Genesis 32 (CEB)
22 Jacob got up during the night, took his two wives, his two women servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed the Jabbok River’s shallow water. 23 He took them and everything that belonged to him, and he helped them cross the river. 24 But Jacob stayed apart by himself, and a man wrestled with him until dawn broke. 25 When the man saw that he couldn’t defeat Jacob, he grabbed Jacob’s thigh and tore a muscle in Jacob’s thigh as he wrestled with him. 26 The man said, “Let me go because the dawn is breaking.”
But Jacob said, “I won’t let you go until you bless me.”
27 He said to Jacob, “What’s your name?” and he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name won’t be Jacob any longer, but Israel, because you struggled with God and with men and won.”
29 Jacob also asked and said, “Tell me your name.”
But he said, “Why do you ask for my name?” and he blessed Jacob there. 30 Jacob named the place Peniel, “because I’ve seen God face-to-face, and my life has been saved.”
Understanding who & what God is to us is key to understanding ourselves.
Here are some questions for discussion:
1. Jacob had to leave his home and walk apart from his family and servants he traveled with to experience a deeply personal struggle with and conversation with God. What obstacles of our own creation or of our personal selection stand between us and a deeply personal conversation with God?
2. In Genesis 32:27–28, God asks Jacob, “What is your name?” even though He already knows who Jacob is. Is God really asking Jacob to confess who he has been—to acknowledge how he has lived before receiving the new identity God has for him? In the same way, what identities have we accepted that God may be calling us to surrender? How can honestly naming those identities prepare us for a closer relationship with God and true reconciliation with others? Finally, how can the church create spaces where confession and reflection are met with grace and restoration instead of shame and judgment?
If you’d like to dig a little deeper, consider the following:
1. Jacob is eventually blessed after an intense wrestling match. After which he is given the name Yisra’el (Israel) by God, a word that we often interpret in the imperfect/present tense but in Hebrew the actual meaning is a future tense as in “He will struggle with God.” How does the idea that God blesses him and names him for his future struggles with God? What does this say about the current state of your faith and your journey in the spirit?
2. Alex Haley’s epic story Roots has been impactful in many ways. What does it perhaps say about our society though when many can quote or reference an epic story they have never read or watched? What depth to the issues are we often missing by choosing an easy path instead of the painfully introspective path?
3. In Genesis 32:28, God tells Jacob, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel.” Later, in Revelation 3:12, Jesus promises, “I will write on them…my own new name.” How does Christ’s promise in Revelation deepen our understanding of Jacob’s new name in Genesis? What do these passages together reveal about covenant of belonging that God wishes to give all of His people?
4. As Jacob prepares for what he believes will be a violent encounter with Esau, God first meets him in a night of struggle and transformation. How does Jacob’s encounter with God reshape our understanding of true peace? In what ways does inner transformation prepare a person to become a peacemaker? How does this passage deepen our understanding of Jesus’ teaching, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9)?
5. This monumental struggle brought change to Jacob, creating a new identity through painful struggle. What had been a conniving schemer was now a blessed follower that strives with God. Change may be painful but still necessary. How does this reflect itself in our society as we continue to struggle with historical issues of social justice?
For further contemplation, consider these prompts:
1. Jacob cannot erase what he did to Esau. Does God remove the consequences of Jacob’s past, or prepare him to face them faithfully? How is restoration different from simply being forgiven? What might genuine repentance require beyond words?
2. In this struggle, Jacob resisted and held his own until the point where his leg was crippled. Thus forever changing the way he walked. Consider this metaphor, what in your walk must be changed, or has been changed, in order for you to realize the blessings present in your life?