JACOB SENDS MESSENGERS TO ESAU. HE WRESTLES AT PENIEL. THE MEETING OF JACOB AND ESAU. JACOB COMES TO HIS FATHER IN CANAAN. ISAAC DIES. ESAU MOVES AWAY TO EDOM.
JACOB left mount Gilead, and went toward Canaan. As he went some angels met him. Jacob called them God's host, or army. Perhaps God had sent them to take care of him on his journey.
And he came near to the place where his brother Esau was, and sent messengers to tell him that he had been living with Laban until that time, and had oxen and asses and flocks, and men-servants and maid-servants. He sent to tell Esau about it, he said, so that Esau might not be angry with him. For Jacob was afraid of Esau. Though it had been twenty years since he deceived his father and took away Esau's blessing, yet Jacob remembered his sin and it made him afraid.
And the messengers returned to Jacob and told him that Esau was coming with four hundred men to meet him. Then Jacob was in great fear; he took his flocks, and his herds, and his camels, and made two companies of them instead of one large company; and some of Jacob's men went with one company and some with the other. And Jacob told them that if Esau came to hurt, or kill, one company, the other must make haste and flee away.
And Jacob prayed that God would save him from Esau; for he was afraid that Esau would kill him and his wives, and his children. Jacob said that the Lord had been very kind to him, and that he did not deserve the good things which God had given him; for when he left Canaan, twenty years before, he had only the staff which he carried in his hand. But now, when he was coming back, he had two companies, or bands, of men, with flocks and herds and camels. Then he was very poor, but now God had made him rich.
Jacob stayed in that place all night. And he took some of his cattle and sent them as a present to Esau: two hundred and twenty goats, two hundred and twenty sheep, thirty camels with their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty asses with ten little ones. But he did not send all of these together; he made different droves, or flocks, of them, and sent each drove by itself. Then when Esau should meet the first drove, and ask the man who was driving it, whose cattle they were, and where they were going, the man was to say, They are thy servant Jacob's; it is a present he has sent to my lord Esau. When Esau should meet the next drove, and ask the same questions, the man driving it was to answer as the first had done. And so they were all to answer, till Esau should have seen every drove. Jacob sent them to make Esau feel kindly toward him, so that he might not hurt him or his wives or his children, or take his flocks or his herds from him.
And Jacob rose up in the night, and sent his two wives and his eleven sons over the stream of water that was there; and he was left alone. And there came a man and wrestled with him, putting his arms around him and trying to throw him down, and Jacob put his arms around the man. So they wrestled together till the light of the morning shone a little in the sky. When the man saw that Jacob did not fall, but was strong, and wrestled on still, he touched Jacob's thigh; and just by his touch, Jacob's thigh was put out of joint, and he was lame.
And the man said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. But Jacob said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. The man asked, What is thy name? and he told him, Jacob. Then the man said, Thy name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel; which means, A Prince of God: and the reason he changed Jacob's name was, that Jacob wrestled with him so long to get his blessing. For this man was the same as the one who talked with Abraham, and told him that he would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah: this man was the Lord. And Jacob said to him, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. But the Lord answered, Why dost thou ask after my name? And the Lord blessed Jacob there. And Jacob said, I have seen God. And he named that place Peniel: which means, The face of God. For Jacob said, I have seen God face to face. And as he crossed the stream the sun rose up, and he was lame in his thigh where the Lord had touched him.
And Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming, and four hundred men with him. Then he took his eleven sons, and gave some of them to the handmaids and some to Rachel and Leah, that they might bring them to Esau when he should come near. But Jacob went on first by himself to meet Esau, and as he went, he bowed down to the ground seven times before him. Then when Esau ran to meet Jacob, and put his arms around him, and leaned on his neck and kissed him; and they both wept.
We have read that when God commanded Jacob to leave Laban's house and go back to Canaan, he promised to be with him and keep him from harm. And we have seen how God kept his promise; for, first, he would not let Laban hurt, or even speak unkindly to Jacob, and now he made Esau, that angry brother who had wanted to kill him, feel so kindly toward him that when they met, he ran to him and kissed him, and wept, leaning on his neck.
When Esau saw the women and the children, he said, Who are these with thee? Jacob answered, The children whom God hath given thy servant. Then the handmaids, and Leah, and Rachel, came near, bringing the children with them, and they bowed down before Esau. And Esau asked Jacob what he meant by all those cattle he had met. Jacob answered, he had sent them as a present, so that Esau might be pleased with him. And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; keep what thou hast to thyself; for Esau had flocks and herds of his own. But Jacob said, I pray thee take my present; and he begged him till Esau took it.
Then Esau wanted Jacob to go on his journey, and wait no longer at that place, and Esau said he would go with him. But Jacob told Esau that his children were young and weak, and might easily be made sick; and that his flocks and herds had to be driven very carefully, because if they were made to go too far or too fast, for only one day, many of them would die. And he begged Esau to go on first by himself, and Jacob said he would come after him more slowly, as the children and cattle were able to bear it. Then Esau offered to leave some of his men with Jacob; they could help him drive his cattle, or guard him against robbers by the way; but Jacob said that he did not need them. So Esau left him and went away again.
After he had gone, Jacob went on his journey till he came to a place called Succoth; there he stopped and made booths for his cattle to rest in. Booths were sheds, or huts, made out of the branches of trees. When his cattle had rested, Jacob left Succoth and came into the land of Canaan.
And God spoke to him, and told him to go up to Bethel and build an altar there. Bethel was the place where Jacob had his dream, and saw the ladder reaching to heaven, with the angels going up and down on it. God had promised in that dream, to be with him wherever he should go, and to bring him back to Canaan; and now God had brought him back. Although it was more than twenty years since he went away, the Lord had taken care of him all that time, and at last brought him safely to his own land again. And God told Jacob to go up to the place where the promise was given him, and there to build an altar to the Lord.
Then Jacob said to Rachel and Leah, and to his sons, Let us go up to Bethel, and I will build there an altar unto God. And he told them how kind the Lord had been to him many years before, when he was in trouble, and was fleeing from his brother Esau; and how the Lord had been with him ever since that time, to take care of him in the way that he went. And Jacob and his wives, and his sons, journeyed toward Bethel. There were cities in the land they passed through, but God made the people who lived in them afraid, so that they did not come out to do Jacob any harm. And he came to Bethel, he and all who were with him, and there he built an altar and offered up a sacrifice to the Lord.
And Rebekah, Jacob's mother, had a nurse, named Deborah. Perhaps she was. the same that Rebekah brought with her when she came into Canaan with Abraham's servant, to be Isaac's wife. And Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and they buried her under an oak at Bethel.
And God spoke to Jacob, and blessed him, and said again, Thy name shall not be called Jacob any more, but Israel shall be thy name. God told him also, that he would give the land of Canaan to him, and to his descendants after he should die, and that his descendants should be so many there would be whole nations of them, and that some of them should be kings. After he was done talking with Jacob, God went up toward heaven. And Jacob set up a pillar of stone at Bethel, so that it might always be remembered as the place where God had spoken to him.
And Jacob left Bethel, and came near to Bethlehem, and God gave him another son, whose name was called Benjamin. But Rachel, the little boy's mother, died, before they came to Bethlehem, and they buried her on the way there. And Jacob set up a pillar upon Rachel's grave, to show where she was buried, and that pillar stood there for hundreds of years.
After these things Jacob came to Hebron, where his father lived; for Isaac, Jacob's father, was still alive. Though it had been so long a time since he was old and blind, and since he had sent Esau for the venison, that he might bless him, because he thought he was going to die, yet God had kept Isaac alive till Jacob came again. But after Jacob had come, and when Isaac was a hundred and eighty years old, he died, and his sons Jacob and Esau buried him in the cave where Abraham and Sarah were buried.
And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and his cattle, and all that he had in the land of Canaan, and went away to live in another country, called Edom. For he and Jacob had so many cattle, that there was not food enough for them all in the land where they both had lived.