Did Jacob beat God in a wrestling match? It’s a fair question and one that likely many Christians have wrestled with (pun intended) as they’ve read through Genesis 32. After wrestling with a “man” (Gen 32:24) all night long, this “man” then informs Jacob that he had actually been wrestling with God.
And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”
Genesis 32:24-30 ESV
On the surface, it looks like God is admitting defeat, but what exactly does God mean when He tells Jacob that he has “prevailed?” First, let’s look at this as if it were a real wrestling match. If two contestants wrestled to a stalemate, the judge or referee would determine who was the winner. At the end of this match, Jacob has a dislocated hip (and/or an injury to the groin; maybe we can look at this possibility another time) while God is merely still in Jacob’s grasp. If a judge had to render a decision as to who came out on top, it seems pretty clear that Jacob is far worse off at the end of this encounter. In such a view, Jacob didn’t win. He merely stayed in the game through the whole match.
Fortunately, this type of guesswork is not the only tool we have available to us to render a decision on this wrestling match. As Scripture often does, it provides a parallel passage that gives us a better sense of what it means that Jacob “prevailed.”
When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!” Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” Then she said, “Here is my servant Bilhah; go in to her, so that she may give birth on my behalf, that even I may have children through her.” So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her. And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, “God has judged me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son.” Therefore she called his name Dan. Rachel’s servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, “With mighty wrestlings [Hebrew = “With wrestlings of God”] I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed.” So she called his name Naphtali.
Genesis 30:1-8 ESV
At this point, Leah has given birth to four children from her own body, while Rachel is still barren, claiming two children birthed by her slave girl as her own. If this was a wrestling match—which it is in Rachel’s view—Leah was clearly on her way to a very lopsided victory. But in spite of all the data, Rachel defiantly proclaims that she has “prevailed” in this struggle with her sister.
In this sense, Rachel’s “prevailing” in this wrestling match is not a victory in the sense that she won by besting Leah. In this childbirthing contest, Leah is clearly the superior opponent. But in Rachel’s view, Rachel had “prevailed” in the sense that she got into the motherhood wrestling match at all. Rachel didn’t give up but competed, making sure that Leah wasn’t the only one playing the game.
The same could then be said of Jacob. He prevailed by refusing to give up. In this sense, God’s statement indicating that even He did “not prevail” against Jacob is not meant to indicate that God is incapable of beating Jacob in a wrestling match. In the end, Jacob is clearly the loser. God saw that Jacob would not stop competing and thus “prevailed” by staying in the game. While God, being God, clearly possesses the power to completely overpower a human opponent (e.g. the Flood, Sodom & Gomorrah), God does not overwhelm Jacob entirely by rendering Jacob unconscious or breaking all the bones in his hands so that Jacob could not help but release God.
In another nighttime encounter, God did overwhelm his opponent until he gave in and could not prevail (Pharaoh & Passover). However, even in the Exodus, God did not act with such overwhelming power immediately. Pharaoh makes it through five plagues before God Himself has to uphold him by “hardening” Pharaoh’s heart (Ex 9:12). Prior to this, Pharaoh hardened his own heart and stayed in this ongoing wrestling match under his own power.
I find this aspect of Jacob’s wrestling match and the Exodus narrative to be worth meditating on as it relates to God’s character. God could best any opponent instantly and easily, but as Jacob’s new name (Israel = “struggles with God”) indicates, God is not merely interested in winning, particularly when it comes to the people of God. The nation of Israel is named out of Jacob’s wrestling match, and for well over a millennium after this encounter, God will patiently struggle with Israel.
While God’s opponents (like Pharaoh) will lose in the end, God seems less concerned about winning when it comes to those who belong to Him. It looks like God is more interested in staying in the game, struggling with people who struggle to surrender to the infinite power and wisdom of the One Who Is.
Epic Gospel 