Genesis 32:1-21--Jacob Fears Esau

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​Jacob Fears Esau

32:1 Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. 2 And when Jacob saw them he said, “This is God's camp!” So he called the name of that place Mahanaim.

3 And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother in the land of Seir, the country of Edom, 4 instructing them, “Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have sojourned with Laban and stayed until now. 5 I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants. I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.’”

6 And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.” 7 Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps, 8 thinking, “If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape.”

9 And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. 11 Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. 12 But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’”

13 So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took a present for his brother Esau, 14 two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 15 thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. 16 These he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove.” 17 He instructed the first, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?’ 18 then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present sent to my lord Esau. And moreover, he is behind us.’” 19 He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, “You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him, 20 and you shall say, ‘Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.’” For he thought, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.” 21 So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.

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When we left Jacob last time, he had just had a not-so-friendly encounter with his uncle Laban where they had made a covenant to never again cross into each other's territory to make war.  Jacob tells Laban about all of the blessings that God has given to him in spite of Laban trying to take advantage of him and Jacob defending himself and his people against accusations of theft of Laban's household gods (no small accusation)--little did Jacob know that Rachel was actually guilty and he had sworn to Laban that he would put to death anyone in the camp who he had caught with stolen items from Laban's household.

Jacob is now moving forward with one enemy to his back and another enemy in front of him, because he has to pass through Edom, the territory of his brother Esau, in order to get back to the Promised Land.  We'll see the Israelites face a similar situation when Moses is leading them out of Egypt later, but Moses will get a very different reaction than Jacob did.

We see the name Seir used as the name of the land, territory or country here.  Seir was the name of the capital city and it was common for nations to be known by the name of their capital city at that time.  Even today we still sometimes refer to sending diplomatic envoys to the capital city of a country when we want to talk about making negotiations with the entire country.  Such as "trade negotiations between Washington (D.C.) and Beijing."  Jacob likewise sees a need to send messengers (envoys) ahead of him and is willing to sacrifice everything that he has, including his wives and children and all the flocks and herds that he has just acquired from Laban so that he may once again be at peace with his brother and cross back into the land of Canaan.

The messengers say that the message has been received and that Esau is coming to meet Jacob.  The last words that he has heard Esau say before he left for the house of Laban must have been playing over and over in his head as Jacob is almost certain that Esau is coming to do harm and possibly kill Jacob, since that is what he promised.  Jacob decides to divide into two camps to make it harder for Esau to kill everyone and perhaps half of his people will survive, even if one camp is discovered and attacked.

Even after all of these acts of fear that we see on the part of Jacob, the next thing that Jacob does is the right thing and should have been the first thing for Jacob to do.  Jacob cries out to God saying God's promises back to Him and realizing that this situation was too big for Jacob to handle and that only God was going to be able to deal with the heart of Esau.  He realizes that everything that he has has been a gift from God and part of the covenant that God made with him and his father Isaac and grandfather Abraham, but that is would be hard (but not impossible) for God to bring about this covenant if his wives and children were killed.

Jacob sends his envoys and gifts ahead of himself as he spends the night alone in the place that would become known as Peniel for it is here that Jacob will wrestle with God (we'll study that next time).  Jacob is about to experience a great transformation in his life and God needed Jacob to get to the point where none of his stuff mattered anymore and Jacob realized that all he needed and all he could depend on was God.  At that point, he was finally ready to hear that answer to the his prayer and God would give Jacob a physical reminder of their encounter and make it nearly impossible for Jacob to rely on his own strength again in the future, but this change is so important that I want to talk about on its own next time.