Genesis 32:3

Jacob has just left Laban’s household (Genesis 31) and is heading for Canaan, the land God told him to return to (Genesis 31:3). On the way “the angels of God met him”, and he called the place Mahanaim, a name meaning “two camps” or “two armies” (Genesis 32:1–2). Ahead of him lies the meeting he has dreaded since he fled. He had taken Esau’s blessing by deceiving their father (Genesis 27), and Esau had said in his heart, “then will I slay my brother Jacob” (Genesis 27:41). So the first thing Jacob does after the angels leave him is send word ahead.

Sending messengers before an arrival was the usual way to approach a powerful relative or ruler. It announced who was coming, carried his intentions, and let him learn how he would be received before anyone met face to face. The word for messengers, malʼâk, means one sent as a deputy, and it is also the word Scripture uses for the angels of God. These are Jacob’s own men, sent out just after God’s messengers had met him on the road.

“Before him” translates pânîym, the Hebrew word for face, which is plural in form but always used as a singular, and with a preposition means “before” or “ahead of”. The messengers go on ahead of Jacob’s face to prepare the way for his own coming, so this is the first practical step toward a meeting he fully means to keep.

Jacob gives his men the message word for word. “He commanded them” uses tsâvâh, to charge someone or give an order, and “saying”, “speak” and “saith” all render ʼâmar, the everyday verb for saying something. Every phrase of what follows was prepared with care.

He has them call Esau “my lord” and himself “thy servant Jacob”. The word for lord, ʼâdôwn, means a master or ruler, and it is used of men and of God. The word for servant is ʻebed. These were the ordinary words of someone coming to a superior, or to someone whose favour he needed, but between these two brothers they carry more weight. Isaac’s blessing, which Jacob had taken by deceit, would have made Jacob master over his brother. Now the younger brother speaks to the elder as his servant, and so lays down any claim to stand over him. Jacob’s own name, Yaʻăqôb, means heel-catcher or supplanter, and the man who once grasped at his brother’s place now gives him the place of honour.

Jacob goes on to tell Esau what he has: “oxen, and asses, flocks, and menservants, and womenservants”. His wealth is the fruit of God’s promise at Bethel, “I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land” (Genesis 28:15). The list also tells Esau that Jacob comes home a man of substance in his own right, and has no need of anything that belongs to his brother. The word behind “menservants” is ʻebed again, the same word as “thy servant” in verse 4, so the man who has servants of his own calls himself his brother’s servant.

“I have sent to tell my lord” repeats the humble title, and then Jacob names the purpose of the whole message: “that I may find grace in thy sight”. The word for grace, chên, means graciousness, favour or kindness, and “sight” is ʻayin, the eye. To find favour in someone’s eyes is a Hebrew way of saying that he looks on you kindly. Jacob can claim nothing from Esau, so he asks. He hopes that his brother will receive him well and lay aside the vengeance he once swore, and the flocks he sends ahead later in the chapter as a present serve the same hope (Genesis 32:13–21).

The messengers “returned”, shûwb, to turn back or come back, and their report is short. “We came to thy brother Esau”: they found him, and they still call him Jacob’s brother. “And also he cometh to meet thee”: hâlak is the common verb to walk or go, and Esau has already set out. “To meet thee” is qirʼâh, a meeting or encounter, and the word itself can describe a friendly meeting or a hostile one. Then comes the detail that changes everything for Jacob: “four hundred men with him”. Mêʼâh is the number a hundred, and ʼîysh is a man.

The messengers say nothing of what Esau intends. Four hundred men is far more than a family greeting needs, and in Jacob’s eyes it looks like an armed force. With Esau’s old vow in his memory (Genesis 27:41) and Esau’s bitter complaint that Jacob had supplanted him twice (Genesis 27:36), Jacob expects revenge. “Thy brother Esau” and “four hundred men” stand side by side in the report, the bond and the threat together. We know what Jacob cannot yet know: when the brothers meet, Esau runs to him and embraces him (Genesis 33:4).

“Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.” The word “greatly”, mᵉʼôd, means vehemence, and it makes the fear intense. “Afraid” is yârêʼ, the common verb to fear, which elsewhere can also mean to revere. “Distressed” is yâtsar, to press or be narrow, and so to be in distress. Jacob feels hemmed in, caught in a tight place with no clear way out.

The fear grows from his own past. He deceived his brother, and twenty years later the consequences come down the road toward him. Moses later describes a trembling heart and dread by day and night as the fruit of turning from God (Deuteronomy 28:65–67), and Jacob’s dread too has its roots in his own wrongdoing.

He fears in spite of all God has given him. God had promised at Bethel to keep him and bring him home, God had told him to return, and the angels of God had just met him on the way. Scripture tells this honestly, and it shows that fear and faith can live in the same heart. Proverbs gives the warning and the remedy in one verse: “The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe” (Proverbs 29:25). David gives the answer of faith: “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee” (Psalm 56:3). Jacob’s fear drives him to that very place, for his next words are a prayer (Genesis 32:9–12).

Jacob “divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands”. The people come first in the verse, and his first care is for his wives, children and servants. Then come the flocks of sheep and goats, the herds of cattle and the camels, so that every part of the household is split.

The word for “bands”, machăneh, means a camp, the place where people live in tents for a time, and by extension the company or army camped there. The same word stands behind “company” in verse 8. Just before this, Jacob had met God’s host and named the place “two camps”. Now, in his fear, he makes two camps of his own, while the angels of God are still near him.

His reason follows: “If Esau come to the one company, and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape.” The verb nâkâh means to strike, whether lightly or severely, and here it is the attack Jacob dreads. “Left” means what remains, and “escape” is pᵉlêyṭâh, deliverance, or concretely an escaped portion, a remnant. Splitting a large company was a common defence for travellers in dangerous country, so that an attack could not destroy everything at once. Jacob hopes that at least part of his family survives, and with it the line through which God’s promises to Abraham and Isaac were to be kept (Genesis 12:1–3, Genesis 26:3–4).

Jacob is the one who wronged Esau, and he is the one who reaches out first. Jesus gives the same order to his disciples: if your brother has something against you, leave your gift at the altar and first be reconciled to him (Matthew 5:23–24). Paul writes, “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:18). Jacob’s humble words also show the truth of the proverb, “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger” (Proverbs 15:1). He takes the lower place, names the other man’s honour, and asks for grace, and when the meeting comes, God has already turned Esau’s heart.

Jacob needed grace in the sight of the brother he had wronged. Our deeper need is grace in the sight of the holy God whom we have wronged by sin. While Jacob had to humble himself because he was guilty, Christ humbled himself because he loved us: he “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant”, and became obedient unto death on the cross (Philippians 2:5–8).

By that cross God has made peace. Christ is our peace, who has broken down the wall of hostility through his own body (Ephesians 2:14–16), and it pleased the Father to reconcile all things to himself through the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:19–20). He blotted out the record that stood against us and nailed it to his cross (Colossians 2:13–14). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). God sent his Son into the world to save it (John 3:16–17), and while we were still enemies we were reconciled to God by his death (Romans 5:8–11). So we may come boldly to the throne of grace, “that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

Jacob feared death and hoped that half his household might escape. Christ died to deliver those who all their lives were held in bondage by the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14–15). Those who belong to him are kept whole, for he says of his sheep that they shall never perish (John 10:28), and God gives us the victory over death through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:54–57). Jacob came through his night of fear with a new name, Israel (Genesis 32:28), and in Christ God gives his people a new standing with him.

Before Jacob sent a single messenger, God had already sent his own to meet him. This passage gives us a man who is afraid, who remembers the wrong he did, and who does what he can to make peace, and it shows that God goes before him all the same. The promise made at Bethel still holds, and the brother he dreads is already in God’s hands.

Jacob’s fear is told without any softening, and so is his remedy. He humbles himself before the one he wronged, plans with care for those in his charge, and then brings it all to God. Paul gives the same path to the anxious: “in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7).