Jacob Wrestles with God
During the night Jacob moves his family and possessions across the Jabbok and ends up alone. In that solitude a man begins to wrestle with him until daybreak.
D22uring the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23He took them and sent them across the stream, along with all his possessions. 24So Jacob was left all alone, and there a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
The wrestler wounds Jacob's hip yet cannot shake him loose before dawn. Jacob receives a new name, Israel, and names the place Peniel because he has seen God face to face and lived.
25When the man saw that he could not overpower Jacob, he struck the socket of Jacob’s hip and dislocated it as they wrestled. 26Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” 27“What is your name?” the man asked. 28Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men, and you have prevailed.” 29And Jacob requested, “Please tell me your name.” 30So Jacob named the place Peniel, saying, “Indeed, I have seen God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
Jacob leaves at sunrise limping from the wound he received in the night. The chapter ends by connecting that injury to Israel's lasting custom about the tendon near the hip socket.
31The sun rose above him as he passed by Penuel, and he was limping because of his hip. 32Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was struck near that tendon.