Jacob wrestling with the angel
The Masoretic Text reads as follows: On that night, he arose and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven sons, and he crossed over the Jabbok ford.He took them and sent them over the river, and he sent over that which was his.Jacob was left to his lonesome.
"The sun shone on him when he passed Penuel, and he was limping over his thigh.Verily, to this day the Israelites do not eat the 'forgotten sinew', which is over the socket of the thigh, for he struck in the socket of Jacob's thigh, in the forgotten sinew.The account contains several plays on the meaning of Hebrew names—Peniel (or Penuel), Israel—as well as similarity to the root of Jacob's name (which sounds like the Hebrew for "heel", עָקֵב ʿaqeb) and its compound.
[7] The identity of Jacob's wrestling opponent is a matter of debate:[8] he is named variously as a dream figure, a prophetic vision, an angel (such as Michael and Samael), a protective river spirit, Jesus, or God.
[9] In Hosea 12:5, Jacob's opponent is described as malakh, which means 'angel': "Yes, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication to him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spoke with us".
[19] The interpretation that "Jacob wrestled with God" (glossed in the name Isra-'el) is common in Protestant theology, endorsed by the Protestant reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin (although Calvin believed the event was "only a vision"),[12] as well as later writers such as Joseph Barker (1854)[20] or Peter L. Berger (2014).
J. Douglas MacMillan (1991) suggests that the angel with whom Jacob wrestles is a "pre-incarnation appearance of Christ in the form of a man".
Boer calls this an example of "a bloodthirsty, vengeful God ... outdone by cunning human beings keen to avoid his fury".
[27] Rosemary Ellen Guiley gives this summary: One of the oldest visual depictions is in the illustrated manuscript the Vienna Genesis.
[31] Paintings include: The Latin text of Genesis 32:30 'Vidi dominum facie ad faciem; et salva facta est anima mea' (I have seen the Lord face to face) was set for the third nocturn at Matins on the second Sunday of Lent and was a popular medieval telling of the story of Jacob's encounter with the angel.
White's The Once and Future King, the Wart is described as knowing that the work of training a hawk "had been like Jacob's struggle with the angel".
Gustave Dore's image is reenacted in Jean-Luc Godard's Passion by a film extra dressed as an angel and Jerzy Radziwiłowicz.
A short story in Daniel Mallory Ortberg's collection The Merry Spinster (2018) explores a version of the narrative as told from the perspective of the angel.
