We. (Heid. 1683) calls attention to a trace of it in ancient
Arabia. For primitive parallels, see Frazer, Golden Bough,
ii. 419 ff., Folklore in OT, 142 f. The precise meaning of
(
Hebrew characters) is uncertain (v.i.).
In its fundamental conception the struggle at Peniel is not a dream
or vision like that which came to Jacob at Bethel; nor is it an allegory
of the spiritual life, symbolising the inward travail of a soul helpless
before some overhanging crisis of its destiny. It is a real physical encounter
which is described, in which Jacob measures his strength and
skill against a divine antagonist, and 'prevails,' though at the cost of
a bodily injury. No more boldly anthropomorphic narrative is found in
Genesis; and unless we shut our eyes to some of its salient features, we
must resign the attempt to translate it wholly into terms of religious
experience. We have to do with a legend, originating at a low level of
religion, in process of accommodation to the purer ideas of revealed
religion; and its history may have been somewhat as follows: (1) We
begin with the fact of a hand-to-hand conflict between a god and a man.
A similar idea appears in Ex. 424ff., where we read that Yahwe met Moses
and 'sought to kill him.' In the present passage the god was probably
not Yahwe originally, but a local deity, a night-spirit who fears the
dawn and refuses to disclose his name. Dr. Frazer has pointed out
that such stories as this are associated with water-spirits, and cites
many primitive customs (Folklore, 136 ff.) which seem to rest on the belief
that a river resents being crossed, and drowns many who attempt it.
He hazards the conjecture that the original deity of this passage was
the spirit of the Jabboḳ; in which case the word-play between (Hebrew characters) and
(Hebrew characters) may have greater significance than appears on the surface. (2) Like
many patriarchal theophanies, the narrative accounts for the foundation
of a sanctuary—that of Peniel. Of the cultus at Peniel we know nothing;
and there is very little in the story that can be supposed to bear upon it,
unless we assume, with Gu. and others, that the limping on the thigh
refers to a ritual dance regularly observed there (cf. 1 Ki. 1826).[1] (3) By
J and E the story was incorporated in the national epos as part of the
history of Jacob. The God who wrestles with the patriarch is Yahwe;
and how far the wrestling was understood as a literal fact remains uncertain.
To these writers the main interest lies in the origin of the name
Israel, and the blessing bestowed on the nation in the person of its
ancestor. (4) A still more refined interpretation is found, it seems to
me, in Ho. 124. 5: 'In the womb he overreached his brother; and in his
prime he strove with God. He strove ((Hebrew characters)) with the Angel and prevailed;
he wept and made supplication to him.' The substitution of the
Angel of Yahwe for the divine Being Himself shows increasing sensitiveness
to anthropomorphism; and the last line appears to mark an advance
in the spiritualising of the incident, the subject being not the Angel (as
Gu. and others hold), but Jacob, whose 'prevailing' thus becomes that
of importunate prayer.—We may note in a word Steuernagel's ethno-*
- ↑ But see footnote on p. 410 above.
