Meditate

32. Jacob Prepares to Meet Esau

32

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

Jacob Sends Presents to Appease Esau

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

⁶ The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”⁷Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people that were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two companies,⁸thinking, “If Esau comes to the one company and destroys it, then the company 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, and I will do you good,’¹⁰I am not worthy of the least of all the 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 companies.¹¹Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children.¹²Yet you have said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number.’ ”

¹³ So he spent that night there, and from what he had with him he took a present for his brother Esau,¹⁴two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,¹⁵thirty milch camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.¹⁶These he delivered into the hand of his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me, and put a space between drove and drove.”¹⁷He instructed the foremost, “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?’¹⁸then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob; they are a present sent to my lord Esau; and moreover he is behind us.’ ”¹⁹He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, “You shall say the same thing to Esau when you meet him,²⁰and 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 afterwards I shall see his face; perhaps he will accept me.”²¹So the present passed on ahead of him; and he himself spent that night in the camp.

Jacob Wrestles at Peniel

²² The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.²³He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.²⁴Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.²⁵When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.²⁶Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”²⁷So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”²⁸Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”²⁹Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him.³⁰So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”³¹The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.³²Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.

8. Life Through the Spirit

Future Glory

¹⁸ I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.¹⁹For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God;²⁰for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope²¹that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

44. Psalm 44

Psalm 44

National Lament and Prayer for Help

To the leader. Of the Korahites. A Maskil.

1

We have heard with our ears, O God,

our ancestors have told us,

what deeds you performed in their days,

in the days of old:

2

you with your own hand drove out the nations,

but them you planted;

you afflicted the peoples,

but them you set free;

3

for not by their own sword did they win the land,

nor did their own arm give them victory;

but your right hand, and your arm,

and the light of your countenance,

for you delighted in them.

4

You are my King and my God;

you command victories for Jacob.

5

Through you we push down our foes;

through your name we tread down our assailants.

6

For not in my bow do I trust,

nor can my sword save me.

7

But you have saved us from our foes,

and have put to confusion those who hate us.

8

In God we have boasted continually,

and we will give thanks to your name forever.Selah

9

Yet you have rejected us and abased us,

and have not gone out with our armies.

10

You made us turn back from the foe,

and our enemies have gotten spoil.

11

You have made us like sheep for slaughter,

and have scattered us among the nations.

12

You have sold your people for a trifle,

demanding no high price for them.

13

You have made us the taunt of our neighbors,

the derision and scorn of those around us.

14

You have made us a byword among the nations,

a laughingstock among the peoples.

15

All day long my disgrace is before me,

and shame has covered my face

16

at the words of the taunters and revilers,

at the sight of the enemy and the avenger.

17

All this has come upon us,

yet we have not forgotten you,

or been false to your covenant.

18

Our heart has not turned back,

nor have our steps departed from your way,

19

yet you have broken us in the haunt of jackals,

and covered us with deep darkness.

20

If we had forgotten the name of our God,

or spread out our hands to a strange god,

21

would not God discover this?

For he knows the secrets of the heart.

22

Because of you we are being killed all day long,

and accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

23

Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?

Awake, do not cast us off forever!

24

Why do you hide your face?

Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?

25

For we sink down to the dust;

our bodies cling to the ground.

26

Rise up, come to our help.

Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.