Does Jacob's wrestling make us love Yahweh?

[marco]

The OT is filled with delicious stories and it is hard to pick the funniest, so perhaps the following has rivals for humour.

We are in the days before Christ arrived, so the world doesn't know about good neighbours or about the rewards for the meek. We have Sir Jacob, soon to be called Sir Israel, on a brave adventure.




Genesis 32:22-32

22 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. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacobs hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, Let me go, for it is daybreak.

But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me.

27 The man asked him, What is your name?

Jacob, he answered.

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

God rewarded the hero with a limp. Obviously the story is remarkably plausible; an unsuspecting Jacob is attacked and has to defend himself by wrestling non-stop all night. Such is life.

Are we attracted into believing in Yahweh from reading this account?

Or does it make us feel the story is for primitives and children?

[marco]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]



People of learning will say that the story is beautifully figurative, depicting a man's long struggle in darkness with truth about God. Mother Theresa said she experienced the dark night of the soul but I can't recall her having a wrestling match somewhere in India. Maybe she had.

Yet even in its figurative clothing we might wonder why God - or the angel - caused Jacob pain. And why was God wrestling with some desert nomad at night when the man had wives and concubines to occupy him? My reaction is: How could I once accept this? But it would be interesting to hear if others have a completely different view.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

It's an allegory. "Wrestling" with God is a virtue in Judaism. That's what "Israel" means. To strive with God. Getting to the heart of matters, exorcizing doubts, the ancient analog to psychoanalysis. It's about being honest with God in prayer. Wrestling with God as opposed to blind obedience so that adherence to His will (Law) comes from the heart.

[marco]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

It's an allegory. "Wrestling" with God is a virtue in Judaism. That's what "Israel" means. To strive with God. Getting to the heart of matters, exorcizing doubts, the ancient analog to psychoanalysis. It's about being honest with God in prayer. Wrestling with God as opposed to blind obedience so that adherence to His will (Law) comes from the heart.

Yes of course a figurative meaning is taken as is done with Muhammad's night journey to heaven on a winged horse. Apparently the detail about the injured thigh is commemorated in Judaism, so one would suspect that there's mare to it than the figurative.

But the question is, when we come away from the story, what picture do we have of God who "wrestles" and injures. For what purpose? The story is a poor representation of the figurative interpretation.

[William]

William: The symbolism I find interesting. We have an idea of a Creator whom allows us to wrestle with questions of spirituality - with things which are found deeper than the skin and the bone.

"Come - let us reason together" and yes - you may come away from this physically scathed, but you will carry that with a sense of knowing you learned something from the experience which has helped you in your journey through life.

Others do not attempt such contact, preferring to throw slurs from the parameters - splashing ignorant insult from the shallows of their own existence.

You have seen me for whom I Am - not through the stories of the world which attempt to force an image of me into the confinements of their petty constructs.

And for that, you have become someone better than you even hoped you could, even that you had no idea this would be the effect.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 3 by Elijah John]

Or Jacob could have wrestled with an angel. If one believes in angels, it isn't hard to accept the account as being factual.


JW

[Difflugia]

Or does it make us feel the story is for primitives and children?

I've grown accustomed to seeing myth everywhere in the Bible and this particular story is no exception. Here are a couple of somewhat disjointed, but hopefully interesting observations about this passage.

First, Ignc Goldziher sees this story as part of a solar myth. He claims that the etymology of Jacob's name is "the follower," meaning the night sky. Esau is "the hairy one," also known as Edom, "the Red," both appellations of the sun. The wrestling match is a cyclical one in which the night limps away as dawn overcomes it.

The story also includes a pun with a rather elaborate setup that might once have been an etymology for the river Jabbok. In Hebrew, Jacob's name is , Ya'aqob. The root for "wrestle" is , 'abaq. The name of the river is , Yaboq. This might be a coincidence, except the Hebrew author used a somewhat odd verb form in context to turn 'abaq into yiba'eq in 32:24. The result is that "Jacob wrestled at the Jabbok" is akin to "Ya'aqob yiba'eqed at the Yaboq."

[SallyF]

Or does it make us feel the story is for primitives and children?

I've grown accustomed to seeing myth everywhere in the Bible and this particular story is no exception. Here are a couple of somewhat disjointed, but hopefully interesting observations about this passage.

First, Ignc Goldziher sees this story as part of a solar myth. He claims that the etymology of Jacob's name is "the follower," meaning the night sky. Esau is "the hairy one," also known as Edom, "the Red," both appellations of the sun. The wrestling match is a cyclical one in which the night limps away as dawn overcomes it.

The story also includes a pun with a rather elaborate setup that might once have been an etymology for the river Jabbok. In Hebrew, Jacob's name is , Ya'aqob. The root for "wrestle" is , 'abaq. The name of the river is , Yaboq. This might be a coincidence, except the Hebrew author used a somewhat odd verb form in context to turn 'abaq into yiba'eq in 32:24. The result is that "Jacob wrestled at the Jabbok" is akin to "Ya'aqob yiba'eqed at the Yaboq."

BELIEVING in angels and gods and such does not bring this story any closer to reality.

Gods and angels and stories like this are NEVER shown to anything other than people just makin' stuff up

Stories for primitives and children.

And "discovering" symbolism in made-up stories can - in my opinion - be a cheap get-out-of-Sunday-school card

because it looks to me to be just makin' up stuff about made-up stuff because you recognise that it's just made-up stuff and you don't want to look like you believe in make-believe.

Having said that

Your observations take us to a higher level.

Thank you.

I've noted before that the story may be a legendary tale of why an ancient leader was lame. Praise him up by having him defeat a god/angel in a brawl - it's better than a mundane tale of him falling off his donkey as a kid, or the like.


Nonetheless

Believing that your god might just flutter down from the ceiling of the Genesis One Dome of Heaven to try and bash you up, would not endear him/her/it to you.

And the fact that you could actually BEAT your god in a punch-up, would make your wimpy - psychologically unstable - god rather a poor choice of ethnic deity.

But if we allow ourselves to drift off into all sorts of imaginings about what wrestling with an angel or a god could possibly mean in a symbolic sense, we may not consider that it could ALL be people just makin' stuff up about things that never really happened, or exaggerating things that did

Or that gods and angels are just make-believe

And believing in them does not make them real.

[Purple Knight]

I don't have a problem with suspension of disbelief. If that's the story then that's the story.

It also seems that it was God who wouldn't let Jacob get away, making the statement about having to wrestle all night in self-defence something of a strawman (but it's still funny).

My question is why. Just... why?

What moral does this teach us?

If someone Hell-bent on specifically wrestling me attacked me, I would assume he was crazy and trying to do something that... I would probably rather kill someone than allow him to do.

[marco]

The symbolism I find interesting. We have an idea of a Creator whom allows us to wrestle with questions of spirituality - with things which are found deeper than the skin and the bone.

"Come - let us reason together" and yes - you may come away from this physically scathed, but you will carry that with a sense of knowing you learned something from the experience which has helped you in your journey through life.

A creator who allows us to wrestle with questions of spirituality? That is a wonderful concession. Do you mean using our imagination to construct another world? In any event I can't see how we can be physically injured in this game unless we are dreaming at the edge of a cliff.

I'm afraid the remainder of your esoteric post defeats my best endeavours.