Event · The Patriarchs
Jacob wrestles with God
Jacob wrestles with GodGenesis 32:22–32No agreed date
Alone at night by the Jabbok, Jacob wrestles until daybreak and is renamed Israel.
- Main passage Genesis 32:22–32
- Related Genesis 32:1–21Hosea 12:3–4
People Jacob
Places named Peniel Genesis 32:30
- Place in the order
- Explicit biblical sequence Scripture itself gives the order of these events.
- Historical setting
- No agreed date Disputed date
Scripture gives no calendar date for the patriarchs. They are often placed somewhere in the second millennium BCE, but scholars disagree.
Read it
Genesis 32:22–32 WEB
22He rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of the Jabbok. 23He took them, and sent them over the stream, and sent over that which he had. 24Jacob was left alone, and wrestled with a man there until the breaking of the day. 25When he saw that he didn’t prevail against him, the man touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was strained as he wrestled. 26The man said, “Let me go, for the day breaks.” Jacob said, “I won’t let you go unless you bless me.” 27He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob”. 28He said, “Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have fought with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” He said, “Why is it that you ask what my name is?” So he blessed him there. 30Jacob called the name of the place Peniel; for he said, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” 31The sun rose on him as he passed over Peniel, and he limped because of his thigh. 32Therefore the children of Israel don’t eat the sinew of the hip, which is on the hollow of the thigh, to this day, because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip.