One of the most mind-blowing passages in the Torah is perhaps Genesis 32:22-32, where Jacob is left alone and a man wrestles with him till daybreak. It’s written that when the man saw that he could not overpower him(Jacob), he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched. He then says to Jacob, “Let me go for it is daybreak.” to which Jacob replies, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The man blesses him and changes his name from Jacob to Israel, which in Hebrew means He who wrestles with God. Jacob calls the place Peniel which in Hebrew means the face of God. He says, for I saw God face to face and yet my life was spared.
Now I understand that there are some who would argue that the man who wrestles with Jacob here is not God, but rather an angel of God who is called Elohim, translated as God, just as Moses is called Elohim in Exodus 4:16. However, from what I know, the mainstream understanding in the Christian worldview is that this man is indeed God, but since God’s Unity is complex in Christianiy and understood by the doctrine of Trinity, this man is believed to have been the pre-incaration of Jesus Christ or the second person of Trinity, aka The Son of God, the image of the invisible God. In this article, I do not want to argue for that or present the reasonings behind it. My purpose in this article is to open up the spiritual meaning behind this portion of the Torah. I believe anything written about the physical Israel has a deeper spiritual meaning behind it, and this story is not exempt, so let’s get to it already!
This wrestle in my view represents a spiritual struggle which happens in the mind of literally every single one of us as we grow up. It’s not a win-lose game, though it may appear to be, if we only look at it from an earthly perspective. In other words, if Jacob wins, it doesn’t make God a loser. God wanted to bless Jacob. Jacob wanted to be blessed too, so why are they fighting, you might ask? The reason lies behind the fact that Jacob’s view of blessing is different from God’s. Jacob is thinking of material things just like we all do when we think of blessings, whereas God wants to bless us with eternal life, not merely with materials in a world that is doomed to destruction. As a result, the struggle is between God’s will and man’s will.
When God asks Jacob to let him go, Jacob says no. I will not let you go unless you bless me. This is a response that God is waiting to hear from us. The irony here is that God can easily leave if He chooses to without our permission. But He would never let go unless we let Him. He sometimes even intices us to ask Him to leave us alone, in order to make sure that we’re serious about wanting His blessings. When Jacob says he will not let God go unless He blesses him, he’s literally saying that he is willing to stay there and die unless God blesses him. That means Jacob is finally ready to give everything in this world up for this blessing. That’s the climax of the story. That’s when both Jacob and God win. It’s a win-win situation, not a win-lose situation!
In the same way, I believe God wrestles with every one of us. Once we’re ready to give everything up unless God blesses us will be the climax of our story. It will be the moment we prevail but God wins too and we both rejoice in this victory. What if we lose? Well, that certainly won’t be a win for God. It will either be a lose for God as well or a neutral. Because as God says in Ezekiel 33:11, He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. So while in earthly and physical perspectives, a wrestle is a win-lose match, our wrestle with God is either a win-win or a lose-lose and it’s all because of the different wills at work. Our will which is focused on the flesh vs. God’s will which is focused on the spirit.
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