Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #8 of Genesis 32, and we are going to read Genesis 32:22-24:

And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two womenservants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent over that he had. And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

I will stop reading there.  We have been looking at this passage in the last couple of studies, and we have seen that Jacob’s offering to his brother Esau was spiritually picturing the atonement in which the Lord Jesus Christ presented His offering to God and the Law of God, that He might be “appeased,” and that the wrath of God might be pacified.

Jacob divided his company into two groups, and he spent the night with his wives and children in his company.  He was still hopeful that the “present,” or offering, sent before him to his brother Esau would appease him, and then he would see his face, and it says at the end of Genesis 32:20:

…peradventure he will accept of me.

It is very much a spiritual picture of the hope of the people of God that Christ’s sacrifice is acceptable for our sins.  Of course it is acceptable for all the sins of His elect, but from our perspective as we still live in the world, it is our hope that we will endure through the judgment to prove that we have actually received that grace and mercy of God in salvation: “…he that endureth to the end shall be saved.”

Now we are going to pick up this account in Genesis 32:22:

And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two womenservants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok.

Jacob had lodged that night in the company, and then we read that he “rose up that night,” and we discussed how “night” is a picture of Judgment Day, so this is all taking place in the Day of Judgment, spiritually.  The word “ford” is Strong’s #4569, and it can also be translated as “passage.”  For example, it says in Judges 12:4-6:

Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites. And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

Here, they are at the river Jordan, and there is a “ford” or a “passage” to cross over.  It is interesting that these Gileadites would relate to what we read in the previous chapter, in Genesis 31, which took place on mount Gilead, and these people are Gileadites, and they would identify with mount Gilead.  They had a battle with the children of Ammon, but they had not called the men of Ephraim earlier.  So out of pride, the Ephraimites were offended, out of pride, and they did battle with the Gileadites.  In this battle, they were defeated, and some were trying to flee across the Jordan, but when they came to the passage, or ford, of Jordan, the Gileadites were positioned so that they would have to pass by them.  And then they would say to the Ephraimites, “Art thou an Ephraimite?”  If they said, “No,” they would give them a test by saying, “Say, ‘Shibboleth,’” and they could not pronounce it.  They mispronounced it by saying, “Sibboleth,”  Then they would know that they were Ephraimites, as it was apparently well known that an Ephraimite could not pronounce the syllable at the beginning of that word.  Then they would slay them, and 42,000 Ephraimites were slain for failing that test. 

Of course there is a spiritual picture of  “crossing over Jordan,” and it is necessary to know the language.  You cannot just be “close,” but you must have it exact.  You have to pronounce the word properly, and that would identify with coming to know the spiritual language of the Bible.  And the natural-minded individual cannot know it, so he will fail the test and be slain, which means he can never “cross Jordan” into the land of Canaan, typifying the Promised Land.

Again, “passage” is that same word as “ford.”  We find the same word in Jeremiah 51:30-33:

The mighty men of Babylon have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwellingplaces; her bars are broken. One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to shew the king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end, And that the passages are stopped, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted. For thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts, the God of Israel; The daughter of Babylon is like a threshingfloor, it is time to thresh her: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come.

This is describing the judgment of Babylon.  Verse 32 tells us, “the passages are stopped,” and that is speaking of the city of Babylon, which represents the nations of the world.  It is not specific regarding which passages, but we can gather from what we read in Judges that it has to do with passing over to the kingdom of God.  And if those passages are stopped, you cannot pass over, and that means you cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  Given the context of this chapter being the wrath of God upon Babylon, that fits very well.

So let us go back to Genesis 32:22:

And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two womenservants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok.

Jabbok is a river, as we see in the next verse, in Genesis 32:23:

And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent over that he had.

This word “brook” can also be translated as “river.”  When we look up the word “Jabbok,” we will learn about this particular river.  So let us read Numbers 21:21-24:

And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, saying, Let me pass through thy land: we will not turn into the fields, or into the vineyards; we will not drink of the waters of the well: but we will go along by the king's high way, until we be past thy borders.   And Sihon would not suffer Israel to pass through his border: but Sihon gathered all his people together, and went out against Israel into the wilderness: and he came to Jahaz, and fought against Israel. And Israel smote him with the edge of the sword, and possessed his land from Arnon unto Jabbok, even unto the children of Ammon: for the border of the children of Ammon was strong.

Also, let us turn to Deuteronomy 2:37:

Only unto the land of the children of Ammon thou camest not, nor unto any place of the river Jabbok, nor unto the cities in the mountains, nor unto whatsoever JEHOVAH our God forbad us.

This is important because when Israel came out of Egypt, God told them that there were certain lands they were not to fight against nor take their lands, and one of those nations was Ammon.  The land of Ammon was not to be taken, as well as Moab and Edom.  God gave various reasons for this, but the Israelites were not to take their lands.  They may have wanted to pass through certain lands, but they were not commissioned by God to take them, like they were commissioned to take the land of Canaan. 

In the previous verses, it says in Deuteronomy 2:36-37:

From Aroer, which is by the brink of the river of Arnon, and from the city that is by the river, even unto Gilead, there was not one city too strong for us: JEHOVAH our God delivered all unto us: Only unto the land of the children of Ammon thou camest not, nor unto any place of the river Jabbok, nor unto the cities in the mountains, nor unto whatsoever JEHOVAH our God forbad us.

They were not to cross Jabbok into Ammon to take the land, and in our verse in Genesis 32, Jacob is at the river Jabbok.

We find another reference in Deuteronomy 3:16:

And unto the Reubenites and unto the Gadites I gave from Gilead even unto the river Arnon half the valley, and the border even unto the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon;

So we are seeing this, again, and again, regarding Jabbok being the river that borders Ammon.  It is Ammon’s river, just like the Euphrates identifies with Babylon.  And God gives us a spiritual picture of the children of Ammon, which we will look at after we look at another reference in Joshua 12:2:

Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and ruled from Aroer, which is upon the bank of the river Arnon, and from the middle of the river, and from half Gilead, even unto the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon;

So it is very definite that the river Jabbok is the border of the children of Ammon, and if one crosses the ford or passage of Jabbok, one would have entered into the land of Ammon.

And that is what Jacob’s family is doing.  They are passing over the river Jabbok, the passage into the land of Ammon.  So this is not the same picture as entering into the land of Canaan by passing over the Jordan.  This is another “crossing,” and it would represent something different.  So we want to know what is being pictured and represented by crossing over into the land of Ammon.

We know that Ammon came into existence through a daughter of Lot.  In Genesis 19, after Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain were destroyed by fire and brimstone from heaven, Lot ended up fleeing to the mountains, and Lot’s daughters hatched a plan to have children by their father.  It was very possible that they thought it was the end and that there were no more men, but whatever they thought, they were wrong, and the Law of God forbids sexual relations between close family members.  So the daughters of Lot got their father drunk and they lay with him and became with child by their father, and they were doing something contrary to the Law of God.  There is no getting around that.  It was wrong.  It was sin.  It was a transgression of the Law, and that is not the way.  It is not pleasing to God.

If you are following our study in the book of Genesis, when we went through this account, we saw that Lot’s two daughters are picturing what is happening in our present Day of Judgment.  It was after the fire and brimstone fell, and Sodom and Gomorrah had been destroyed, so they are picturing those that are insisting that God must still save people and produce spiritual children.  They are saying that God must continue to bring forth spiritual fruit.  And yet, there is no legitimate way, so Lot’s daughters forced the issue, and they do wrongly by producing children.  We read in Genesis 19:36-38:

Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day. And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.

There were two sons, Moab and Ammon, and they became nations.  And we will see as we look at additional Scriptures that nothing good came of them in the sense of the nations that they became.  They were enemies to the true people of God, and the people of Judah and Israel.  Concerning them, God says in Deuteronomy 23:3-4:

An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of JEHOVAH; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of JEHOVAH for ever: Because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee.

The Law of God says that an Ammonite or a Moabite were not to enter into the congregation of JEHOVAH unto the tenth generation, and the number “10” points to the completeness of whatever is in view, and in this case it is the completeness of time unto forever.   Of course we always have to read the whole Bible, and when we do, we find that God would still save someone of Moab, and if He saved some of Moab, He could have saved someone of Ammon.  (God saved Ruth the Moabitess.)  So there is a spiritual picture being declared regarding the Ammonites and Moabites that does not carry over to individual people.  That is, someone that is a descendant of the Ammonites or Moabites could potentially be saved, as was someone like Ruth.  But God is using them to represent something very important.  It is so important that they typify those that never become saved, and what that regards is the Law.  The Ammonites and Moabites are those that are under the curse of the Law, and because they are under the curse of the Law, as they attempt to keep the Law, the Law will not accept them because no man is justified by the works of the Law in the sight of God, therefore representing anyone that remains an Ammonite or Moabite.  Ruth came out of the land of Moab and went to Bethlehem, the “house of bread,” and she lived as a (true) Jew.  But the other daughter-in-law, Orpah, went back to her people.  She cannot enter into the congregation of JEHOVAH forever because she remained under the Law, and the Law pronounces the curse of sin because it is impossible to keep the Law perfectly in order to enter into the kingdom of God. 

So both Ammon and Moab would typify those under the Law, cursed by the Law, and completely incapable of pleasing God and entering into His kingdom because they remain under the Law.  We saw the same thing with Edom and mount Seir.  Remember how God used mount Seir in several Scriptures to identify with mount Sinai and mount Horeb where the Law was given.  That is why it is not coincidental that we read in the Bible of Ammon and Moab together, and sometimes it is Ammon, Moab, and Edom (mount Seir) that will join forces.  For example, let us go to 2Chronicles 20, a chapter that is a historical parable teaching us about Judgment Day.  The enemies of God are coming against Judah.  It says in 2Chronicles 20:1:

It came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them other beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle.

And Jehoshaphat is a type of Christ.  Then it says in 2Chronicles 20:22:

And when they began to sing and to praise, JEHOVAH set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten.

Here God includes mount Seir, so I do not know why in verse 1 God just referred to Ammon, Moab “and others,” but here He names “mount Seir.”  Then it say sin 2Chronicles 20:23:

For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another.

And it makes sense that Ammon and Moab would be unified and come together, at least temporarily, because they are “brothers.”  After destroying Edom, then Ammon and Moab turned against each other until they were all dead men.  We have talked about this a lot.  This is the final judgment of the world; it is the division we see presently in the world where everyone is going after one another.  Maybe at some moments there are some aligned with one another, like Ammon and Moab, but we can be sure that after one foe is vanquished, then those that were together will begin fighting one another.  We already see that in various ways.

But the point is that the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, are picturing all unsaved mankind under the curse of the Law.

Let us turn to Jeremiah 25:15-16:

For thus saith JEHOVAH God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it. And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.

And the “sword” would be the Word of God that is judging in Judgment Day.  Then it says in Jeremiah 25:17-18:

Then took I the cup at the JEHOVAH'S hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom JEHOVAH had sent me: To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah…

Then a list of others is given, and it says in Jeremiah 25:21:

Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon,

These three are listed together, as well as other nations, but in 2Chronicles 20, those three are representing all the nations of the world, all those under the Law.  So Ammon typifies those under the Law and the curse of the Law, so we wonder, “Why are Jacob and his family passing over the river Jabbok?”