Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #11 of Genesis 32, and we are going to read Genesis 32:26-28:

And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

I will stop reading there.  We have been looking at this very strange wrestling match between God and Jacob at the river Jabbok.  God allowed Jacob to hold onto Him, and to continue to wrestle with Him until the breaking of the day.  And this “man” in this passage is God Himself, without question, and it says that when Jacob prevailed with Him, God touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with Him.  This would result in Jacob becoming lame, and he would halt upon his thigh from that time forward.

Again, the Lord said in Genesis 32:26:

And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh.

We looked at a couple of places where the very same Hebrew words translated as “day breatheth” were used in combination in association with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and with the destruction of Jericho in Joshua 6.  And both typify God’s judgment at the end of time.  So it is basically as if God was saying to Jacob, “Let me go because we cannot continue wrestling for the day breaketh.  It is Judgment Day.” 

And Jacob said, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.”  Then it says in Genesis 32:27-28:

And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

The Lord asked his name, and Jacob told him his name, and then the Lord said, “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel.”  And if you remember, the name Jacob was given to him because of what we read in Genesis 25:24-26:

And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.

Esau was the firstborn.  He came out “red,” and later he will also be known as “Edom” is the Hebrew word for “red,” and Edom identifies with Adam, so Esau became like Adam in many ways in the Bible.  He is identified along with Adam.  But it says, “And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel.”  Later on, Esau will say this of his brother Jacob, in Genesis 27:34:

And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father. And he said, Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing. And he said, Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing. And he said, Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?

Esau said that Jacob was rightly named Jacob because he had supplanted him these two times.  The word “Jacob” comes from a word that is translated here as “supplanted.”  It is Strong’s #6117.  The name “Jacob” simply attaches a “Yod” in front of it that gives us the beginning sound, but this word is “aw-kab',” but Jacob’s name has that “Yod” in front of it and becomes “yah-ak-obe'.”  It means “to supplant,” and we can understand that as he took hold on Esau’s heel, he was trying to be first.  He wanted to be the firstborn, so they gave him the name of “Supplanter” because Esau was firstborn, and not Jacob.

So going back to Genesis 32, God says in Genesis 32:28:

Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

There is a long phrase here that is a translation of just one Hebrew word, and that is the phrase, “as a prince has thou power.”  It is a translation of basically one Hebrew word, and the name “Israel” is Strong’s #3468, but it is a compound word.  We can hear the word “El,” which is the Hebrew word for God, Strong’s #410 in the Hebrew Concordance.  And the second part is the Hebrew word that is translated as “as a prince hast thou power,” and it is Strong’s #8280.  And combined, it makes up the word “Israel.” This Hebrew word, #8280, that is translated as “as a prince hast thou power,” is only found two times in the Old Testament, and the other place it is found is in Hosea 12:3-4:

He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God: Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us;

By the way, Hosea 12:3 where it says, “He took his brother by the heel,” it is the same word as “supplant,” and that is the name Jacob was given.  Again, it says, “He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God.”  Here, the word #8280 is translated as “he had power,” and it does not say, “as a prince hast thou power,” but it is simply, “he had power.”  Now the reason why the translators added the words “as a prince” is because this word, #8280, is related to another word that has identical consonants and vowel pointings, which is #8282.  And that word is translated as “princess” or “queen” or “lady.”  It is the feminine form, but it has to do with royalty, so I think the translators were influenced by that, and they thought it was not a word that just meant power, but power possessing royal authority, so they translated it, “as a prince has thou power.”  So I think that helps us to understand why they translated it that way.

But here in Hosea 12:3, we find something very interesting, I think.  Again, it says in Hosea 12:3:

He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God:

Now let us keep in mind that this word “power” is only found twice, and if we go back to Genesis 32, we read in Genesis 32:28:

Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

Here, the name of Jacob was being changed to Israel, but in Hosea 12:3, the same word “power” is in view, but it has to do with him taking his brother Esau (Edom) by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God.  It is very curious and very interesting.  It is as if God is relating what we are reading in Genesis 32 to the circumstances of Jacob and Esau in the womb.  At least this word “power” is connecting these two together, so we wonder, “What is the connection?”  Another similarity is that in the womb there was both Jacob and Esau, and they were struggling.  Remember that their mother Rebekah had gone to God because they were struggling together so severely.  We read in Genesis 25:21-23:

And Isaac intreated JEHOVAH for his wife, because she was barren: and JEHOVAH was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of JEHOVAH. And JEHOVAH said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

Right from the beginning in the womb there was turmoil, and there was this struggle or fight between these two sons of Isaac and Rebekah, and the twins were born, with Esau first, followed by Jacob.  When Rebekah wondered why they were fighting as they did, God told her there were “two nations” or “two manners of people” in her womb.  So we see that Jacob and Esau were going back and forth with each other early on (and you cannot get much earlier than that), and now Jacob and Esau are both 100 years old.  Jacob has come out of Haran after 40 years.  He left the land of Canaan at age 60, and he is now 100 years old.  What is the situation?  Who is coming to meet him?  It is Esau that is coming to meet him, and he is coming with 400 men.  Once again, this word “power” appears.  The only other time it appears has to do with Jacob grabbing his brother Esau by the heel, and having strength and prevailing.  And now it appears again, and once more it seems the fighting and struggle between these two brothers has resumed. 

So this word ties these two passages together, but let us think about the “order of birth” with Jacob and Esau. The Bible tells us (and there is no doubt) that Esau came out first.  He was legitimately the firstborn son of Isaac and Rebekah.  He was the first to come out of his mother’s womb, and Jacob was right behind him, and he had his hand on Esau’s heel.  He was holding on.  The order was established, and that meant that Esau would receive the birthright and the right of the firstborn son to have the blessing, which would be a “double portion” given by his father.  In the Scripture we read in Genesis 27, Esau lost the blessing.  If you remember, it was because Rebekah had overheard that Isaac was about to give the blessing to Esau, and Esau had gone hunting to find some venison.  Then Rebekah told Jacob to do everything she said, and she made venison the way Isaac loved, and she made Jacob dress up like Esau in order to deceive Isaac, who was nearly blind.  She also put the “smell” of Esau, as much as possible, upon Jacob, and gave him animal skins to duplicate the hairiness of his brother.  And it worked.  Isaac was suspicious, but he was not able to prove it, so he did bless Jacob, and Jacob would remain blessed.  Then Esau came in (from the field), and he found out, and then he said, “Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times…” 

The first time was when Esau had come in from hunting and he was very hungry, and Jacob had some soup or pottage ready.  And Esau agreed to sell him his birthright for a bowl of soup, and he did.  In that way, Jacob supplanted his brother Esau who by order of birth should have received the birthright and the blessing.  They are two parts of the same thing, but he received neither one, but Jacob did, and this is important.  And God paints this picture numerous times in the Bible when we read about certain brothers, like Rueben, the firstborn of Jacob (Israel), and he also lost the birthright  and the blessing of the firstborn son because he went up to his father’s bed.   We can see this spiritual picture or illustration that God gives being played out more than once in the Bible, and the reason God illustrates it to us in historical parables in the Old Testament is to teach us about when Adam was born, made from the dust of the ground, and he was also the firstborn with the right of the blessing and the right of the firstborn son.  You might ask, “Whose son was he?”  But the Bible tells us very clearly in Luke 3 that Adam was the son of God.  It says in Luke 3:38:

Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

God created him, and He called him His son.  Adam, as the firstborn son, had the right of the blessing, and the blessing would be “life,” and the inheritance was the rule and dominion over the whole earth, with all its creatures and everything on this beautiful planet.  God gave it all to Adam.  Adam was created good and perfect, but he was under the Law.  God gave him only one Law, as far as we know, concerning the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: “Thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”  Adam had the birthright.  He was the firstborn, even though he was not born, in a sense, but it was still the same idea.  He was the first son, and all his descendants would have also enjoyed the blessing of the birthright and being “sons of God” in later generations.

But what do we know about Adam, just as we know about Esau?  Esau was “Edom,” and the word “Edom” and “Adam” are very closely related, with one being #121 and the other being #123 in the concordance.  Look at the Hebrew consonants, and you will see how closely related Edom is to Adam, and Edom (Esau) lost his birthright and lost his blessing.  Adam sinned.  Adam transgressed the Law.  He was under the Law, and due to the transgression, he lost the blessing of life eternal.  He would not live forever.  He would die.  He lost the blessing of the earth because he was deceived by Satan, and Satan was really acting like a supplanter as he took over that which Adam had received, the rule and dominion over this whole world.  And the world became Satan’s until the Lord Jesus Christ took it from him (May 21, 2011). 

The Lord Jesus was called the “second Adam,” and He was the firstbegotten of the dead.  He was born of God, in that sense, at the foundation of the world, and someone might say, “Would that not mean that Christ was the firstborn, and Adam was second?”  Yes, but we have to keep in mind that Adam was the first son of God in regard to this creation, and it would be the sins of God’s elect as they lived their time in this creation that were laid upon Christ at the foundation of the world.  So another reason for the Lord Jesus to enter into the world and be born of a woman was to show forth that He is the “second Adam,” and He is the second child after the first, the Son of God, the only begotten Son of God, “the firstborn from the dead,” who would receive the blessing and the birthright over Adam.  And all the descendants of Adam would have been blessed through his maintaining of the birthright and blessing from God, but in Christ the Law of God was kept perfectly, so He received the blessing and all His spiritual descendants (counted for the seed in Christ) receive the blessing through and in Him. 

So we can see Jacob as a type of Christ.  Esau represents all those unsaved that remain under the Law, and they are under the first covenant in relationship to being sons of God, and if they had maintained the Law, they would receive the blessing, but everyone always fails to keep the Law perfectly, and they lose the blessing and they lose their inheritance.  And the blessing goes instead to Jacob in the Lord Jesus Christ and to all counted as the seed in Him.  They are those that are under grace, and all transgressions have been paid for, so no transgression of the Law is counted against them, and they receive the blessing.

 So right from the beginning when Jacob and Esau were in the womb…or we could say that even before they were in the womb, Jacob had power over Esau because God emphasizes that it was before they were born that He made choice, in Romans 9:10-13:

And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

From eternity past before human beings would populate the earth, and before the saved and the unsaved would enter into the world, God had made His determination.  Then the Lord Jesus and all those in Him, had power over their brother and prevailed.  So it applies from the beginning to the end, and that is what we are seeing in Genesis 32.  God’s elect, Jacob and the Lord Jesus have power over their unsaved brethren.