Genesis 32
Open in the reader1Early the next morning, White got up and kissed his grandchildren and daughters and blessed them. Then he left to return home.
2Heel-Grabber also went on his way, and the messengers of God met him.
3When Heel-Grabber saw them, he said, “This is the camp of God.” So he named that place Two-Camps.
4Heel-Grabber sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Hairy in the land of Hairy, the country of Red.
5He instructed them, “You are to say to my master Hairy, ‘Your servant Heel-Grabber says: I have been staying with White and have remained there until now.
6I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, menservants, and maidservants. I have sent this message to inform my master, so that I may find favor in your sight.’”
7When the messengers returned to Heel-Grabber, they said, “We went to your brother Hairy, and now he is coming to meet you—he and four hundred men with him.”
8In great fear and distress, Heel-Grabber divided his people into two camps, as well as the flocks and herds and camels.
9He thought, “If Hairy comes and attacks one camp, then the other camp can escape.”
10Then Heel-Grabber declared, “O God of my father Father-of-a-Multitude, God of my father He-Laughs, He-Who-Is who told me, ‘Go back to your country and to your kindred, and I will make you prosper,’
11I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness You have shown Your servant. Indeed, with only my staff I came across the Descender, but now I have become two camps.
12Please deliver me from the hand of my brother Hairy, for I am afraid that he may come and attack me and the mothers and children with me.
13But You have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper, and I will make your offspring like the sand of the Sea, too numerous to count.’”
14Heel-Grabber spent the night there, and from what he had brought with him, he selected a gift for his brother Hairy:
15200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams,
1630 milk camels with their young, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys.
17He entrusted them to his servants in separate herds and told them, “Go on ahead of me, and keep some distance between the herds.”
18He instructed the one in the lead, “When my brother Hairy meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong, where are you going, and whose animals are these before you?’
19then you are to say, ‘They belong to your servant Heel-Grabber. They are a gift, sent to my lord Hairy. And behold, Heel-Grabber is behind us.’”
20He also instructed the second, the third, and all those following behind the herds: “When you meet Hairy, you are to say the same thing to him.
21You are also to say, ‘Look, your servant Heel-Grabber is right behind us.’” For he thought, “I will appease Hairy with the gift that is going before me. After that I can face him, and perhaps he will accept me.”
22So Heel-Grabber’s gifts went on before him, while he spent the night in the camp.
23During the night Heel-Grabber got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of the Pouring-Out.
24He took them and sent them across the stream, along with all his possessions.
25So Heel-Grabber was left all alone, and there a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
26When the man saw that he could not overpower Heel-Grabber, he struck the socket of Heel-Grabber’s hip and dislocated it as they wrestled.
27Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Heel-Grabber replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
28“What is your name?” the man asked. “Heel-Grabber,” he replied.
29Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Heel-Grabber, but Strives-with-God, because you have struggled with God and with men, and you have prevailed.”
30And Heel-Grabber requested, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed Heel-Grabber there.
31So Heel-Grabber named the place Face-of-God, saying, “Indeed, I have seen God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
32The sun rose above him as he passed by Face-of-God, and he was limping because of his hip.
33Therefore to this day the children of Strives-with-God do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Heel-Grabber’s hip was struck near that tendon.