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GenèseChapitre 32

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Early in the morning Laban kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them, and then he left and returned home.[^1] [^1]: Hebrew: *his sons*, here understood as his grandsons, the children of Jacob.
When Jacob saw them, he said, "This is God's camp!" So he named that place Mahanaim.[^1] [^1]: *Mahanaim* means "two camps," anticipating Jacob's division of his household in verse 8.
Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.
He instructed them: "Say this to my lord Esau: 'This is what your servant Jacob says: I have been staying with Laban and have remained there until now.
I have acquired oxen and donkeys, flocks, and male and female servants. I am sending this message to my lord in the hope of finding favor in your eyes.'"
The messengers returned to Jacob and said, "We went to your brother Esau, and he is already on his way to meet you—with four hundred men."
Jacob was terrified and distressed. He divided the people who were with him, along with the flocks, herds, and camels, into two camps,
thinking, "If Esau comes and attacks the one camp, the camp that is left will escape."
Then Jacob prayed, "God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, LORD, you told me, 'Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will deal well with you.'
I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I crossed this Jordan with nothing but my staff, and now I have become two camps.
Rescue me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid he will come and strike me down, mothers and children alike.
But you said, 'I will surely deal well with you and make your offspring like the sand of the sea, too numerous to count.'"
He spent that night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau:
two hundred female goats and twenty males, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,
thirty nursing camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten males.
He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and told them, "Go on ahead of me, and keep some distance between the herds."
He instructed the one in front: "When my brother Esau meets you and asks, 'Whose servant are you? Where are you going? And whose animals are these ahead of you?'—
then you are to say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he himself is coming along behind us.'"
He gave the same instructions to the second, the third, and all the others who followed the herds: "This is what you are to say to Esau when you meet him,
and be sure to add, 'Your servant Jacob is right behind us.'" For he thought, "I will appease him with the gift that goes ahead of me; afterward, when I see his face, perhaps he will receive me."
So the gift went on ahead of him, while he himself spent that night in the camp.
That night he got up, took his two wives, his two servant women, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
He took them and sent them across the stream, and he sent over all his possessions.
So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
Then he said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed."
Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" And there he blessed him.
So Jacob named the place Peniel, saying, "I have seen God face to face, and yet my life was spared."[^1] [^1]: *Peniel* (also spelled *Penuel* in verse 32) means "face of God."
The sun rose above him as he passed Penuel, and he was limping because of his hip.
That is why to this day the Israelites do not eat the sinew of the hip that is on the hip socket, because the man touched Jacob's hip socket at that sinew.
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