Genesis 32:24

And Jacob was left alone,.... On the other side of Jabbok, his family and cattle having passed over it; and this solitude he chose, in order to spend some time in prayer to God for the safety of him

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. There wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day - an unknown person appeared suddenly to oppose his entrance into Canaan.

In some private place, it matters not on which side Jabbok, that he might more freely and ardently pour out his soul unto God. There wrestled a man with him, an angel, yea, the Angel of the covenant, the Son of God, as it is plain from ,30 Hosea 12:3,4, who did here, as oft elsewhere, assume the shape and body of a man, that he might do this work; for this wrestling was real and corporeal in its nature, though it was also mystical and spiritual in its signfification, as we shall see, and it was accompanied with an inward wrestling by ardent prayers joined with tears, .

Genesis 32:24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.Ver. 24. And Jacob was left alone.] Purposely, for secret prayer: so the Church gets her into "the clefts of the rocks"; Isaac, into the fields; Daniel, to the river’ s side; Christ, into the mount; Peter, up to the roof, or house top; that they might pour out their prayers and solace themselves with God in secret. This a hypocrite may seem to do, either of custom or vain glory: as the Pharisee went up to the temple to pray solitarily, as well as the publican; the temple being then, in regard of ceremonial holiness, the place as well of private as public prayer. "But will the hypocrite delight in God? will he pray always?". There wrestled a man with him.] In a proper combat, by might and slight; to the raising of dust, and causing of sweat; as the word importeth. This strife was not only corporeal, but spiritual; as well by the force of his faith, as strength of body. "He prevailed," saith the prophet, by prayers and tears. Our Saviour also prayed himself into "an agony"; and we are bidden to "strive in prayer," even to an agony. Nehemiah prayed himself pale. Daniel prayed himself "sick". Hannah prayed, striving with such an unusual motion of her lips, that old Eli, looking upon her, thought her drunk. Elijah puts his head betwixt his knees, as straining every string of his heart in prayer: "he prayed, and prayed," saith St James; and, by his prayer, he had what he would of God. Whereupon also he infers (as a result) that "the effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much," if it be "fervent" or working; if it be such as sets all the faculties awork, and all the graces awork, then it speeds. Every sound is not music; so neither is every uttering petitions to God a prayer. It is not the labour of the lips, but the travail of the heart. Common beggary is the easiest and poorest trade: but this beggary, as it is the richest, so the hardest. A man can with more ease hear two hours together than pray half an hour, if he "pray in the Holy Ghost," as St Jude hath it. He must strive with his own indevotion, with Satan’ s temptations, with the world’ s distraction: he must wrestle with God, and wring the blessing out of his hands, as the woman of Canaan did: he must "stir up himself to take hold of God," as the Shunamite did of Elisha, as the Church did of her spouse, and "not let him go" till he bless us. This is to wrestle; this is to threaten heaven, as Gorgonia did, thus to be modestly impudent and invincible, as her brother speaks of her; in beseeching God, to besiege him, and get the better of him. as Jacob; whose wrestling was by "weeping," and his "prevailing" by praying.

(24) There wrestled.—This verb, abak, occurs only here, and without doubt it was chosen because of its resemblance to the name Jabbok. Its probable derivation is from a word signifying dust, because wrestlers were quickly involved in a cloud of dust, or because, as was the custom in Greece, they rubbed their bodies with it. A man.—Such he seemed to be to Jacob; but Hosea (Genesis 12:4) calls him an angel; and, in Genesis 32:30, Jacob recognises in him a manifestation of the Deity, as Hagar had done before, when an angel appeared to her (Genesis 16:13). There is no warrant for regarding the angel as an incarnation of Deity, any more than in the case of Manoah (Judges 13:22); but it was a manifestation of God mediately by His messenger, and was one of the many signs indicative of a more complete manifestation by the coming of the Word in the flesh. The opposite idea of many modern commentators, that the narrative is an allegory, is contradicted by the attendant circumstances, especially by the change of Jacob’s name, and his subsequent lameness, to which national testimony was borne by the customs of the Jews.

Verse 24. And there wrestled a man with him] This was doubtless the Lord Jesus Christ, who, among the patriarchs, assumed that human form, which in the fulness of time he really took of a woman, and in which he dwelt thirty-three years among men. He is here styled an angel, because he was μεγαληςβουληςΑγγελος, (see the Septuagint, Isaiah 9:7,) the Messenger of the great counsel or design to redeem fallen man from death, and bring him to eternal glory; see Genesis 16:7. But it may be asked, Had he here a real human body, or only its form? The latter, doubtless. How then could he wrestle with Jacob? It need not be supposed that this angel must have assumed a human body, or something analagous to it, in order to render himself tangible by Jacob; for as the soul operates on the body by the order of God, so could an angel operate on the body of Jacob during a whole night, and produce in his imagination, by the effect of his power, every requisite idea of corporeity, and in his nerves every sensation of substance, and yet no substantiality be in the case. If angels, in appearing to men, borrow human bodies, as is thought, how can it be supposed that with such gross substances they can disappear in a moment? Certainly they do not take these bodies into the invisible world with them, and the established laws of matter and motion require a gradual disappearing, however swiftly it may be effected. But this is not allowed to be the case, and yet they are reported to vanish instantaneously. Then they must render themselves invisible by a cloud, and this must be of a very dense nature in order to hide a human body. But this very expedient would make their departure still more evident, as the cloud must be more dense and apparent than the body in order to hide it. This does not remove the difficulty. But if they assume a quantity of air or vapour so condensed as to become visible, and modified into the appearance of a human body, they can in a moment dilate and rarefy it, and so disappear; for when the vehicle is rarefied beyond the power of natural vision, as their own substance is invisible they can instantly vanish. From Hosea 12:4, we may learn that the wrestling of Jacob, mentioned in this place, was not merely a corporeal exercise, but also a spiritual one; He wept and made supplication unto him. See the notes there. See Clarke on Hosea 12:4.

24. And Jacob … alone] It is natural to suppose that Jacob remained behind to think and to pray at this crisis of his life. He was given over to anxious fears; the darkness and loneliness intensified them. The thought that God had left him, or was opposed to him, overwhelmed him. there wrestled a man] The brevity of the account leaves it unexplained, who the man is, how he appeared, and how the contest began. The word for “wrestled,” yêâbêk, is very possibly intended to be a play on the name of the river Jabbok as if it meant “twisting.” In Genesis 32:28, and in Hosea 12:4, a different word, “to strive,” is used for the “wrestling” of Jacob. It is this scene of “wrestling” which has become, in the language of spiritual experience, the classical symbol for “agonizing” in prayer.

24. Left alone — He doubtless sought to be alone with God that night, and called up the memories of all his past life. All the deception and wrong that had stained his record pressed sorely on his awakened conscience.