As one sees the face of God
1 Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. He divided the children between Leah, Rachel, and the two servants. 2 He put the servants and their children in front, Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph at the rear. 3 He himself passed over in front of them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. 4 Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, fell on his neck, kissed him, and they wept. 5 He lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, “Who are these with you?” He said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.” 6 Then the servants came near with their children, and they bowed themselves. 7 Leah also and her children came near, and bowed themselves. After them, Joseph came near with Rachel, and they bowed themselves. 8 Esau said, “What do you mean by all this company which I met?” Jacob said, “To find favor in the sight of my lord.” 9 Esau said, “I have enough, my brother; let that which you have be yours.” 10 Jacob said, “Please, no, if I have now found favor in your sight, then receive my present at my hand, because I have seen your face, as one sees the face of God, and you were pleased with me. 11 Please take the gift that I brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough.” He urged him, and he took it. 12 Esau said, “Let’s take our journey, and let’s go, and I will go before you.” 13 Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are tender, and that the flocks and herds with me have their young, and if they overdrive them one day, all the flocks will die. 14 Please let my lord pass over before his servant, and I will lead on gently, according to the pace of the livestock that are before me and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord to Seir.” 15 Esau said, “Let me now leave with you some of the people who are with me.” He said, “Why? Let me find favor in the sight of my lord.” 16 So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir. 17 Jacob traveled to Succoth, built himself a house, and made shelters for his livestock. Therefore the name of the place is called Succoth. 18 Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan Aram; and encamped before the city. 19 He bought the parcel of ground where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for one hundred pieces of money. 20 He erected an altar there, and called it El Elohe Israel.
The brother he has feared for twenty years runs and embraces him, and Jacob cannot quite believe it enough to travel with him.
Esau appears with his four hundred men and Jacob arranges his family in order of what he can afford to lose — servants and their children in front, Leah and hers behind, and Rachel and Joseph at the rear.
It is a sensible battle formation and it is a cruelty. The ranking is public and everyone in it can count. Leah has spent her life being second and now stands in the middle of a defensive line with her six children while the favored wife is placed out of reach.
But Jacob himself goes first — He himself passed over in front of them — and bows seven times on the way, which is the protocol for approaching a king. The man who was told nations would bow to him crawls the last hundred yards.
And then everything the chapter has been dreading dissolves in one verse: Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, fell on his neck, kissed him, and they wept.
Four verbs and no words. Esau runs — the brother with the army runs — and there is no negotiation, no accounting, and no mention of the birthright or the blessing. Whatever twenty years had done to Esau, it had not preserved the hatred he left with, and Genesis gives no explanation for the change. It simply happens, and the two of them stand in the road and cry.
The conversation that follows is a study in two temperaments. Esau's questions are direct and his refusals are generous: I have enough, my brother; let that which you have be yours. He does not want the animals.
Jacob presses the gift on him anyway, and the sentence he uses to do it is the most important in the chapter: I have seen your face, as one sees the face of God, and you were pleased with me.
He named a place Peniel the night before, because he had seen God face to face and lived. Now he looks at the brother he defrauded and says the same thing. The two encounters are set side by side deliberately — an all-night struggle with God, then a morning meeting with the man he wronged — and Jacob's own verdict is that surviving the second was of the same order as surviving the first. Reconciliation with a brother is described in the vocabulary of seeing God.
He also says I have enough, which is the same phrase Esau used, and it is worth marking in a man who has spent his life taking.
And then, having said all that, he will not travel with him. He pleads the children and the nursing flocks, promises to come on gently until I come to my lord to Seir, declines an escort — and goes to Succoth and then to Shechem instead. He never goes to Seir. The old habit of saying what will get him out of the room survives the new name by about a paragraph.
What he does at Shechem is the chapter's quiet achievement. He bought the parcel of ground where he had spread his tent for a hundred pieces of money — the second piece of land the family has ever owned in Canaan, after a grave — and erected an altar there, and called it El Elohe Israel, God, the God of Israel. He uses his new name in the name of the altar.
settled What this mark means