold of the promises can prevail even through anguish and delay.

He prevailed while helpless not by bodily strength or force but by humiliation, repentance, self-surrender, trembling grasp upon the promises, and trust in the mercy of a covenant-keeping God. His victory came through self-surrender and steadfast faith after his strength was ended, for the wound left him helpless and made clear he could not win by his own power. The confidence that sustained him was implanted by Christ, and his living faith gave boldness in supplication, a prevailing that was no boastful presumptuous claim bringing instant destruction but the assurance of one confessing weakness and unworthiness whom Infinite Love cannot turn away. It testifies to the power of importunate prayer, requiring determined perseverance, self-denial, and faith holding to God even through weariness, delay, hunger and despair.

His prevailing brought assurance of pardon, evidence of triumph, and encouragement for others to imitate his example. His name was changed from a reminder of sin to a commemoration of victory, no longer Jacob but Israel, because as a prince he had power with God and with men. Prevailing with God assured that he would prevail with men, so he need no longer fear his brother's anger because the Lord was his defense. Only after he fell crippled and helpless did he know the victory of conquering faith, when his weakness was joined with victory and Esau's armed bands were stilled before him, proving prayer the means of obtaining blessings not otherwise received.

The verse shows God will not cast off those deceived, tempted and betrayed into sin who return to Him with true repentance. Though the night brings peril, affliction, fierce assault, great distress, waves of indescribable despair, and furnace flames seeming about to consume, God's eye is upon them and His ear open to their cries with angels sent to comfort and protect. God's love in severest trial is as strong and tender as in days of prosperity, and the Refiner brings them forth as gold tried in fire because the furnace is needful to consume earthliness that the image of Christ may be perfectly reflected.

The verse shows God did not overlook or tolerate Jacob's wrongdoing but in His dealings made clear that evil must be faced rather than excused or concealed. At daybreak the divine touch revealed he had been contending with the Angel of the covenant whom he had mistaken for an enemy, leaving him helpless and weeping and ready to receive the blessing he longed for. So trials and the Lord's correction can bring benefit and reveal His presence.

Future Time of Trouble

Jacob's night of wrestling in prayer for deliverance from Esau is the experience of God's people in the final time of trouble and anguish before Christ's second coming, called the time of Jacob's trouble, when they cry day and night for deliverance and are delivered. His helplessness after the touch that put his thigh out of joint and left him disabled and in pain shows continued dependence on God through prayer and trust in mercy, and his holding fast through the night while tested by the Angel trying to escape and recalling past wrongs shows unyielding faith, perseverance, and unshaken confidence in God's power to save. His struggle with sorrowful review of past sins and persistent pleading for deliverance, mercy, and the promises is the pattern of the righteous when tested in their anguish.

As his unarmed and defenseless company seemed about to fall helpless victims of violence and slaughter, so the righteous will be surrounded by the wicked and face the final conflict with the image beast and a decree of death. To human sight they must soon seal their testimony with blood and fear the Lord has left them to fall by their enemies, while the wicked exult, jeer at their faith, and mock them when escape appears impossible. Though approved of God and trusting in Him, they are perplexed and surrounded by thickening darkness and cry earnestly to God day and night without exception for a way of escape that will glorify His name and bring salvation by His arm.

Like Jacob they will endure inward and outward struggle, fearful agony, and crushing self-reproach with sorrowful review of past sins and humbled repentance while holding to the promise of peace. Satan will press them with a sense of guilt and fierce accusations to make them despair, and evil angels will crowd around pressing darkness and a poisonous atmosphere to shut out Jesus from view and turn them to distrust and murmur. Their distress is seen in paleness on every face, deep anxiety, firmness and great earnestness, large drops of perspiration rising and falling, and faces at times lighted up by God's approbation, while their only safety is keeping the eyes directed upward. Companies of angels that excel in strength are stationed about those who have kept the word of Christ's patience, watching their distress and waiting to snatch them from peril, but they must wait yet a little longer.

Jacob had sincerely repented of obtaining the birthright by fraud, knew he would perish without heaven's help, and therefore God heard his prayer and mercifully preserved his life. Likewise the righteous will have repented beforehand and will have no concealed, unconfessed wrongs to reveal, for their sins have gone beforehand to judgment and have been blotted out by Christ's atoning blood so they cannot bring them to remembrance. Their sense of unworthiness and fear that their sins leave them without hope does not keep them from trusting God's mercy and confidence in His power, but if they had unconfessed sins appearing then despair would cut off their faith so they could not plead with God for deliverance.

God's eye is upon them in peril, affliction, and fierce assault, and His ear is open to their cries with angels sent to comfort, protect, and hasten help with rays of light from Jesus that encourage their hearts and lighten their countenances. Those who struggle with all their energies to resist and call upon God with perseverance receive that hastened help, while those indifferent and careless who make no effort are shut in like a thick cloud and left by the angels. Deliverance is delayed until the will of God is fulfilled, for they must drink of the cup and be baptized with the baptism, and that painful delay is the best answer to their petitions, leading them to exercise faith, hope, and patience until for the elect's sake the time of trouble is shortened and God avenges them speedily.

As Jacob left nothing undone to atone for the wrong to his brother and avert the danger, so Christ's followers as they approach the time of trouble must make every exertion to place themselves in a proper light before the people, to disarm prejudice, and to avert the danger threatening liberty of conscience. The same helpless wrestling that prevailed is pictured in others: Luther wrestling with God in anguish beside the stream for strength and assurance before the Diet prevailed through faith in helplessness rather than his own strength, and Moses taking hold of the Angel's strength and continuing to plead for Israel prevailed by intercession.

Character Changed and Assured

The night beside the Jabbok changed Jacob from a supplanter and a man of feebleness, defects and sin into a prince with God. In wrestling in faith and prayer he renounced cherished sins, his self-confidence was uprooted, and he learned to rely simply on God and submit humbly to His will. His former craft and deception gave way to simplicity and truth, and his faith came to reflect that of Abraham and Isaac. Left crippled and walking painfully leaning on his staff, he learned in bodily weakness that human help and power could not save him and that his only help was the God against whom he had sinned. The same communion with God that ennobled him can make others men and women of high and holy purpose who for no consideration will be swayed from truth, right and justice, calling for new and living experience every day of trusting Jesus, believing in Him, confiding everything to the omnipotent One, and laying open the most secret thing of the soul to Him who knows it all.

The midnight wrestling is surrender of all of self to God and the exercise of conquering faith in God. That surrender melts the cold iron of self so that God can be present and His love be represented, wrenching the soul from its moorings and breaking down self-righteousness. By it is formed a mystical, spiritual union with God through Christ that puts in the soul a life that never fades or fails. Holding fast to the Saviour until prevailing means overcoming self in a battle requiring constant grace, crying for conversion of the inmost soul and pleading for transforming power of grace, until God reveals the sinner to himself and reveals Himself so the soul sees in Jesus a strength and support, a brightness and power never before sensed. If faith perseveringly grasps the promises it will prevail, and this prevailing faith is the victory that overcomes the world and secures the soul's salvation from great peril. Gaining victory over self, the world, and passions and besetments comes by going into the closet and pleading with earnest, sincere, persevering prayer, refusing to leave until strength in God is felt, until unutterable longings for salvation are awakened and sweet evidence of pardoned sin is obtained, and after leaving the closet the victory is kept by watching and praying so the grace of God appears in the life.

Those who keep God's commandments must share that experience of wrestling and taking hold of Christ's strength in the future time of perplexity, trouble, deception, conflict and challenge. Being of one heart, bound up with Christ and with one another and hid with Christ in God, and making peace with Him, gives safety to prevail. So prevailing enables claiming the everlasting covenant of peace in which He places and multiplies them, sets His sanctuary and tabernacle in the midst of them forevermore, is their God, makes them His people, and makes the heathen know that He sanctifies Israel. The God of Jacob is mighty and stronger than the adversary and gave Jacob special victories when he wrestled with God, so those who cooperate with God need not fear that Satan will be stronger than God.

Pattern for Prevailing Prayer

Jacob's night struggle is the pattern for earnest, importunate, persevering prayer that lays hold of the promises with determined faith and will not let go without the blessing. It agonizes before God and continues until strengthened, refusing to fail or be discouraged through weariness, delay, hunger, weakness, despair and severe trial. It is faith that will not faint though severely tried, exercised daily now so it can endure the coming crisis. Even after the thigh was put out of joint the pleading went on, joined with submission to God's will. God's work is advanced not by human power or zeal but by prayer, and His power comes in answer to faith.

Such wrestling stirs the whole soul to earnestness, crying day and night and refusing rest without a special manifestation of God's power and strength. The yearning soul becomes deeply agonized, with every power on the stretch and the soul drawn out after God in intensity of desire, denying self and praying long and earnestly for His blessing. It holds to the promises while fully submitted to God's will and conscious of unworthiness, trusting not in own worthiness but in repentance, confessed and forgiven sin, and God's promises. It pleads for deliverance when escape appears impossible, as when danger threatened, and it holds fast through Jesus Christ to rescue the tempted and fallen. Even when waves of indescribable despair sweep over, it clings with unyielding faith until it succeeds, for those unwilling to agonize thus will not obtain the blessing.

It requires humbling oneself under God's mighty hand now rather than waiting to be humbled, that in due time He may lift up. It requires getting the mind off every living mortal so the work is between God and the soul alone, laying open the most secret things of the soul to Him who knows all, which cannot be done with man. It means coming with much prayer and a broken and contrite heart, laying the foundation right by building on Christ instead of self and self-effort, examining self, testing the heart, treading sin under foot and placing habits, conversation and daily life on the Lord's side. It is carried on in Bible study and secret closet prayer, seeking close connection with heaven. Faith able to endure the time of trouble must be exercised daily now, for those who exercise little faith now will fall under delusion or learn under terrible pressure of discouragement what they neglected.

Believers are urged so to wrestle for the outpouring and baptism of the Holy Spirit, for God can turn human thoughts and hearts as He turns the waters of the sea. They are to wrestle thus for the salvation of perishing souls and for faithful labor in winning souls to the Saviour, with a spirit that never lets go. They are to wrestle in the home and for others, praying with tears and faith for ministers, for those weak in faith, for household and neighbors, and letting prayers follow the laborers in the great harvest field like sharp sickles. The same wrestling is urged in personal cases of need and difficulty, as in overcoming tobacco, in praying for James, and in interceding through the night for Elder Smith, presenting needs and trusting God's time and way. Fervent prayer that believes the promises is effective.

Prevailing prayer presses petitions at the mercy-seat until it gains its object, refusing to leave the closet until strength in God is felt. It gains sweet evidence of pardoned sin and assurance that sins are pardoned, with peace in Christ, heartfelt confession, restitution for dishonesty, and labor for the salvation of household, relatives and neighbors. It brings changed hearts, removal of hatred and rebellion, joy and love, and a far richer experience, while too little prayer and lack of living faith leave many destitute of grace. Offered with tears, hope, and energy like daily labor, it brings pentecostal seasons even now, leaves impressions of truth as far-reaching as eternity, and causes a steady bright light to shine forth before the world. After leaving the closet the victory is kept by watching and praying, acted upon with wisdom, watching and working, so grace appears in the life and victory over the world, passions and besetments is obtained.

This wrestling is not for personal safety but for the success of the truth. When the heart sinks, faith falters, enemies multiply, and powers of darkness seem to prevail with clouds separating the soul from God, the helpless soul fastens upon Christ the mighty deliverer with broken, heart-rending cries that only God can fully interpret, longing for assurance that the Lord of hosts will be present. To prevail is to be strengthened with assurance of not standing alone before councils, to have peace return to the soul, and to rejoice in being permitted to uphold and defend the word of God before rulers even though called to seal testimony with blood. God permits a realization of peril so there is no trust in own strength and wisdom and no presumptuous rushing into danger, but preparation and strengthening for the work ahead.

The struggle teaches laying the soul before God in surrender until His will prevails and mercy is seen rather than sacrifice required. It teaches seeking close connection, instruction and counsel from Him rather than relying on own plans or other people, recognizing need and weakness. It calls for learning to trust Jesus, to believe in Him and confide everything to the omnipotent One, though man is finite. Christians need this new and living experience every day, with more faith, greater trust and more firm reliance, for even a man of feebleness and defects was raised through faith to be a prince with God.