Genesis chapter 32

After reading chapter 32:

*As Jacob travels along, he meets angels. How he knows they are angels and what they do or say is not mentioned.

*Before Jacob gets home, he sends  a messenger to his brother Esau telling him that he is coming  with lots of livestock and slaves. In other words, he is rich now. The messenger comes back with news that Esau is coming, with four hundred men. Jacob is afraid and divides all the people and possessions into two groups, so one will be left alive if the other is attacked. Then Jacob prays to God for protection from Esau, reminding God of his promise to make Jacob's descendants like the sand of the sea. Gods need reminding now and then.

* Jacob then arranges to give Esau a generous gift of three herds of livestock. He sends each herd ahead separately in the care of a servant (slave). Each servant is instructed what to say when they meet Esau. Jacob's idea is to soften Esau up before they meet face to face, just in case God forgets to help.

* That night, Jacob moves the camp with his family. At one point he is left alone and an unknown man wrestles with Jacob til daybreak, trying to overpower him. The man is not able to get the better of Jacob, so he wrenches Jacob's hip and asks Jacob to let him go. Jacob demands a blessing first., because that's what you do when you have fought with an unknown assailant all night? The stranger asks Jacob's name, then changes it to Isra-el, because midnight attackers can change people's names?

*Jacob asks for the man's name but he refuses to reveal his identity.  Then he blesses Jacob. Jacob named the place Peni-el, because he saw God face to face and did not die. Apparently the strange man was God!

*There are many extra biblical attempts to explain this story metaphorically, but we will take it as it appears to be, an actual event. What do we see? A god who is a man with a body. A god who cannot win a wrestling match with a glorified sheep herder. Jacob saw this God. Is it the same God that the New Testament tells us no one has ever seen?

*All the mentions of God in this chapter are versions of the name El, the Canaanite high God, not Yahweh. Remember, when we see the words "the lord" in the text, that is referring to Yahweh. The two God names are often mixed in passages, but not this time.

*Lastly, we are told that Israelites don't eat hip tendons because of this story. All righty then.