22 The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24 Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the 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 is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the man[b] said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel,[c] for you have striven with God and with humans[d] and have prevailed.” 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 place Peniel,[e] saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
–Genesis 32:22-31
When someone knows your name, they have an influence over you, a power in your life. If I am standing in a crowd at the mall or at a football game and someone shouts out my name, I turn and look. Even when I know that the odds almost nil that this is someone I know calling for me, I turn and look. As a counselor I work with people who are struggling with grief. In our conversations about how they miss their loved one, often they will say, “I just wish, one more time, I could hear them call out my name.”
Many of us are named after members of our family. You may have a name that your parents liked. In the Biblical story, names often have a powerful, symbolic meaning. They say something about the character of the person. Names play an important role in this encounter between Jacob and the stranger by the river Jabbok. In fact, one of the powerful twists in the story happens with the question I invite us to consider as a question of faith: What is your name?
This encounter happens at a pivotal time in Jacob’s life.
He had to flee for his life for his deceitful actions with his family of origin. He is returning home after more deceitful actions with the family of his wives. He has just received word that his brother Esau is approaching with a band of men. This is the same Esau who promised to kill Jacob the next time he saw him. So, in Jacob’s mind, his very life hangs in the balance. He sends his family ahead of him.
The language of the story is poignant. “Jacob was left alone.” Alone with his thoughts and feelings. Alone with memories of how his life had reached this point. Alone with wondering what would happen to him and his family the next day.
The language of the story is also striking in its brevity. “A man wrestled with him until daybreak.” More information please!! Where did this man come from? And why, of all the things that could happen in this encounter, did they decide to wrestle?
Of course, the most important question is who is this man? In the church where I grew up, the title of this story was either “Jacob Wrestles with an Angel” or “Jacob Wrestles with God.” And yet, in the story he is just a man. As the story unfolds, this man seems to have powers that represent the divine. Jacob realizes the man can grant him a blessing. The man can wound Jacob with the touch of his hand. But most importantly, the man has the authority to change Jacob’s name.
Jacob is wounded and realizes he is losing the struggle, but he is relentless: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
Blessings are at the top of Jacob’s wish list.
Years earlier, he stole the blessing of his brother Esau. Now, even as he realizes that he is a force that can get away with anything, he asks for a blessing. But this time, as Frederick Buechner observes in The Magnificent Defeat, it is “not a blessing that he can have now by the strength of his cunning or the force of his will, but a blessing he can have only as a gift.” This is becoming a life changing encounter for Jacob, and the transformation continues with the question.
What is your name?
This is a question Jacob has heard before. The last time he heard it from his father Jacob, he lied to steal the family blessing. This time, when Jacob answers the question, his words resonate in his soul, as he admits who he is. I am Jacob. I am the heel grabber. I am the supplanter. I am the conniver and the controller. All of these are meanings of the name Jacob, and he has been living out those meaning over and over.
Maybe for the first time in his life, like the prodigal son, Jacob comes to himself and sees who he really is. Only then can he receive the blessing of peace, joy, love, and covenant that comes to him, not as something he steals, but something he receives.
This is where the question asked of Jacob becomes a question of faith, as we hear it asked of each of us. We wrestle with God. We wrestle with our own hearts. We stand before God and ourselves and say, “This is who I am.” Only in admitting fully who we are, at every level, can we become who we are intended to be.
With Jacob’s confession, he receives a new name. No longer Jacob, he is now Israel.
One of the meanings of this name is “the one who strives with God.” The foundational identity of a people and religion is “one who wrestles with God.” Could this be an invitation for all of us? The quest of faith is not about knowledge or understanding. It is about struggling and striving. What would it look like if we embraced, really embraced, this new identity?
One final observation. Jacob receives a new name which represents a new identity. And yet, throughout the rest of the story, he is called Jacob. There is no replacing an old nature with a new one. Instead, all of who we are is embraced by who we are becoming. He is Jacob, but he is more than Jacob. He is Israel. I am Gary, but I am more than Gary. We are all people who struggle and wrestle with God. And God is more than willing to enter the fray.