# 32 2023 Dev. Gen.32:26. “Jireh” God Our Provider! Read all of chapter thirty two first. We invite you into God’s space, to read His Word, to think on and interact with. This is God’s story. Do you believe that this may also be part of our story, in our time? All passages are taken from the NIV.
Gen.32:26 “Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’”
Gen.32 is about Jacob meeting his brother Esau, from whom he fled twenty years earlier. It is also about God interacting with Jacob in a physical way and Jacob acknowledging God as his Savior and Provider. Further, here Jacob prays the second recorded prayer during his Journey. God had been providing for Jacob since his birth but verified that at Jacob’s encounter with God at Bethel Gen. 28.
Vs.1-2 “Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him.” God met Jacob at the start of his journey to Paddan Aram. And God meets him again on the beginning of his journey back to Beersheba. This is a metaphor for Christians, of God’s care for our lives on earth from the beginning of our lives to the day we reach heaven “Jehovah Jireh”.
Vs.3-6 Jacob sends messengers to Esau who decides to come and meet Jacob, accompanied by 400 men. We are not told what his intentions were, or if God intervened along the way as He did with Laban. We are left hanging so to speak as to what will happen and Jacob is in a panic.
Vs.7-21 “In great fear and distress Jacob divides the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well.” His actions mimic the name of the place Jacob named, Mahanaim (two camps) when he saw God’s angels. Also, Jacob is moved to a long prayer, thanking God for His faithfulness and care for him, as well as reminding God of His promises to him. Even so, Jacob relies on his own devises to pacify Esau, sending elaborate gifts, with instruction to say “your servant Jacob” is coming behind us. Further he divided into two camps putting his family way back to try to keep them safe.
Vs. 22-31 After crossing every one, including wives and children and his livestock over the ford of Jabbok, “Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of his hip so that the hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.” At this point Jacob knew this was not an ordinary man he was wrestling with. The man wanted Jacob to release him, “But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’” Jacob was blessed there and given the name Israel, which probably means he struggles with God. (See note)
At this point, after a life of struggling and scheming and trusting in his own devises, Jacob submits to God’s faithfulness, now trusting in God completely. Praise the Lord!
Is God’s wrestling with Jacob a metaphor of the struggles we have in our lives? Now, let’s think back over our own lives, when did we begin to understand God’s faithfulness and trust God completely? Have you reached that point? We pray that you have.
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Heavenhigh 