Genesis 32:11

Genesis 32:7 , Genesis 32:11; Genesis 32:24; Genesis 32:28

From this description of a day and a night in the life of Jacob we learn three things. (1) This is a crisis, a turning-point in his career. His experience at the ford of Jabbok is his "conversion" from the craft and cunning and vulturous greed of years to the sweet subjection of his will to the Eternal, and consequent victory over himself and his brother. (2) God is in this crisis from first to last and at every moment of these twenty-four hours. (3) The crisis closes in the victory of the patient and loving Lord over the resisting selfishness of Jacob. Note these points:

I. It must have been a welcome fore-gleam of approaching victory, and a pledge of the sustaining presence of Jehovah in the "valley of the shadow of death," that as this day of crisis broke on the pilgrim the angels of God met him.

II. What is the significance of this terrific conflict? It means this assuredly. Jacob having gone to God in quaking fear, God holds him and will not let him go; goads and harrows his soul, till his heart swells and is ready to break; urges him to such a relentless and soul-consuming struggle with his self-will that he feels as though he is held in the grip of a giant and cannot escape. He resists, he struggles, he writhes, and in his furious contortions is at last lamed and helpless, and therefore compelled to trust himself and his all to God.

III. Jacob wrestled againstGod, but at last yielding, his soul is suffused with the blessedness of the man whose trust is in the Lord. Faber asks, with mingled beauty and force, "What is it will make us real?" and answers, "The face of God will do it." It is so. Israel is a new creation: Jacob is dead. Dark as the night was, Jacob passed through it, saw the Face of God at day-dawn, and became himself, met his brother with serenity, and spent the rest of his days in the love and service of God.

J. Clifford, Daily Strength for Daily Living,p. 39.

References: Genesis 32:7; Genesis 32:8. S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches,p. 204.Genesis 32:9. Sermons for Boys and Girls(1880), p. 122.Genesis 32:9. Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 186.