New Name, New Walk

Photo by Ian on Unsplash

We have before us a very unique passage in a couple respects. We’ve never seen God, before or since, physically wrestle a man! Usually God is in the business of revealing Himself rather than hiding Himself. There are a lot of parts to this story that seem strange and confusing. 
Yet for those who have known God for a while, there is actually something strangely familiar about this text. It isn’t just because you’ve probably read it before, but because you’ve probably experienced it before, albeit in a more spiritual sense, less dramatic.
Today we are going to unfold what this text is getting at by looking, as we usually do, at two points today. God changes your identity and God changes your behavior. 
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God Changes Your Identity 

As this text begins, we will keep in mind where Jacob is and what he is about to face. Jacob is on his way back to the promised land, but before he can enter in it, he is going to have to face his brother (and potential murderer) Esau. This is a pretty dark, sleepless night for Jacob, but there is one more surprise for him. 
Suddenly, in the middle of the night, a man (we aren’t told who yet) begins wrestling with Jacob. Depending on weather conditions, this could have happened in the pitch dark, so Jacob suddenly is potentially fighting for his life! This was also a long term fight, because apparently this goes until the sun starts rising. If you’ve ever done any sort of fighting, this is quite impressive. Modern professionals really get tired out after just a few rounds, so wrestling all night after a pretty stressful day shows that Jacob has some incredible strength at his disposal (Matthews). 
However, all things come to an end eventually, so Jacob’s mysterious opponent touches Jacob’s hip and puts it out of joint, a devastating injury for wrestling performance. A single touch to make this kind of injury begins to pull back the curtain on who this strange fighter is. He seems intent on hiding his identity, because it is the rising dawn that causes him to call the fight over. 
Jacob recognizes that he has been wrestling with someone important, and asks for a blessing. The man responds with what at first sounds like a strange question, “What is your name?” Names are important in the Old Testament, as they often have something to do with reputation. This is why when places in the Psalms talk about declaring God’s name to the nations, they don’t mean just shouting the word, “God” but they mean telling the world about God’s acts, His faithful reputation. 
Jacob’s name doesn’t have a lot of honor to it. If you remember way back at the start if his story, he is named Jacob because he came out of the womb grabbing Esau’s heel. This name “heel grabber” also has the connotation of being a trickster, a “wrastler” if you will. For Jacob to say his name is to admit of this sort of character background.
This is why Jacob’s new name is so significant. The man says that Jacob will no longer be called “Jacob” but will instead be called “Israel.” Jacob is no longer going to be referred to with reference to what happened with Esau, but it is going to be in reference to what happened with God, and yes, this is God, I think. We’ll say more about it below, but I think the very fact that Jacob is being renamed is also significant for the identity of the man. 
To name something is to have authority over it. This is why Adam was naming all the animals, because he had been given authority over them. When kings would conquer nations, they would take in the people and give them new names to show their authority. If I were to suddenly start calling you by a different name and you just accept that, that would be an incredible power move. And I think that is what is going on here. 
I join with other commentators who think that this isn’t Jacob’s conversion moment, but it does parallel what our conversions look like. We can be known by several different identities. We can think of ourselves in relation to what we do. I am a preacher, a doctor, a farmer, an AC guy. In other words, you are defined by your career. For other people, they are defined by their role in their family. Maybe that is a obvious as mom or dad, but people can be known as the glue that holds a family together, the peacemaker, the executive. Sometimes people even define themselves by the worst thing they’ve ever done. I say all of this to point out that people, even Christians, can and often do make an identity on nearly anything except Jesus. Here, Jacob is being redefined away from the reputation of trickster, into the one who has wrestled with God and recieved a blessing. Once someone has wrestled with God, everything else just really doesn’t look all that significant. 
I remember hearing a comedian talk about the astronauts who went to the moon. He joked that those guys would be able to one up anyone at any dinner party. No matter what you’ve accomplished here on earth, the thought goes, pretty much no one else (so far) can really top walking through the Sea of Tranquility.
Except Jacob. Jacob here can look at these astronauts and say, “I wrestled with the God who made the moon. And He blessed me.” 
Now, you might be thinking, “Wait a minute. I thought that this fighting partner was just a man. Now, you’re telling me He’s God, and Jacob OUTWRESTLED God? Heresy!” Well, that’s not exactly right. I do think that this is God here, because Jacob names the place of the wrestling “Face to face with God.” He’s really the only one able to present a blessing to Jacob as well, so I think, along with many others, that this is a pre-incarnate Christ (Phillips, 252). 
So how does Jacob beat Him? Well, did Jacob? Yes, it was clear that God didn’t make progress in the wrestling, but it isn’t like Jacob actually won. Any opponent who can just put your hip out of joint by touching it is in a class all their own. God could have ended the fight at any time He wanted. In fact, part of the reason why Jacob names the place what he does is because he is marveling that he survived being face to face with God. If your opponent is so strong that looking at them can kill you, the fact that the fight lasted at all was just God’s mercy in the moment. 
I think this is also why God doesn’t give His name here. To have a name is to have some sort of power, as we mentioned earlier, and Jacob isn’t getting that. I agree with another scholar who also thinks that this is God’s way of saying, “Come on, you really need to know my name? Isn’t it perfectly obvious as to who I am?” (Waltke, 447). 
This is why Jacob calls for this blessing. But why ask for a blessing from God? Had not Jacob recieved this already? He had, but under some dubious circumstances. That didn’t make it any less legitimate (God had said before Jacob was born the blessing was his), but getting this blessing straight from God once again shows beyond any doubt the blessing is fully his (Matthews). 
God changes your behavior

Jacob carries with him one more thing from his fight with God, a limp. Getting your hip popped out is not simple, walk-it-off kinda injury. It would appear that this is something he had to deal with for the rest of his life. He literally has a new walk with God. He is a changed man, a blessed man, but a man with a limp, a weak man, a dependent man (Ross). 
This would be quite a change for Jacob. As one commentator put it: 
Genesis 11:27–50:26 Wrestling with the “Man” (32:24–25 [25–26])"Physical strength characterized Jacob’s life: at birth grasping the heel of Esau (25:26[27]), moving the stone to water Rachel’s sheep (29:10), and working Laban’s herds for twenty years in difficult conditions (31:38–40)." (Matthews). 
No more. Something that Jacob probably took pride in and relied on is gone. However, that made him stronger than anything his muscles could move. He was finally beginning to depend on God. One scholar put it this way, “The limp is the posture of the saint, walking not in physical strength but in spiritual strength” (Waltke, 448). 
That is hard for us to do. Many times we will be challenged precisely where we feel the strongest. We suddenly can’t do what we used to be able to do, physically. Things hurt, they break, they wear out. Suddenly, money that used to be such a faithful presence and comfort, one day begins its drip out. It never feels like a mercy when God rips a comfort away, but it is. God is kind enough to His people to not let them depend on things that will ultimately vanish. But we wrestle against God all the same! 
What God calls us to do is to submit. He will wrestle as long as it takes, and sometimes there will be hip popping involved. But as one scholar said, “When they stop wrestling with God and start clinging to him, they discover that he has been there for their good, to bless them.” (Waltke, 448). 
There is a little note at the end of the passage that mentions the Israelites (the descendants of Jacob) wouldn’t eat the equivalent section of hip in the animals that they would eat to commemorate this incident, and I can’t help but wonder if there is something a little more there. I don’t often do this, but I can’t help going out on a bit of limb here. When it comes to eating or in this case not eating something, there were really only two reasons the Israelites wouldn’t eat something. It was either disallowed by God because it was unclean, or it was disallowed by God because it was meant to be sacrificed. For instance, the Israelites weren’t allowed to eat the blood of the animal because that was meant for atonement for their sin. In the same way, they weren’t allowed to eat the fat of the animal because that was meant for sacrifice as well. 
While this particular custom wasn’t required in the law, I think they were motivated in a similar way. That was the area that God touched, and in a way, it becomes holy. Jacob had an unfixable hip because that is where God had touched Him. What if we were to think about our unfixable problems in a similar way? If it is clear that you are going through something that God is not delivering you from, I think that is your limp. Paul went through something similar with his “thorn in the flesh.” He had something really hard going on in his body that he prayed three times to get rid of, but God said no and answered that He was provided Paul with enough grace to do what He needed him to do. Paul later mentions that this thorn was given to keep him humble. 
Maybe that’s how you need to view your limp. Do you have something in your life that you wish wasn’t there? A physical limitation, a hard family relationship? Assuming that you aren’t actively sinning in that area, and have prayed for a deliverance that hasn’t come, look at that affliction as a holy thing from God. He doesn’t do this to torture you, but to bring you to the end of your strength. It is mean to bring you to submission and say, “Your will be done.” 
What are you refusing to give in with God? What is in your life that you say, “God can’t have this?” Just go ahead and give it up now. God has been patiently wrestling you, and at some point, God will make His point. Remember that you have someone Who laid down His will for you, in a garden, sweating blood, Jesus Himself is wrestling in a way, but He prevails, not by beating His Father, but by submitting to His father (Phillips, 258). You have a Champion and an example. 
So if you are wrestling with God, stop, and instead cling to Him (Waltke, 448). If God has given you a limp that He just isn’t delivering you from despite all good-faith efforts and prayers, then see that as a holy blessing that will keep you dependent on Him. Anything that does that is worth it. I think we will see that Jacob, I mean Israel, agrees.