The Amazing Encounter

My dear readers, our horrible war has been going on for almost a year already. As my friend wrote to me, “It’s now coming up to a year since October 7, and it’s heartbreaking to see the war still going on and Israel so divided”. So, maybe it will come as no surprise that in these days of Elul – the month before the High Holidays, the month of confession and repentance – I want to study the story of reconciliation; one of the most beautiful stories in the Torah.

In Genesis 33, after the amazing encounter with his brother Esau, the encounter that went much better than everyone had expected, Jacob says some strange words to Esau: that for him, to see Esau’s face was “like seeing the face of God”.  רָאִיתִי פָנֶיךָ כִּרְאֹת פְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים. This phrase comes at the end of their meeting, when the danger is clearly over, and leaves a reader confused and perplexed. Why would Jacob say that? Is it pure flattery, or is there more to it?

Esau’s readiness to make peace with his brother comes as a great surprise. There is hardly any doubt that it was not Esau’s original plan.  He was approaching Jacob with 400 men, which certainly didn’t communicate peaceful intentions: he didn’t need 400 men in order to weep on his brother’s neck! However, everything was changed during the meeting.  Why?

We can find an answer in the words that Jacob says to Esau. In English, these words come rather unexpectedly. However, in Hebrew, the idea of panim (face) is certainly one of the main motifs in the whole narrative of Jacob’s return to the Land. The root פָּנִים  (panim) and the words derived from this root, occur many times in the Hebrew verses preceding the meeting of the brothers (Gen.32:17-21). In order to understand the difference between the Hebrew and English texts, read, for instance, Genesis 32:20 “…For he thought, ‘I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me.’   The word “face” is not used in this translation even once (nor in many others as well), while in Hebrew, in this verse alone, the root panim occurs four times.  This builds a case and prepares us for the name Peniel (פְּנִיאֵל) “face of God”, the place of Jacob’s wrestling and encounter with God.  It’s important to understand that the reconciliation with Esau was not simply a family affair, as it probably seemed to the brothers at that moment. Rather, it was an event of global significance.  The very fact that at the end of chapter 32, when Jacob is about to enter the Land and meet his brother, he has this amazing “wrestling” encounter with God (by the way, exactly like his dream twenty years earlier, this encounter is absolutely unique in the entire  Bible), shows how significant this reconciliation was in God’s eyes.

Think of it: twenty years have passed, and many things have happened during those years; many changes have occurred. Jacob is now a great man who is blessed by God with the blessing of Abraham. He is the father of a large family and he is returning to the Land.  And yet, the most important thing in God’s eyes is the transformation of the heart – and the most clear and obvious criterion of this transformation is reconciliation with his brother. That is why, right before this meeting, God met Jacob in the most important encounter of his life – one that defined his name and the name of the whole people. In the morning, “Jacob called the place Peniel, (“face of God”), saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”[1]  Yes, it was there, at Peniel, that Jacob saw God “face to face” (hence the name of the place); it was there, at Peniel, that not only Jacob’s name, but also his heart, was changed.  That is why this fateful meeting between the two brothers went completely differently from what was expected: ”But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept.”[2]

The change happened because it was Israel, not Jacob, who Esau met. Esau expected to see the arrogant, self-confident brother who had always looked down upon him – instead, he saw this humble, repentant man who was limping toward him and bowing humbly before him. The change was dramatic, real and sincere – and Esau sensed this change immediately and ran to kiss this new-found brother.

But there is something more that we can see in the story of Jacob when we read it in Hebrew. You probably remember his first encounter with God: so called “Jacob’s Ladder”, Jacob’s dream on the way from Beer-Sheba to Haran. Let’s go back to Genesis 28 – and if we read this chapter in Hebrew, we will find that almost as many times as the word “face“ occurs in chapter 33, the term מָקוֹם  (makom) “place”  occurs here,  in chapter 28. Remember, here Jacob is on his way to exile and he is about to leave the Land. This encounter with God in the dream probably happened during his last night in the Land, and as far as we know, this was the first time that God spoke to him personally. When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”[3]  So we see very clearly that at this point, not only this encounter, but probably his whole concept of God, is connected to this place.

These two meetings with God – when Jacob is leaving the land and when he returns – form a peculiar literary inclusio: everything that happens with him in exile happens between these encounters. However, it’s not just a straight line between these encounters; within these divine ‘brackets’, we see a beautiful progression that we don’t want to miss – the progression of God’s revelation, the progression of Jacob’s faith, the progression of Jacob’s knowledge of God: from the place of God to the face of God!

It took twenty years, but finally Jacob saw God face to face! And it is only after Peniel that everything changed! Undoubtedly, Jacob’s character had been changing all these years; however, it’s only when God met him at Peniel, that he was transformed completely. From ‘the place of God’ to ‘the face of God’! Only after that, was he able to reconcile with his enemy/brother’, because only after that, was he able to see the face of God in Esau. רָאִיתִי פָנֶיךָ כִּרְאֹת פְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים.

Oh, how much we need Peniel today!  How we long for such an encounter—for His intervention, for seeing the face of God! We need it for our government, we need it for our people—and we need it for our endless enemies!

“Restore us, O Lord God of hosts;

Cause Your face to shine,

And we shall be saved!”[4]

[1] Gen. 32: 31

[2] Gen.33:4

[3] Gen 28:16,17

[4] Ps. 80:19

If you like the articles on this blog, you might enjoy also my books. And as always,  I would be happy to provide more information (and also a teacher’s discount for new students) regarding our wonderful courses  (juliab@eteachergroup.com).