Jacob's fight on the Jabbok

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Initial E, Egerton 1066 (13th century)
Eugène Delacroix , The Battle of Jacob with the Angel , wall painting for Saint-Sulpice in Paris (1861)

Jacob's fight at the Jabbok is a biblical story ( Gen 32,23-33  LUT ). It contains the only description of a wrestling match in Genesis and the singular motive in the Bible that the blessing is wrested from a divine being.

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The story is not understandable by itself, but an episode of the brotherly conflict between Jacob and Esau . Jakob had to flee from his twin brother as a young man and now returns years later as a wealthy father. He makes preparations to make Esau peaceful for the upcoming encounter.

A change of location (verse 23) marks the beginning of the story. The action takes place in Pnuël , a not exactly identifiable location in the East Bank . Jacob's caravan crossed the deeply cut gorge of the Nahr ez-Zarqa (Jabbok) at night , and Jacob was left alone.

Jacob is suddenly attacked by a man who wrestles with him until dawn. Both fighters are equal. The stranger hits Jakob on the hip, but does not gain any advantage. The day is breaking and the opponent asks to be let go. Jacob sets him a condition: “I will not let you, then you will bless me.” (Verse 27) So he receives the new name Israel from his adversary , because he is with God ( Hebrew אֱלֹהִים ĕlohîm ) himself wrestled ( Hebrew שׂרה śārā ) without being defeated (v. 28). The stranger is not ready to give his own name.

Attacker identity

The Hebrew text itself seems to suggest that Jacob wrestled with God himself, since verse 28 would otherwise make little sense. At the same time, however, this reading collides with the idea of ​​divine omnipotence, since Jacob cannot be defeated. For this reason, attempts were made to explain the passage early on. There are various interpretations in the Midrashim . Some identify the "man" in Hebrew אִישׁ 'Ish who attacks Jacob as the (protective) angel of Jacob or Archangel Michael . Alternatively, the attacker is also referred to as Sammael , the representative of Esau and all the powers fighting against Israel who have been equated with Esau.

In the Bible itself, Hosea 12: 4-5 offers an interpretation: “In the womb he (= Jacob) cheated on his brother, and when he was strong, he fought with God . And he fought with a messenger and overcame him, he (= Jacob) wept and implored him for mercy ... ”(translation: Zurich Bible 2007). One thing is clear about this dark text: Hosea reinterpreted the ambivalent figure Jakob in negative terms. With this the prophet criticizes his contemporaries, the people in the northern kingdom of Israel , who can be traced back to Jacob.

In the history of research, the “man” of the original story was often identified with a demon who was later reinterpreted as God to explain the name Israel , or, since the scene takes place at the Jabbok, with the numen of a river. "His light-shy nature fits his wild bloodlust."

Parallels in the history of religion

Hermann Gunkel put together the parallels in the history of religion .

  • The nocturnal fight with demons or ghosts is close to the nightmare and is a common fairy tale motif. One example is Beowulf's fight with Grendel .
  • A person defeats or outwits a deity and thus attains secret knowledge or some other gift. Examples: Menelaus holds Proteus , Midas holds Silenus prisoner.

Research history

Julius Wellhausen assigned Gen 32: 23–33 as a uniform composition to the Yahwist ; in it are his Martin Noth , Gerhard von Rad , Claus Westermann followed and others. But there are duplicates in the text, which give rise to literary-critical operations, so that part of the text was also ascribed to the Elohist (e.g. von Gunkel). Verse 33 is generally judged to be a gloss.

An archaic individual tradition

Often the narrative was viewed as particularly archaic. An individual tradition handed down orally reported that a hiker (not yet identified as Jakob) was attacked by a demon while crossing the Jabbok at night.

The oldest Israelite version, according to Ludwig Schmidt, identified the wanderer with Jacob and added verses 28–29 with the renaming to Israel. In the next step, verse 31 was added, the nocturnal adventure is interpreted as an encounter with God. The comparison with Ex 4,24-26  LUT shows that the idea of ​​being threatened by God was compatible with the religion of Israel. But this also requires that Jacob could not emerge victorious from the battle, accordingly verse 31 comments: Jacob did not save himself, he was saved. Up to this stage, Ludwig Schmidt reckons with an oral tradition.

Only now, according to Schmidt, had the Yahwist accepted the story and wrote it down. By rephrasing verse 26, the Yahwist made it clear that Jacob was inferior to God, and in verse 32 once again took up the motive of combat injury. For the Yahwist, however, history is “not a tradition dragged along as rubble,” but corresponds to his theology. For him, the encounter with God is both threatening and healing.

A piece of exilic / post-exilic literature

Harald-Martin Wahl takes an opposing position on this. "In terms of tradition, it is unthinkable to convey a story infused with mythical motifs with the name of the protagonist, the river and the place crossed over several centuries." The present written context and, by no means archaic, one of the more recent Jacobean stories in Genesis. According to Wahls analysis, the text was written in exilic-post-exilic times, including mythical motifs; an older oral form does not exist or cannot be reconstructed.

Jewish history of interpretation

The story of Jacob's fight on the Jabbok is part of Parascha Wajischlach .

Rashi explained that Jacob was returning to the other bank to get some things that he had forgotten. The attacker was Esau's guardian angel. The angel asked to be let go because at daybreak he had to sing God's praises. All these details can already be found in the Midrash Genesis Rabba.

Maimonides interpreted the wrestling match and the dialogue with an angel in the leader of the undecided as a prophetic vision. But how is it that Jacob limped the next morning? Gersonides explains this with an interrelation between soul and body. Because of the exertion of crossing the Jabbok, Jakob suffered pain at night, which combined with the dream of a wrestling match.

Nachmanides assumed that Jacob's wrestling match with the angel Esau was a symbol of the struggle between Israel and the peoples. So the people of Israel wrestle with anti-Jewish governments until dawn (redemption) breaks.

Christian interpretation history

Martin Luther interpreted the wrestling match as a basic experience of faith and put the following dialogue in the mouths of the opponents: “That man with a terrible voice: Pereundum tibi erit. Jacob you have to serve. Jakob replied: No, God doesn't want that. Non peribo. Yes and no went very severely and violently against each other. ... God himself says: Tu peribis (you will perish). But the spirit contradicts: Non moriar, sed vivam (I will not die, I will live). ”This idea was taken up again in Neo-Lutheranism ( Werner Elert ).

Johann Arndt assumed a similarly dramatic situation as Luther, but set his own accents. The Christian should grasp God by his biblical promises and hold fast in prayer. "So we have to learn to hold God as Jacob held the angel, but not with physical strength and strength, but through faith and prayer."

In Pietism, Jacob's fight on the Jabbok was reinterpreted as a prayer fight. Jacob, a repentant sinner, struggles for God's grace. But, as Gunkel remarked, when you pray you don't twist your hips.

The story of Jacob's fight on the Jabbok is used today in children's services and religious instruction. This is made possible by an existential depth psychological interpretation, which occurs in different variants and can be summarized as follows: Jacob has to cross the river (symbol of death). It is night: Jacob meets his shadow . What attacks him is part of himself. By saying his name, he accepts himself. Now he can integrate his shadow, and that is the blessing. The sun rises (rebirth). Jacob emerges from the nightly fight changed (new name), but not unharmed.

reception

The subject has been featured frequently in the visual arts.

In terms of music, Heinrich Schütz provides the phrase “ I won't let you, you bless me ” for entry into the Musical Exequien (SWV 279). Johann Sebastian Bach created the cantata: I will not leave you, you will bless me (BWV 159). Christologically, the Protestant clergyman Christian Keimann developed the phrase in the chorale in 1658: I will not leave my Jesus .

In literary terms, Nelly Sachs refers to the motif in the poem Jakob from the volume Star Darkening (1949). The wrestling match at the Jabbok serves as a metaphor for the Shoah . The battle wound of Jacob becomes in the poem "an iconographic wound, a symbol for the mental and metaphysical harm of all those who survived the killing, as well as humanity in general, who appears in the poem as 'we'."

The place name Pnuël, after another spelling Pniel, scene of the story, means "face of God". Several religious institutions and newly established settlements received this name; best known is Pniel in the Cape Winelands , South Africa, a former mission station.

Web links

Commons : Jakobs Kampf am Jabbok  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

literature

  • Almut Sh. Bruckstein: On the uprising of images; Materials on Rembrandt and Midrash with a sketch for the establishment of a Jewish-Islamic workshop for philosophy and art. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 2007. ( digitized version )
  • Hermann Gunkel : Genesis, translated and explained (= Göttinger Handkommentar zum Old Testament. ). 5th edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1922. pp. 359–365 ( online )
  • Ludwig Schmidt: The fight of Jacob on the Jabbok (Gen 32, 23-33). In: Collected essays on the Pentateuch (= supplements to the journal for Old Testament science . New series, volume 263) Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 1998, pp. 38–56.
  • Harald-Martin Wahl: The Jacob stories: studies of their oral tradition, writing and historicity. (= Supplements to the journal for Old Testament science . New series, Volume 258) Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1997, pp. 278–288.
  • Peter Weimar: "O Israel, first fruit in the morning gray fight" (Nelly Sachs). On the function and theology of the God struggle episode Gen 23–33 * . In: Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift 40, 2/1989, pp. 79–113. ( Digitized version )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Almut Sh. Bruckstein: On the uprising of images . 2007, p. 38-39 .
  2. ^ Hermann Gunkel: Genesis . 1922, p. 364 .
  3. ^ Hermann Gunkel: Genesis . 1922, p. 361 .
  4. ↑ Ludwig Schmidt: The fight of Jacob on the Jabbok . 1998, p. 42 .
  5. ↑ a b Ludwig Schmidt: The fight of Jacob on the Jabbok . 1998, p. 46 .
  6. ↑ Ludwig Schmidt: The fight of Jacob on the Jabbok . 1998, p. 47 .
  7. ↑ Ludwig Schmidt: The fight of Jacob on the Jabbok . 1998, p. 52 .
  8. ↑ a b Harald-Martin Wahl: The stories of Jacob . 1997, p. 281 .
  9. ↑ Harald-Martin Wahl: The stories of Jacob . 1997, p. 288 .
  10. ↑ Maimonides: Moreh Nevukhim . tape 2 , no. 42.2 .
  11. ↑ a b Bernhard S. Jacobson: Bina Bamikra, Thoughts on the Torah . Ed .: Publication Section of the Torah Education and Culture Department for the Diaspora of the World Zionist Congress. Jerusalem 1987, p. 62-63 .
  12. ↑ Martin Luther: Genesis Lecture (cap. 31–50) . In: WA . tape 44 , 1922, pp. 100-101 .
  13. ^ Johann Arndt: Postilla or ingenious explanation of the usual Sunday and holiday gospels . Leipzig and Görlitz 1734, p. 318 .
  14. ^ Hermann Gunkel: Genesis . 1922, p. 360 .
  15. ↑ Michael Fricke: ›Difficult‹ Bible texts in religious education: theoretical and empirical elements of an Old Testament Bible didactics for the primary level . V & R unipress, Göttingen 2005, p. 470-471 .
  16. ↑ Ruth Kranz-Löber: In the depth of the ravine: the Shoah in the poetry of Nelly Sachs . Würzburg 2001, p. 25 .