Discovery BoxGenesis 32:11 
Context32:11 Rescue me, 1 I pray, from the hand 2 of my brother Esau, 3 for I am afraid he will come 4 and attack me, as well as the mothers with their children. 5
Genesis 32:28-29
Context32:28 “No longer will your name be Jacob,” the man told him, 6 “but Israel, 7 because you have fought 8 with God and with men and have prevailed.”
32:29 Then Jacob asked, “Please tell me your name.” 9 “Why 10 do you ask my name?” the man replied. 11 Then he blessed 12 Jacob 13 there.
1 tn The imperative has the force of a prayer here, not a command.
2 tn The “hand” here is a metonymy for “power.”
3 tn Heb “from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau.”
4 tn Heb “for I am afraid of him, lest he come.”
5 sn Heb “me, [the] mother upon [the] sons.” The first person pronoun “me” probably means here “me and mine,” as the following clause suggests.
6 tn Heb “and he said.” The referent of the pronoun “he” (the man who wrestled with Jacob) has been specified for clarity, and the order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.
7 sn The name Israel is a common construction, using a verb with a theophoric element (אֵל, ’el) that usually indicates the subject of the verb. Here it means “God fights.” This name will replace the name Jacob; it will be both a promise and a call for faith. In essence, the
8 sn You have fought. The explanation of the name Israel includes a sound play. In Hebrew the verb translated “you have fought” (שָׂרִיתָ, sarita) sounds like the name “Israel” (יִשְׂרָאֵל, yisra’el ), meaning “God fights” (although some interpret the meaning as “he fights [with] God”). The name would evoke the memory of the fight and what it meant. A. Dillmann says that ever after this the name would tell the Israelites that, when Jacob contended successfully with God, he won the battle with man (Genesis, 2:279). To be successful with God meant that he had to be crippled in his own self-sufficiency (A. P. Ross, “Jacob at the Jabboq, Israel at Peniel,” BSac 142 [1985]: 51-62).
9 sn Tell me your name. In primitive thought to know the name of a deity or supernatural being would enable one to use it for magical manipulation or power (A. S. Herbert, Genesis 12-50 [TBC], 108). For a thorough structural analysis of the passage discussing the plays on the names and the request of Jacob, see R. Barthes, “The Struggle with the Angel: Textual Analysis of Genesis 32:23-33,” Structural Analysis and Biblical Exegesis (PTMS), 21-33.
10 tn The question uses the enclitic pronoun “this” to emphasize the import of the question.
11 tn Heb “and he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’” The referent of the pronoun “he” (the man who wrestled with Jacob) has been specified for clarity, and the order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.
12 tn The verb here means that the
13 tn Heb “him”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
