The Father's Angels Meet Jacob
32 1 Jacob went on his way, and the angels of our Father met him. 2 When Jacob saw them, he said, "This is our Father's camp!" So he called the name of that place Mahanaim. a a v2 Mahanaim means "two camps" — Jacob's name for the place where he met our Father's host of angels.
3 Then Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to Esau his brother in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.
4 He instructed them, "Thus shall you say to my lord Esau: 'Thus says your servant Jacob — I have sojourned with Laban and stayed until now.'" 5 "I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants. I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favor in your sight." 6 The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, "We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you — and four hundred men are with him." 7 Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps, 8 thinking, "If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape." 9 Then Jacob said, "O Father of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, my Sovereign Father, who said to me, 'Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,' 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the covenant 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. 11 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. 12 But you yourself said, 'I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.'"
13 He stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took a gift for his brother Esau: 14 two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 15 thirty milk camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. 16 He handed them over to his servants, drove by drove, and said to his servants, "Pass on ahead of me, and put a space between drove and drove." 17 He instructed the first, "When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, 'To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?' 18 —then you shall say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau. And look, he himself is behind us.'" 19 He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, "You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him, 20 and you shall say, 'Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.'" For he thought, "I will appease him with the gift that goes ahead of me, and afterward I will see his face. Perhaps he will accept me."
21 So the gift passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.
Crossing the Jabbok
22 That night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise sent across everything he had. 24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched Jacob's hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, "Let me go, for the day has broken." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
27 And he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob."
28 Then he said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with our Father and with men, and have prevailed." b b v28 Israel means “he strives with God” — the name our Father gives Jacob after the night of wrestling.
29 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.
30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen our Father face to face, and yet my life has been delivered." c c v30 Jacob's confession after the all-night wrestling: he has met our Father face to face — the relational Father in form he could see, touch, and contend with — and his life has been spared. 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. 32 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.