What a mixture Jacob was. He knew, for instance, that contacting his brother Esau was highly risky because Esau had wanted to kill him back in Genesis 27:41-45. But Jacob was willing to take that risk, which was remarkably different for him, because so much of his life was about conniving for his own benefit. 

But Esau was coming to meet him with four hundred men, which filled Jacob with “fear and distress,” Genesis 32:6-7. And Esau himself was no pushover either. He’d fit in very nicely at a Scottish Highland games – and look the red hairy part too – flinging telephone poles and hammers around. 

But Jacob did a very different thing again, because instead of depending on his own wits to wrestle his way through a difficult situation, this time he cried out to God in verse 11, “Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.”  

At this point in his life, then – “Wrestle or rest – which was it to be?” – he’d chosen “rest.” He was going to trust God. 

But, being Jacob, it would include a strategy of his own too. He came up with the idea of “pacifying” Esau (20) by sending him a sizeable gift of “two hundred female goats and twenty males, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty female camels and their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten males” (14). 

But not all at once. Jacob instructed his servants to keep each of the five large herds separate from the others, so as Esau got closer each herd would be introduced to him in waves as a gift from Jacob, each wave designed to soften Esau up (17-21). It was an elaborate operation involving a lot of mental wrestling. 

Imagine Jacob’s embarrassment, then, when “Esau ran up to meet him and threw his arms round Jacob’s neck” –  not to throttle him, but in a happy and emotional embrace (33:4). So Jacob could have totally rested in God, spared himself all that worry – and not given away five hundred of his animals too. 

But in difficult situations what do any of us do? When it comes to wrestling or resting, perhaps Jacob’s story is ours too? Taking note too, though, that in these situations “Jacob’s trust in God grew”….(next blog)

Every time an Israelite rested on the Sabbath Day it pictured GOD doing all the work of making him holy (Exodus 31:13). But instead of trusting God to make them holy, the Israelites ‘did a Jacob’ and “sought to establish their own righteousness” by their own means and effort (Romans 10:3). We learn from the story of Israel, then, that keeping the Sabbath-rest – by trusting GOD to fulfill his purpose in us – isn’t easy, and the writer of Hebrews 4:11 echoes that when he writes, “Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest.” 

So that’s where our human struggle lies: It’s putting our entire life in trust to God, rather than taking things into our own hands like Jacob. And it’s a struggle all right, because situations keep cropping up that tempt us to ‘do a Jacob’ – even when we know God is always here to help us (Philippians 4:13, 19). 

It wasn’t easy for Jacob later in his life either, because even after he realized he’d actually seen “God face to face” in his wrestling match (Genesis 32:30), he still got anxious fourteen chapters later in Genesis 46:3 when faced with uprooting his entire family of 70 people and heading off to Egypt. But God promised to be with him, verse 4, and this time Jacob trusted him. 

But even though God promises to be with us, it can still be a real struggle believing it. It was a struggle for much of Jacob’s life too, just as it was for Ephraim in Hosea 12, and for the entire nation of Israel all through its history. They all resorted to prevailing with God and man by their own ways and means, rather than trusting God to sort things out. They preferred wrestling to resting.

According to the writer of Hebrews, though, there’s only one wrestling match we’re involved in, and that’s the one in our own heads. When we “make every effort” to enter God’s rest, it’s by steeling our minds to trust our great high priest to help us in our time of need (Hebrews 4:14-16). When tempted to take things into our own hands in scary situations, or in our upsets with people, or being anxious about anything, it’s to him that we turn. 

Because that’s the moral of the story of Jacob and Israel. It was written for our sakes too, and the choice is still the same: “Wrestle or rest – which is to be?”….(next blog) 

So here was Stephen in Acts 6:8, “a man full of God’s grace and power,” about to be stoned to death by members of a Jewish synagogue, with the approval of a top-ranking Jewish religious leader called Saul (8:1). So, what began with Jacob centuries ago had created a monster like Saul, who could justify killing a man who was so obviously sent by God.  

But how was that possible? Well, according to the writer of Hebrews 3:12 it was Israel’s “unbelieving heart” that did it; that’s what “turned them away from the living God” and made them constantly resist him. 

Unlike Abraham – who simply “believed the Lord” (Genesis 15:6) – Jacob’s descendants relied instead on their own ways and means of solving their problems. But look where it got them: Ephraim (descendant of Jacob) was “multiplying lies and violence” in Hosea 12, just like the Jewish synagogue was doing against Stephen, and now we’ve got Saul condoning the murder of a godly man. Seventeen hundred years down the road from Jacob the Jews were a fearful, angry, confused mess.  

Clearly, then, God orchestrated this entire story of Israel and its endless wrestling match with him to show us ALL where it takes us. It takes us to the same place it took Israel, Hebrews 3:11, where God “declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest’” – which is obviously something really bad, but what does it mean?       

Well, in Hebrews 4:3, it’s those “who have believed who enter that rest.” Belief is the key. Belief in what, though? It is the belief, verse 4, that “on the seventh day God rested from all his work,” because, verse 10, “anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.”  

To enter God’s rest it involves resting like God rested on the seventh day of creation, in clear contrast to wrestling against him, which began with Jacob and continued all through Israel’s history. But it identified what a struggle it is for us humans to trust (or rest in) God. Our human history, pictured by Israel, has always been about wrestling versus resting.

Fortunately, Hebrews 4:9, “There remains a Sabbath-rest for the people of God,” so the opportunity is still open for us to rest and not wrestle. But, verse 11, “It takes every effort to enter God’s rest”….(next blog)

It’s not surprising there’s so much hatred expressed against the nation of Israel today, because it’s in Israel’s long history that our greatest weakness as humans is exposed. 

This is made clear in the story of Stephen in Acts 6. In Acts 6:8, Stephen is described as “a man full of God’s grace and power” – the obvious proof of which was his “great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.” But in verses 9-10 he’s up against “members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen” who want to “argue” with him, but they didn’t stand a chance “against his wisdom in the Spirit by which he spoke.”  

So just like their ancestor Jacob, the Freedmen resorted to cunning. In verses 11-14 they “secretly persuaded” people to say Stephen was speaking blasphemy, and even “producing false witnesses” to testify against him. And even though “Stephen’s face was like the face of an angel” in court (15) they still pursued their devious plot to get rid of him.

And here’s the point, because in answer to the charges against him, Stephen tells the story of Israel in Acts Chapter 7 – how God stuck to his Covenant with Abraham in amazing ways, made Joseph “ruler over Egypt,” did all sorts of “wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and for forty years in the desert.” Stephen also slips in a few home truths about Israel’s rotten behaviour – how “the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph” and “sold him as a slave into Egypt,” and how “our fathers refused to obey him” when God sent Moses to rescue Israel out of Egypt, and how they made their own gods to lead them instead. 

Stephen’s point being, that God had been faithful to Israel but Israel was always digging in its heels and opposing him, just like the Freedmen were now opposing Stephen, even when it was obvious that “the Spirit” was with him. So God tells it like it is through Stephen in Acts 7:51: “You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears. You are just like your fathers.” How? “You always resist the Holy Spirit,” and that, in a nutshell, is the history of Israel. 

The lesson of Israel’s history being Hebrews 3:12, that “none of us go the Israel route of refusing to trust and rely on God, and turning our backs on him.” But we also learn from Israel “What a struggle it is to trust God”….(next blog)

Why on earth would God allow himself a wrestling match with Jacob? Or put another way, why – if it wasn’t actually God himself – would he let Jacob think he was wrestling with God, which Jacob really thought he was, Genesis 32:30.

Why? Well, choosing such an odd thing as a wrestling match was obviously meant to reveal something important about Jacob. Which it did, because Jacob wasn’t phased one bit that he was fighting with God. It didn’t matter to him at all that he was resisting God. Even when his hip was put out of joint (25) Jacob kept on resisting. And when told to stop resisting, Jacob refused, unless God blessed him (26).

It’s interesting, then, that “to this day (32) the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.” So the Israelites felt the need to remember this occasion – and so they should because Jacob’s resistance  pictured the problem that would plague Israel for centuries to come. God, in other words, was making it clear in this wrestling match with Jacob, that resisting him is asking for trouble. 

He allows us to resist him though – but, the author of Hebrews tells us, take a leaf out of the story book of Israel (the new name given to Jacob in Genesis 32:28), because Jacob’s Israelite descendants got themselves into all sorts of trouble in their history for resisting God. 

For example, Hebrews 3:8-9, the Israelites, in true Jacob fashion, rebelled against God, hardening their hearts against him all during their 40 year stint in the desert after their escape from Egypt. Result? Verse 11, “So I (God) declared an oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”

Whatever that last phrase means, it does picture perfectly for all us humans that we’ll never be “at rest” while resisting God. And here we are today as proof of it, having to live with constant global unrest too. But who among our leaders sees any relevance in the story of Jacob? 

It’s a pity they don’t because what happened to Israel was “written down as warnings for us,” 1 Corinthians 10:11, to spare us from the trouble we get into when ignoring and resisting God. And “It’s all there in the story of Israel”….(next blog)

God has a major lesson weaving its way through Scripture that our leaders today would do us all a great favour taking note of. 

Because what makes God really angry is us humans daring to flaunt our contempt for him and his ways, by thinking in our arrogance and self-congratulating cleverness that we can sort ourselves out without him, and our little brains can do better. But how dare we pipsqueaks think we can just carry on as we please without a thought for our Creator – because where in our historically proven stupidity do we hope to be without him?  

And to get that point across, there’s lot of time spent in the Bible telling the story of Jacob, from the time Jacob first appears on the scene as a fledgling nasty piece of work in Genesis 25 to the fearsome threats God makes to his descendants in Hosea 12.

Because in Hosea 12:1 we’ve got Ephraim (down the road descendants of Jacob) who’ve got themselves in a right pickle “pursuing the east wind all day and multiplying lies and violence.” An “east wind” in that region was crippling and destructive, meaning Ephraim was well on the road to ruin the way it was headed.  

Ruin, that is, in the form of two mighty powers on their doorstep, Egypt and Assyria, who could wipe them off the map in a heartbeat. So in such dire circumstances with an easy road to hell facing them, did they turn to God for help? Not on their pitiful little lives they didn’t. Instead, “he (Ephraim) makes a treaty with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt” (1).   

So instead of admitting they don’t have a clue how they’re going to get themselves out of this latest mess and lowering their pride enough to trust God to sort things out for them, Ephraim tries to win over Egypt as an ally with gifts of its famous olive oil, just like Jacob sent Esau a steady flow of gifts to win Esau over in Genesis 33:8. 

A thousand years after Jacob was alive, therefore, things haven’t changed at all. We’ve got fellow humans still hellbent on conniving their way out of trouble, without a thought for God and what he would want them to do.

And that’s a bad move for anyone to make, including our leaders today, because the story of Jacob is a clear warning that “Resisting God is asking for trouble”….(next blog)

In Jacob becoming Israel we have a major story developing in the Bible that’s clearly designed by God to illustrate a problem – a problem so insidious and overpowering that eventually Jesus would die as the only way of curing it. 

And to show us what the problem is, God opens this play of all plays in Act 1, Scene 1, with a wrestling match at the River Jabbok (meaning “Wrestle”) and Jacob’s name being changed to Israel (the “Isra” part meaning “Struggle”), both names setting the scene and putting the props in place to prepare us for what is to come.  

And one thousand years later, in Hosea 12, we get to see what was coming – and it’s not a pretty picture, with God stating angrily in verse 2 that “he will punish Jacob according to his ways and repay him according to his deeds.” 

So there’s still a lot of Jacob firmly embedded in the history of Israel, resulting in his descendants many years later being severely taken to task by God. And notice why his descendants are being punished too; it’s because of “his ways” and “his deeds,” referring to Jacob’s old habits of “grasping his brother’s heel” and “struggling with God” (3).    

So who were these conniving descendants of Jacob following in his footsteps? Hosea 12 opens in verse 1 with “Ephraim pursuing the east wind all day” and “multiplying lies and violence,” because “he makes a treaty with Assyria and sends olives to Egypt.” 

So it’s Ephraim that’s doing the same old ‘Jacob stuff’ of wheeling and dealing, and just like Jacob trusting in their own wits to get what they’re after, and like Jacob still lying and conniving and making others mad at them (including the mighty Assyria), and like Jacob still trying to wrestle through their problems by devious means. 

And now they’ve made God really angry as well. “Ephraim had bitterly provoked him to anger,” verse 14, resulting in God ’s fearsome threat that he will “repay Ephraim for his contempt.”

And it’s that contemptuous spirit of human conniving, lying and resorting to cunning that makes God so angry – so “Leaders today, take note”….(next blog)

At first glance YHWH’s statement to Jacob in Genesis 32:28, that “you’ve wrestled with God and people and prevailed” sounds like a compliment, that Jacob has struggled and won, and that’s a good thing. 

But the verse also includes his “struggle with people,” and up to that point Jacob’s dealings with people were anything but a good thing. He’d fought with Esau in the womb, grabbed Esau’s heel to try and prevent him being born first, conned Esau’s rights as the firstborn out of him (25:33), and connived with his mother Rebekah to get the blessing Esau should have got from Isaac, all of which had made Esau so angry he wanted to kill Jacob (27:41), and Jacob had to run for his life. 

And when Jacob’s uncle Laban tricked him into marrying Leah and demanded seven years work out of Jacob for Rachel (29:27) – and cheated on Jacob’s wages too (31:6-7, 41) – Jacob “prevailed” again, using the years he worked for Laban to make himself extremely rich at Laban’s expense (30:42-43). And that made Laban so angry at him, that Jacob had to run for his life again.  

So Jacob’s “struggle with people” in Genesis 32:28 was anything but a compliment. His “struggle with God” hadn’t been any better either, because instead of simply trusting God’s promise in Genesis 25:23 that the younger of Rebekah’s twins would be the stronger, Jacob resorted to all kinds of devious shenanigans to make that promise happen, none of which were necessary. But that was Jacob; he depended on his wits and determination to get what he was after from both God and people – and he always got his way (or “prevailed” as verse 28 says) eventually. But it always involved wrestling and a struggle of some sort, because that was Jacob too. 

A wrestling match all night, therefore, suited Jacob’s personality perfectly, and so did his new name, because the Isra part of the name Israel also hints at striving and struggling – and even fighting and contending according to my Hebrew Lexicon – a perfect reflection of Jacob’s past dealings with God and people, and of the relationship between God and the nation of Israel in the future – as we’ll see. 

The name Israel, therefore, not only reflected the character of the man, Jacob, it also pictured the character of the nation that would come from him. And it hinted of rocky times to come. So much for Jacob the wrestler being a good thing. Not when “Human conniving sickens God”….(next blog)

Jacob is already in his nineties in Genesis 32:24 when out of the darkness a man grabs him and they’re into a wrestling match that lasts all night. No matter how hard Jacob struggles he cannot throw the other man to the ground, but nor can he ease up the slightest bit either, because the other man is his equal. For hours they wrestle, neither of them gaining advantage over the other. 

Even when the man damaged Jacob’s hip Jacob still refused to release his grip. Just as the sun was coming up, the man told Jacob to let him go – but Jacob wouldn’t let him go “unless,” he said to the man, “you bless me” (26). Not, take note, “OK, I’ll let go if you let go” in a bargain that benefitted both of them. That wasn’t Jacob’s style at all. When the man asked to be let go it gave Jacob the advantage at last and a chance to bargain to his own benefit, and he grabbed it, because that’s what Jacob had always done. 

Even before he was born Jacob was wrestling with his twin brother Esau, causing Rebekah his mother to wonder what on earth was going on inside her (25:22-23). And when Esau was born first, imagine her surprise seeing the little hand of Jacob grabbing on to his brother’s heel. 

And that’s how Jacob got his name (25:26): Jacob meant “heel grabber,” and it described Jacob’s character to a tee. He caught Esau’s heel to slow him down and impede his progress, as if he was consciously thinking he could race Esau down the birth canal and be the first one born instead. 

But that was Jacob, and in the custom of the day that initial show of his character sealed his name as a self-promoting heel grabber. His name alone, therefore, was a clear warning to anyone who had dealings with Jacob that here was a con artist supreme who’d grab whatever means he could to gain advantage for himself. And “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob?” Esau moaned in Genesis 27:36, because, unfortunately, Jacob had been living up to his name all too well.    

But this, take note, is the character of the man who became the father of ISRAEL, as we find out back at the wrestling match in Genesis 32:28, because in answer to Jacob’s demand for a blessing, the blessing he received was a change in his name from Jacob to Israel, and the reason given in Genesis 32:28 was because “you have wrestled with God and humans and you have prevailed.” But was “Jacob the wrestler – a good thing?”….(next blog) 

When Rebekah found out that her son Esau wanted to kill her favourite son Jacob, her agile brain went to work again. First on her list was get to Jacob, and tell him to leave as soon as possible, head north on the 500 mile journey to her brother Laban in Haran, and hang out with him until Esau had cooled down. She’d then get word to Jacob when it was safe for him to come home (Genesis 27:42-45). 

To cover Jacob’s tracks and explain why he was in such a hurry to leave she had to get to Isaac next. So in another truly Oscar winning performance, she pouts to her poor old blind husband that she’s sick to her stomach “having to live with all these awful Hittite women, so if Jacob marries one of them my life won’t be worth living” (46).   

Again it works a treat. Isaac immediately calls for Jacob (28:1) and tells him not to marry a local girl, but to head off to the very same spot Rebekah is sending Jacob to. So when Jacob heads off to Paddam Aram on his father’s orders (2) to find a wife “from among the daughters of Laban (Rebekah’s brother),” Isaac is none the wiser that his lovely Rebekah had the same trip in mind to save her beloved Jacob’s skin. 

But even Rebekah must’ve been surprised when Isaac comes out with the most amazing farewell blessing for Jacob: “May God Almighty bless you and give you many children. And may your descendants multiply and become many nations. May God pass on to you and your descendants the blessings he promised to Abraham. May you own this land where you are now living as a foreigner, for God gave this land to Abraham” (28:3-4).

I imagine Rebekah could hardly believe her ears, because now it was official: all the blessings YHWH had promised to Abraham were now continuing through Jacob. That hadn’t happened in Isaac’s original blessing to Jacob (meant for Esau) back in Genesis 27:28-29. There’d been no mention of YHWH’s blessings to Abraham back then, but now because of Rebekah’s trumped up scheme to save Jacob’s bacon, that part of God’s master plan had fallen beautifully into place too. 

So off Jacob went to his uncle, with no mention at all that he understood what the blessing his Dad had given him meant, or that it was now his turn on the stage of YHWH’s great cosmic master plan for humanity. And what a part he was about to play, with a revealing clue in his brother’s statement about him: “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob?”….(next blog)