CHAPTERS 32-34

CHAPTERS 32-34

Esau comes, and again we find lies. God sends a host of angels, and he sees His hand, but nothing raises his faith, and we see the utter weakness of fleshly ways, and the spirit in which he walks — low and earthly. The Lord will not allow Esau to touch him, but takes him in hand Himself, and wrestles with him at Jabbok when he had sent all over. He will not reveal Himself, but makes him halt for life, giving him faith to overcome. You get a great deal more experience in one that walks badly than in a person that walks well. The man that walks with God has very little experience, but all he has is with God. “Enoch walked with God, and was not, for God took him”; that is all about him. Abraham has no wrestling, but is up on high, interceding calmly with God for others, in communion; Jacob is below, interceding for himself, and God wrestling with him, not he with God, who gives him power for the conflict, but will not reveal Himself. Jacob had asked Him, but He would not tell him His name.

Then he makes another blunder. He buys land (not a sepulchre, like Abraham), settles in the place, and builds an altar there, calling it El-elohe-Israel. He was this, but no revelation. Marriage proposed with his family there.