^ We discuss this wonderful event, and take sides as to whether it was a real, outward thing, or only a transaction in Jacob's soul. Some think it important to hold it literal and outward, and unsafe to regard it as mental. It is characteristic of very many of the views for which men fight, that they are excellent things to fight about, because there is no means of deciding them. It is also occasionally a characteristic of them that no interest whatever attaches to their decision, one way of them being quite as good as another. If God presented a real, outward form to Jacob, so that he entered into a physical wrestling with it, it was very wonderful and Divine. If God's Spirit of revelation and holiness so touched the conscience and the memories
pENESIS XXXII. 24 239
of Jacob's heart that the agitated spirit deemed itself wrestling through the body, and did indeed in its own awful agony agitate and dislocate the bodily frame, was it less wonderful or less Divine ? The balance of probability perhaps lies on the side of the external reality of Jacob's adversary. Many a time in dreams the whole frame is agitated and wrestles. Men do rise weary after nights of conflict. They rise awestruck and terror-laden. Perhaps it cannot be shown that they have risen with bodily ailments, with sinews wrenched and joints displaced. Rather is the event to be held literal. An Angel entered Abraham's tent. He let His feet be washed ; — the same who in after days washed His disciples' feet. He allowed meat to be set before Him ; — as in after times He asked, " Children, have ye any meat ? " And a man He wrestled with Jacob ; as now man for ever He wrestles with us all in love, though we oppose Him in earnest.^
ui. Victory.
1. Jacob's victory and the victory of the Angel were synony- mous. When the Angel conquered Jacob, Jacob won the blessing — and so it always is. When God conquers man, man is victorious over self. Jacob faced his sin and discovered that his controversy was jiot so much with his brother as with God. It was not Esau's wrath he had to dread so much as God's ; for the sin against his brother was in its ultimate ground a sin against God. Can he believe, despite of this consciousness of sin, that God is pacified toward him ? And now, when all things seem against him, and God Himself sets Himself as an adversary to him, in this darkest hour, in this night of the soul, of which the actual night during which this conflict found place was but the outward sign, can he lay hold on the promises and still hope and trust and believe ? That he can do this, that he is strong to contend, even when God seems to set Himself, and for the time does set Himself, as that adversary, against him, this it is that constitutes Jacob a prince with God, a champion who prevails with Him, and who therefore need not fear but that he shall prevail also with man.
^ After the loss of his wife, whom he had dearly loved and patiently tended through prolonged and severe affliction. Dr. John Brown wrote: "I have been thinking much lately of Jacob's wrestling with the Angel, finding^his weakness and his strength at the same time, and going on through the rest of his life halting
^ ▲. B. Davidson.
240 SPIRITUAL WRESTLING
and rejoicing. I believe this is the one great lesson of life — the being subdued hy God. If this is done all else is subdued and won."i
2. " UrUil the breaking of the day." — That night which was the eve of Jacob's meeting with Esau had seen a fierce struggle, but peace came with the break of day. Jacob was at peace with him- self and God, and in a very short while he would know that he was at peace with Esau.
^ How naturally dawn wakes thoughts of victory and God ! In her swift, gentle, noiseless triumph over night, she is tremulous with His presence. It was " at the turning of the morning " that " the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea." And after a deliverance no less thrilling from a no less heartless foe, the Church of a later day sang —
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved. God helpeth her at the turning of the morning.
But behind the victory lies a struggle always fierce and often lonely in the grey dawn. " Jacob was left alone ; and there wrestled a man with him till the rising of the dawn." Such a struggle in the dawn is the prophecy of a great and triumphant day.*
We weep because the night is long,
We laugh for day shall rise. We sing a slow contented song
And knock at Paradise. Weeping we hold Him fast who wept
For us, we hold Him fast; And will not let Him go except
He bless us first or last.
Weeping we hold Him fast to-night;
We will not let Him go Till daybreak smite our wearied sight
And summer smite the snow : Then figs shall bud, and dove with dove