CHAPTER 32
He instructed them,
“You are to say
to my master
Esau,
‘Your servant
Jacob
says:
I have been staying
with
Laban
and have remained there
until
now.
I have
oxen,
donkeys,
flocks,
menservants,
and maidservants.
I have sent
this message to inform
my master,
so that I may find
favor
in your sight.’”
When the messengers
returned
to
Jacob,
they said,
“We went
to
your brother
Esau;
he is coming
to meet you—
he and four
hundred
men
with him.”
In great
fear
and distress,
Jacob
divided
his
people
into two
camps,
as well as the flocks
and herds
and camels.
Then Jacob
declared,
“O God
of my father
Abraham,
God
of my father
Isaac,
the LORD
who told
me,
‘Go back
to your country
and to your kindred,
and I will make you prosper,’
I am unworthy
of all
the kindness
and faithfulness
You have shown
Your servant.
Indeed,
with only my staff
I came across
the
Jordan,
but now
I have become
two
camps.
Please
deliver me
from the hand
of my brother
Esau,
for
I
am afraid that
he may come
and attack me,
and also the mothers
and
their children with me.
But You
have said,
‘I will surely
make you prosper,
and I will make
your offspring
like the sand
of the sea,
too numerous
to count.’”
Jacob spent
the
night
there,
and from what he had brought
with him,
he selected
a gift
for his brother
Esau:
He entrusted them to
his servants
in separate
herds
and told
them,
“Go on
ahead of me,
and keep
some distance
between
the herds.”
He instructed
the one in the lead,
“When
my brother
Esau
meets
you and asks,
‘To whom
do you belong,
where
are you going,
and whose
animals are these
before you?’
then you are to say,
‘They belong to your servant
Jacob.
They
are a gift,
sent
to my lord
Esau.
And behold,
Jacob
is behind us.’”
He also
instructed
the second,
the third,
and
all those
following
behind
the herds:
“When you meet
Esau,
you are to say
the same
thing
to
him.
You are also
to say,
‘Look,
your servant
Jacob
is right behind us.’”
For
he thought,
“I will appease
Esau
with the gift
that is going
before me.
After
that
I can face
him,
and perhaps
he will accept
me.”
During the night
Jacob got up
and took
his two
wives,
his two
maidservants,
and his eleven
sons,
and crossed
the ford
of Jabbok.
When the man saw
that
He could not
overpower Jacob,
He struck
the socket
of Jacob’s hip
and dislocated
it
as they
wrestled.
Then the man said,
“Let Me go,
for
it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied,
“I will not
let You go
unless
You bless me.”
Then the man said,
“Your name
will no
longer
be
Jacob,
but Israel,
because
you have struggled
with
God
and with
men,
and you have prevailed.”
Then Jacob
asked him,
“Please
tell
me Your name.”
“Why
do you ask
My name?”
he replied.
And He blessed
Jacob there.
So Jacob
named
the place
Peniel,
saying, “Indeed,
I have seen
God
face
to
face,
and yet my life
was spared.”
Therefore
to
this
day
the Israelites
do not
eat
the tendon
at
the hip
socket,
because
the man struck
Jacob’s
hip
socket
near that tendon.