EXTRACT

Jacob had to learn that all his scheming and planning were of no avail; he had to come to the end of every expedient. He had to learn to wait only on God, and to have no other confidence.

God had a controversy with Jacob, and was bent on teaching him the true secret of divine strength. In the end Jacob was left alone, and God wrestled with him. Hosea 12 is very interesting as showing how God applied the teaching of this to Israel in a later day. They looked to this and that for help just as Jacob did. God says to them, You have made a covenant with Assyria, and carried oil into Egypt; you have tried all kinds of devices to be independent of Me. But remember how Jacob got blessing; he had to come to the end of all his scheming, and to prevail by weeping and supplication.

Jacob was brought face to face with God and learned his own utter weakness, but he learned, too, that weakness and dependence put one in the place of power with God. But then he must carry the consciousness of weakness all his life; he halted on his thigh; he was a cripple to the end of his days.

C. A. Coates (‘An Outline of Genesis’, pp.216: 217)

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