Genesis 32:1-21

11. Jacob’s attempt to appease Esau 32:1-21

Chapters 32 and 33 can be viewed as one episode in the life of Jacob. They describe his return to the Promised Land including his meeting with Esau. There are thematic parallels between these chapters and chapter 31.

In spite of the vision of God’s assisting messengers, Jacob divided his people into two groups as a precaution when he heard Esau was coming to meet him with 400 men. Furthermore he sought to pacify Esau’s anger with an expensive gift in addition to praying for God’s deliverance.

Jacob had been able to handle his problems himself by hook or by crook until now. At this point in his experience God brought him to the end of his natural resources.

"As Jacob is at the precipice of receiving the promise of Canaan, he is not yet morally ready to carry out the blessing. Jacob must possess his own faith, obtaining the blessing through personal encounter, not by heredity alone." [Note: Mathews, Genesis 11:27-50:26, p. 537.]

"The events of this chapter are couched between two accounts of Jacob’s encounter with angels (Genesis 32:1; Genesis 32:25). The effect of these two brief pictures of Jacob’s meeting with angels on his return to the land is to align the present narrative with the similar picture of the Promised Land in the early chapters of Genesis. The land was guarded on its borders by angels. The same picture was suggested early in the Book of Genesis when Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden and ’cherubim’ were positioned on the east of the garden to guard the way to the tree of life. It can hardly be accidental that as Jacob returned from the east, he was met by angels at the border of the Promised Land. This brief notice may also be intended to alert the reader to the meaning of Jacob’s later wrestling with the ’man’ . . . at Peniel (Genesis 32:25-30). The fact that Jacob had met with angels here suggests that the man at the end of the chapter is also an angel." [Note: Sailhamer, "Genesis," p. 208.]