Jacob Wrestling With Angel

Jacob Anden White

He is survived by his parents, Chad and Michelle White, of the home; sister, Shay White; two brothers, Garren and Dexter White, all of the home; great-great-grandmother, Betty L. Cathey, Tecumseh; three great-grandmothers, Cathrine Davis, Seminole, Emma White, Bethel Acres, and Doris Arms, Tecumseh; grandparents, Richard and Sherrie Sheppard, Shawnee, Rick and Betty White, Tecumseh; and many aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and family. Visitation will begin at noon, Wednesday, July 6, 2011. The family will gather to meet with friends from 6 to 8 p.m., Wednesday, July 6, 2011. Service will be 2 p.m., Thursday, July 7, 2011, at Tecumseh Pentecostal Church of God with Reverend Jerry Kuhn officiating. Burial will follow at Dale Cemetery under the direction of Cooper Funeral Home of Tecumseh.

Jacob Wrestles the Angel – Lower Wisdom

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

This is the story where Jacob’s name becomes “Israel”. This is the moment that Jacob is no longer an individual scoundrel, and instead becomes a nation of God’s chosen people.

But it’s a bizarre story. At first glance, it looks like Jacob has actually overpowered God and extorted a promise or blessing. By Israel’s own theology, that would be blasphemy! And the story looks like modus operandi for the scoundrel Jacob; yet another example of Jacob taking what wasn’t his.

That interpretation is too simplistic, though. Early in the story, the angel/man/God demonstrates his overwhelming superiority over Jacob by permanently disabling Jacob with a single touch. Jacob has already endangered his own life, but the angel allows Jacob to continue wrestling. By any stretch of logic, Jacob is finished. But what Jacob does next is seemingly insane !

Try to put yourself in Jacob’s shoes. If you’ve just realized that your opponent can annihilate you with a single touch, if you’re now stuck with a life-long disability, and you’ve already pushed your luck by continuing to wrestle, what would you do? Would you push your luck even further by demanding a blessing ?!? That’s what Jacob does. If you can easily see Jacob’s logic, you just might be one of God’s chosen people.