Texts in Conversation
Genesis 32 describes Jacob wrestling with a mysterious figure who blesses him, changes his name, and says he wrestled with God. Hosea recalls this story but instead says that Jacob wrestled with an angel.
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Genesis 32:28
Hebrew Bible
26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” “I will not let you go,” Jacob replied, “unless you bless me.” 27 The man asked him, “What is your name?” He answered, “Jacob.” 28 “No longer will your name be Jacob,” the man told him, “but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked, “Please tell me your name.” “Why do you ask my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there. 30 So Jacob named the place Peniel, explaining, “Certainly I have seen God face to face and have survived.”
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Hosea 12:4
Hebrew Bible
2 The Lord also has a covenant lawsuit against Judah; he will punish Jacob according to his ways and repay him according to his deeds. 3 In the womb he attacked his brother; in his manly vigor he struggled with God. 4 He struggled with an angel and prevailed; he wept and begged for his favor. He found God at Bethel, and there he spoke with him! 5 As for the Lord God Almighty, the Lord is the name by which he is remembered! 6 But you must return to your God, by maintaining love and justice and by waiting for your God to return to you.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... All night long, Jacob wrestles with a man. There is hurt and there is talk. Jacob comes away changed, believing that he has faced a divine being. Details aside, that is pretty much the bones of it. However, these bones have a long history of being fleshed and re-fleshed. For over two millennia, this ancient biblical story has accumulated numerous variations, through discussions and debates, depictions and theories. Even in its original form - or, at least how it appears in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament - this is a story on the move. Jacob’s struggle with a man (verses 24-28), whom he then identifies as God (verse 30), looks both backwards and forwards. It looks backwards to what scholars following James Frazer argue is an earlier folktale of a hero struggling with a river-spirit in order to gain some power or passage across the Jabbok. It looks forwards, most immediately, to another biblical appearance in Hosea 12:4, where the prophet asserts that Jacob “strove with the angel” ..."
Meyer, Mike
Jacob Wrestles the man-God: An Embodied Reading of Genesis 32:24-32
(pp. 1-2) University of Auckland, 2021
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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