Commentaria in Genesim
Chapter Thirty-two
Jacob saw two armies of angels, sent by God for his protection. Second, verse 3, fearing his brother, he sends gifts to him. Third, verse 24, by wrestling with an angel he prevails, and is called Israel.
1. Jacob also went on the journey he had begun: and the angels of God met him. 2. And when he saw them, he said: These are the camps of God, and he called the name of that place Mahanaim, that is, Camps. 3. And he sent messengers before him to Esau his brother, to the land of Seir, to the country of Edom: 4. And he commanded them, saying: Thus shall you speak to my lord Esau: Thus saith thy brother Jacob: I have sojourned with Laban, and have been with him until this day. 5. I have oxen, and asses, and sheep, and menservants, and womenservants: and now I send a message to my lord, that I may find favour in thy sight. 6. And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying: We came to Esau thy brother, and behold he cometh with speed to meet thee with four hundred men. 7. Then Jacob was greatly afraid: and in his fear divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and the sheep, and the oxen, and the camels, into two companies, 8. Saying: If Esau come to one company and fight it, the other company that is left shall escape. 9. And Jacob said: O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac: O Lord who saidst to me: Return to thy land, and to the place of thy birth, and I will do well for thee: 10. I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies, and of thy truth which thou hast fulfilled to thy servant. With my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I return with two companies. 11. Deliver me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am greatly afraid of him: lest perhaps he come, and kill the mother with the children. 12. Thou saidst that thou wouldst do well by me, and wouldst spread my seed like the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. 13. And when he had slept there that night, he separated of the things which he had, presents for his brother Esau, 14. Two hundred she goats, twenty he goats, two hundred ewes, and twenty rams, 15. Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine, and twenty bulls, twenty she asses, and ten of their foals. 16. And he sent them by the hands of his servants, every drove by itself, and he said to his servants: Go before me, and let there be a space between drove and drove. 17. And he commanded the first, saying: If thou meet my brother Esau, and he ask thee: Whose art thou? or whither goest thou? or whose are these that thou followest? 18. Thou shalt answer: Thy servant Jacob’s, he hath sent them as a present to my lord Esau: and he cometh after us. 19. In like manner he gave commandment to the second, and the third, and to all that followed the droves, saying: Speak ye the same words to Esau, when ye find him. 20. And you shall add: Thy servant Jacob himself also followeth after us: for he said: I will appease him with the presents that go before, and afterwards I will see him, and perhaps he will be gracious to me. 21. So the presents went before him, but himself stayed that night in the camp. 22. And rising early, he took his two wives, and as many handmaids with his eleven sons, and passed over the ford of Jaboc. 23. And when all things were brought over that belonged to him, 24. He remained alone: and behold a man wrestled with him till the morning. 25. And when he saw that he could not overcome him, he touched the sinew of his thigh, and forthwith it shrank. 26. And he said to him: Let me go, for it is break of day. He answered: I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. 27. And he said: What is thy name? He answered: Jacob. 28. But he said: Thy name shall not be called Jacob, but Israel, for if thou hast been strong against God, how much more shalt thou prevail against men? 29. Jacob asked him: Tell me by what name art thou called? He answered: Why askest thou my name? And he blessed him in the same place. 30. And Jacob called the name of the place Phanuel, saying: I have seen God face to face, and my soul has been saved. 31. And immediately the sun rose upon him, after he was past Phanuel: but he halted on his foot. 32. Therefore the children of Israel, unto this day, eat not the sinew which shrank in Jacob’s thigh: because he touched the sinew of his thigh and it shrank.
1. ANGELS OF GOD.—Jacob here saw two armies of angels: for hence this place was called in Hebrew Mahanaim, which name is dual, and signifies two camps or two armies. Whence also the city afterwards built there was called Machanaim; doubtless one army was that of the angel who was keeper and president of Mesopotamia: he, with the angels subject and subordinate to him, as in battle array, had accompanied Jacob and safely conducted him from Mesopotamia thus far, namely to the borders of Chanaan; there met him, and received him, the angel president of Chanaan, with his army of angels subject to him, to lead him safely through Chanaan to his father, and to guard and protect him from Esau and others hostile to him. For as princes conduct a foreign prince safely through their lands, with soldiers assigned as escort, and hand him over to the neighbouring prince and his escort to be conducted further: so likewise the angels do here with Jacob. See the providence and care of God and the angels for their own. See also how great, and how like, familiar and dear to God and the angels Jacob was. See third, how after the temptation and terror struck into Jacob by Laban there follows the consolation of the angels; so of Christ it is said, Matthew iv: “Then the devil left him; and behold angels came and ministered to him.” See fourth, how a greater temptation succeeds the lesser temptation of Laban, namely the fear of hostile Esau, and how the angels here fortify Jacob against him.
As therefore Eliseus, 4 Kings vi, verse 17, beset by enemies, saw armies of angels run to his aid and protection: so Jacob too here is girded against Esau and other enemies by the guard of angels, that he may learn to fear neither Esau nor any man. So Abulensis. Here was fulfilled that of Psalm xxxiii, 8: “The angel of the Lord shall encamp (in Hebrew chaneh, that is, shall pitch camp) round about them that fear him.”
So in the Lives of the Fathers we read of Abbot Moses, that when he was greatly assailed by the spirit of fornication he went to Abbot Isidore, who led him up to the upper part of the house, where to the West he saw a huge crowd of demons fighting among themselves, to the East he saw a shining army of angels; then Isidore said: “Those whom thou sawest in the West are they who assail even the just: but those in the East are they whom the Lord of hosts sends to help his servants. Know therefore that there are more with us than with them, as the prophet Eliseus said.” From what has been said it is plain that this was an extraordinary guard of angels: for not Jacob’s angel alone was keeper, but two armies of angels, with two leaders, appeared to Jacob.
Diodorus of Tarsus thinks that the angel set over the second army, and president of Chanaan, was St. Michael: for he is appointed by God prince of the descendants of Jacob, namely of the people of God, that is, of all the Israelites, as is plain from Daniel x, last verse, and Daniel xii, verse 1.
3. TO ESAU HIS BROTHER, TO THE LAND OF SEIR,—which is also called Edom, or Idumaea. Note: while Jacob tarried in Haran, God put the thought and mind into his brother Esau, who was indignant at the parents’ will, more inclined to Jacob and cooler toward himself and his wives, to leave Chanaan and choose the mountains of Edom for his dwelling: that for this reason Chanaan might fall to Jacob and his posterity. Jacob in Haran, having received a message from his mother, as it seems (for she had promised it, chap. xxvii, verse 45), had understood that Esau had migrated to Edom; whence he returns securely from Haran to his parents in Chanaan.
Note second, a prolepsis; for this land was not before, but after Esau’s dwelling there, called by Esau himself Seir, and Edom or Idumaea.
5. I HAVE OXEN,—as if to say: I shall not be a burden to thee through want, nor diminish the parents’ riches: for God has bestowed on me abundance of riches.
6. WITH FOUR HUNDRED MEN.—That so he might also display his power to his brother, and honour him further with this pomp, and furnish him a safe escort on the journey. Esau therefore seems to have been appeased by the messengers sent by Jacob, saluting him so humbly and kindly, and to have turned his former hatred into love, God changing his heart and inclining it in favour of Jacob.
7. TWO COMPANIES.—The former company was of the flocks with the shepherds, aptly distributed into their ranks; the latter was of the wives with the children, of which there were three ranks: the first of Zelpha and Bala with their offspring, the second of Lia with hers; the third of Rachel and Joseph, as is plain from the following chapter, verse 2. Rachel and Joseph therefore did not make a third company, but closed the line of the second, as being dearest to Jacob.