Sojourning
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Hello from North Carolina, where I recently enjoyed my first Thanksgiving in three years since moving to the UK! The last month has held nearly 8,000 miles of travel (mercifully almost all by plane), with more mileage to come before the new year.
In my usual wild grab for any tenuous thematic thread running through the forthcoming spew of updates, reflections, etc., I have latched onto ‘sojourning’ this month, both my own and that of an ancient biblical figure. If you’re pressed for time, definitely skip mine and go to Jacob’s.
Mine
First location: unsurprisingly, Cambridge. There were two full November weeks before I disappeared for the end of term, continuing to work remotely. The dissertation is getting closer and closer to readiness for submission; I have managed to shave off about 10,000 words already and have written my conclusion and abstract, now with just about 800 more words to lose and several more meticulous read-throughs to go! The glow of good company in lots of conversations and shared meals helps to compensate for the conspicuous clawing of darkness into more of the temporal territory that used to be light as England drops into winter.
A slight Cambridge aside: I participated in a podcast episode filmed and recorded at Tyndale House. Two PhD friends and I chat with Tony Watkins about biblical Hebrew poetry. Watch or listen if interested!
Second location: sunny San Diego, CA. I hopped across an 8-hour time difference to join the throngs of Bible and theology nerds at a couple of consecutive conferences. At the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), I presented on insights from the book of Job for spiritual formation, and at the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), I contributed to a panel and discussion largely concerned with Job 42. I attended very few papers (given the hundreds being delivered), but I prioritised connecting with others. The jet lag and high demand on my vocal cords in combination with my extroverted buzz at mixing with so many people often led to my remarking that ‘the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.’
It was a joy to stay for the week in a large AirBnB with missional scholars (i.e., those providing theological education in less-resourced settings around the world) from the organisation Mesa Scholars, to which I belong. One evening we hosted a dinner with another organisation called Scholar Leaders, which supports Majority World scholars in their own theological education and service within their home institutions. If you have a heart for global church leaders to be biblically and theologically equipped for meeting the teaching, discipleship, and pastoral needs in their local contexts, I cannot recommend supporting these organisations highly enough!
Third location: new-to-me Charlotte, NC. Rather than returning to the UK for a couple of weeks and then coming back to the US for Christmas, this year I remained Stateside, making for a 6-week block of remote working and resting with dear ones in various places before I, Lord willing, return to Cambridge in time for New Year’s Eve. After a splendid Thanksgiving in the mountains with my boyfriend and some of his friends, the generous family hosting us invited church friends over for teaching on Job (which was initiated by them, not imposed by me, I might add). The satisfying irony of teaching about Job, the man who lost everything, on Black Friday, the day when most Americans are trying to gain everything, was not lost on me.
(Presumed fourth location: Chicago with fam for Christmas!)
Jacob’s
Upon finishing the Hebrew Bible a little while back, I started over. Arriving to the chapters about Jacob in Genesis, it struck me that a famously profound story—Jacob’s wrestling with God and being renamed ‘Israel’ (Gen 32:24–32)—becomes far more profound (and intelligible) when read in narrative context.
Of course, you, like any astute Bible reader, may be protesting at this point that ‘reading in context’ is just about the most elementary principle for decent reading comprehension. And you would be right. But it seems to me that the account of Jacob’s wrestling with God is particularly one of those biblical anecdotes that has popularly obtained an almost quasi-mystical life of its own, as it induces people to muse quite abstractly and emotionally about what it means to wrestle with God.
I do not at all intend to strip the story of its emotion or mystery; there is undoubtedly something numinous-beyond-words in close encounter and strenuous engagement between humans and God. Nonetheless, I think this curious story in Genesis 32 proves all the more arresting when seen within its literary environment.
The background
Jacob connived to secure his older brother Esau’s birthright (Heb בְּכוֹרָה, bekhorah) for a bowl of red stew (Gen 25:29–34). Then he schemed with his mother Rebekah to trick his blind father Isaac into giving him Esau’s blessing (Heb בְּרָכָה, berakhah), too (Gen 27). Twice outmanoeuvred and amply enraged, Esau intended to kill his brother once their father died. Thus the usurping younger brother sat as heir to God’s promises to his forefathers but looked more like a fugitive than an heir as he fled for his life to his mother’s family in Paddan-aram (Gen 28–31).
On his way there, Jacob dreamed at Bethel (‘house of God’), seeing a ladder reaching to heaven on which angels were ascending and descending (Gen 28:10–12). God’s voice from the top assured Jacob that he and his offspring would inherit the very land on which he was lying and that his offspring would be numerous and a channel of God’s blessing to all the families of the earth (28:13–14)—just as God had promised his grandfather Abraham all the way back in Genesis 12 and reiterated many times since. Then God promised:
‘Behold, I myself am with you and will guard you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken for you.’ (28:15)
Jacob awoke and knew what he had not known before: that God was there, with him in that place. And he was in awe, vowing his allegiance to a God who makes promises like that to humans (28:16–22).
On his way back after a 20-year sojourn (exile?) up north, Jacob, now draped in the burgeoning fruitfulness of both family and wealth that exemplifies his blessed status, is about to meet his brother. He looks like he took the blessing. And that fruitfulness, evident in the cacophony of kids shouting, babies crying, and young animals grunting and squealing, also makes Jacob’s camp very slow and very vulnerable. The last Jacob knew of his brother, Esau wanted to kill him in spite over the irrecoverably stolen blessing. And the reader of Genesis has already witnessed rivalry between two brothers in which the younger brother (Abel) loses his life at the hand of a jealous older brother (Cain, Gen 4:1–16). The narrative tension is thick.
The return
[Ideally, insert here your reading of Genesis 32.]
Between leaving one antagonistic family member (his father-in-law Laban) and anticipating meeting another (his brother Esau), Jacob is met by the ‘messengers’ or ‘angels’ (מלאכים, mal’akhim) of God. He recognises that ‘this is God’s camp [מחנה, maḥaneh]!’ and so names the place Mahanaim (מחנים), or ‘two camps’ (32:1–2). Soon he will send his own ‘messengers’ (מלאכים, mal’akhim) to meet his brother before his own arrival (32:3). Soon Jacob will be dividing his own family and possessions into two camps in fear for his household’s survival once those messengers return with no other news but that Esau is coming to meet him with 400 men (32:6–8).
But even before Jacob sent out his own messengers, God had sent his messengers to Jacob first, reminding him of the divine presence that goes with him, just as God had promised at Bethel. What looks like a vulnerable two camps for Jacob, filled with kids and calves and no match for Esau’s force of 400, is actually more like three camps at that point. For before Jacob made his camp two, God had already showed Jacob the company of heavenly host accompanying them, perhaps to guard Jacob on his way, just as God had promised at Bethel. Yet instead of the angels’ being aloof, suspended between heaven and earth in a dream, these angels are on the ground in the crosshairs of desperate circumstances.
Then comes the enigmatic wrestling match (Gen 32:24–32). I will not attempt to distil all of the discussion surrounding its literary artistry and the significance of the episode for the identity of the Israelites (nor do I know all of it).
Just some observations related to the literary context: In 32:9–12, Jacob prays. He acknowledges that God’s loyal love and faithfulness were solely responsible for the abundance he now possesses, and he reminds God of the divine promise to multiply his offspring and do him good as he returns to his homeland. Admitting his fear of imminent attack, Jacob pleads with God to deliver his household from his brother (32:11). Then having sent a generous gift (which he calls a ‘blessing,’ בְּרָכָה, berakhah, 33:11) ahead to pacify his brother, Jacob makes his wives and children cross the Jabbok (32:13–23). Now Jacob is alone at night.
He wrestles with a man, and by the end, he has a new name and another blessing. And he concludes that he has seen God. I wonder if the renaming from Jacob (‘grasp the heel,’ ‘deceive’) to Israel—‘because you have striven with God and men and have prevailed’ (32:28)—signifies at least that Jacob has undergone a transformation from one who merely scrappily vies for himself from the back to one whose position is secure. Rather than losing his blessing—what is currently making Jacob so anxious, and for apparently good reason—Jacob gains even more when his wrestling partner blesses him. Jacob must come to see that blessing is not in jeopardy when God is with you.
And when God encounters you, all other encounters are put into perspective. Jacob had sent a gift ahead so that when he ‘sees the face’ (פנים + ראה, ra’ah + panim) of his brother, Esau might look on him favourably (32:20). Jacob had prayed for God to ‘deliver’ (from נצל, natzal) him from his brother (32:11). In the wake of this mysterious nighttime wrangle, before he limps away, Jacob concludes that he has ‘seen’ (from ראה, ra’ah) God ‘face to face’ (פנים אל פנים, panim ’el panim), and yet his life was ‘delivered’ (from נצל, natzal, 32:30). If Jacob has been delivered in this encounter with God, how much more could he be assured of deliverance when meeting his brother the next day? Sure enough, when Jacob ‘see the face’ (פנים + ראה, ra’ah + panim) of Esau, he exclaims that it is like ‘seeing the face’ (פנים + ראה) of God, having been accepted by his brother (33:10).
What loyal love and faithfulness are on display from the God who does not merely pat Jacob’s hand from heaven and tell him that everything will be fine but teaches him by getting into the story with him!
The one who could have overcome Jacob from the beginning with a touch to the hip socket wrestles with him until daybreak so that Jacob might know that God is with him and for him; and if that is the case, Jacob need not be concerned about whether others are for or against him. The God who spoke at Bethel has always kept and will always keep his promises, so Jacob need not fear, however threatening his circumstances may seem (which he would have done well to take to heart rather than resorting to self-reliant deception in pursuit of blessing in ch. 27). God wrestles with a man so that Jacob might come to realise not only that the blessing is not in jeopardy, but also that God is liberally abundant with his blessing, ready to bless him again and again.
So as we grapple with this same God who continues to speak and show up in the story, perhaps we, with Jacob, may be on the way to learning what is live in an existence where blessing is not scarce, where it multiplies when released and its recipients are called to be conduits of blessing to all the families of the earth.