Jacob prepares to meet Esau
32
📚And Jacob went on his way, and the angels✭ of God met him. 2 📚✭And when Jacob saw them, he said, “This is God’s host”, and he called the name of that place Mahanaim.3 📚And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau✭ his brother to the land of Seir, the country of Edom✭. 4 📚✭And he commanded them, saying, “Speak to my master Esau like this: ‘Your servant Jacob says this, I have been staying with Laban, and remained there until now. 5 📚And I have oxen and donkeys, flocks, and male servants, and female servants. Now I have sent men to tell my master this, so that I may find favour in your sight.’ ”
6 📚And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We went to your brother Esau, and he is also coming to meet you, and four hundred men with him”.
7 📚Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. And he divided the people with him, and the flocks, herds and camels, into two groups, 8 📚and said, “If Esau comes to the one group and attacks it, then the group which is left will escape”.
9 📚And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, the LORD who said to me, ‘Return✭ to your country, and to your relatives, and I will prosper you’, 10 📚✭I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and all the faithfulness which you have showed to your servant. For with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I have become two groups. 11 📚Rescue me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, the hand of Esau, for I am afraid that he will come and attack me, and the mother with the children. 12 📚And you said, ‘I will surely make you prosper, and make your offspring like the sand of the sea, which is so much that it cannot be numbered.’ ”
13 📚✭And he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took a present for his brother Esau: 14 📚two hundred female goats, twenty male goats, two hundred ewes, twenty rams, 15 thirty camels giving milk, together with their young, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty female donkeys, and ten foals. 16 📚And he put them in the hands of his servants, each drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Go on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove”.
17 📚And he commanded the one in the front, saying, “When my brother Esau meets you, and speaks and asks, ‘To whom do you belong?’, and, ‘Where are you going?’ and, ‘Who owns these herds in front of you?’ 18 📚Then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. It is a present sent to my master Esau. And look, he is also behind us.’ ”
19 And he gave the same command to the second, and to the third, and to all who followed the droves, saying, “This is the way you must speak to Esau when you meet him. 20 📚And say also, ‘Look, your servant Jacob is behind us.’ ” For he said, “I will appease him with the present that goes before me, and when I see his face, perhaps he will receive me”. 21 So the present went on before him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.
Jacob wrestles with the angel
22 📚And he got up that night, and took his two wives, and his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford Jabbok✭. 23 After he took them and brought them over the brook, he sent over his possessions. 24 📚And Jacob was left alone. And a man✭ wrestled with him until daybreak✭. 25 📚And when he saw that he was not overpowering✭ Jacob, he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh became out of joint, as he wrestled with him. 26 📚And he said, “Let me go✭, for it is daybreak”. And Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me✭”.
27 ✭And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob”.
28 📚And he said, “Your name will no longer be called Jacob✭, but Israel✭; for as a prince you have power with God and with men, and have prevailed✭”.
29 📚And Jacob asked him, saying, “Please tell me your name”. And he said, “Why is it that you are asking about my name✭?” And he blessed him✭ there.
30 📚✭And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I saw God face to face, and my life was preserved”.