CHAPTER XXXII.

JACOB A REFUGEE- CONSCIENCE MAKES COWARDICE ANGELS MEET JACOB JACOB'S PLANS OF PROPITIATING ESAU MESSAGE TO ESAU HIS PRAYER HIS PRESENTS TO ESAU.

JACOB, as we ascertained in a previous chapter, dissatisfied with his services and his pay in the house and family of Laban, the father of Rachel, as indeed he had reason to be, is now a refugee alike from the home of his father-in-law, and from the wrath of his brother, justly excited by Jacob receiving his birth-right by deceit, and thus dislodging and displanting him. In such circumstances, Jacob felt, as most feel, that when the conscience is ill at ease, the heart is rarely very heroic. Jacob felt he had done wrong before God, and unjustly toward man; and conscience, so accusing, makes a coward of him that feels it. God, whose mercies abound, even where man's sins abound, whose ways are not our ways, and who in judgment remembers mercy, seems to have met Jacob, and often, in spite of his sins, often over his sins, to have sustained and comforted him; yet not forgetting, but condemning his sins, and leading Jacob not only by his grace to repent of them, but in his providence bitterly to feel and see the retributions to which sins necessarily lead, even in this present life, and in the best of men. "The angels of God met him." This is an angelic function. They are ministering servants to them that are the heirs of salvation; and on God's errands, and executing his behests, they came to Jacob, dejected and depressed, for purposes of comfort, encouragement and cheering. And he called the name of the

place where he had been thus encouraged and reïnvigorated, MAHANAIM; that is, "The place of God's hosts," or "multitudes," or "angels." He thus made each stage in his journey a shrine of recollections. Knowing that he had to pass through the country of Esau his brother, and anticipating, from the exasperated state of Esau's feelings, that there was very little likelihood of his having a quiet and unobstructed route through his wild territory, he falls upon the good and Christian policy of trying to propitiate, instead of making ready to fight, his brother, and thus to secure, if possible, a peaceful and quiet route through the country which Esau, the powerful sheik, governed. You will notice in his arrangements a great deal of cunning, or rather of policy, in Jacob; though perhaps there was cunning, too, for there were many grievous defects in his character; he seems to have had a great deal of shrewd policy, and a right estimate of what men were, and how men are to be dealt with, in order to manage them successfully. He says, in the fourth verse, to his servants, “Thus shall ye speak unto my lord Esau." He gives Esau a title of dignity. Now, the fact was that Jacob, the younger, had got the blessing-Esau had lost it; but Jacob addresses Esau just as if he had obtained what he was entitled to as the elder- the blessing, and that he, Jacob the younger, had it not. He covered his own designs by a compliment to Esau; and men still will often be complimented into temper when they will not be coerced into it. He says, Go and tell "to my lord Esau, thy servant Jacob," — not thy brother Jacob, still less thy brother who has got the blessing that he took away from you by deceit,—“thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now and I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and men-servants, and women-servants." Why does he tell him this? Not evidently by way of parade of the riches that he had amassed, but as a reason why Jacob should not

seem, by appealing to Esau, to be going to ask him for anything. Esau, as Jacob foresaw, would say, He is complimenting me as an apology for what he has done before; he is disposed to merge all recollections that he has got the blessing; no doubt he wants money: he would not come to me except he was in straitened circumstances; and therefore, I suppose, all this compliment is preliminary to asking the loan of a sum that he wants for his journey, or begging in destitution and in need. But the answer of Jacob to this is, Tell him at once that I am not come to ask him for anything, for I have oxen, and asses, and flocks, and men-servants, and women-servants; I am come for one thing only, "that I may find in thy sight,". grace that is all I ask. The messengers returned to Jacob, and said, "We came to thy brother Esau," -they used different language, not thy lord Esau," and also he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him." They did not state the reception that they met with; but Jacob guessed what the four hundred men were likely to be after, by the light of his conscience, which told him that he had done wrong, and therefore that he might fear; and you know, quite well, that when a person has sin within, he puts a construction on everything that happens, in the light of his sin. For instance, when the disciples were tossed on the waves, they knew that they had done wrong, and so, when Jesus came, they thought, at first, it was a spirit,—not from any likeness in Jesus, but from their own fears,-" and they were afraid," and they could scarcely believe that it was he. When a man has done wrong, he believes that everything that betides him in providence comes to him, not as a mercy, but as a retribution for his sins.

Jacob now divided the people that were with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands. He anticipated battle; he made ready for the worst; but if he did so, one would suppose that, instead of dividing his forces, and

allowing them to be beaten in detail, he ought rather, according to the usage of Napoleon, to have concentrated all his forces, in order to strike a blow that would be most successful by being most powerfully concentrated. But he was no soldier, but a shepherd; and, therefore, his blunders in military strategy can be easily excused. If he did not anticipate battle, he might have thought that he had no means of success, if battle took place, and that an appeal, ad misericordiam, to the compassion of Esau, would be more serviceable; he therefore sends one band forward to see how they might be treated. If he had sent all forward, he felt, no doubt, that all would be destroyed; but if he sent forth half, then, if they were destroyed, it would be a warning to the others to escape as fast as they could, and seek safety in flight.

Before making all his arrangements, he addressed God in prayer, in words truly beautiful and holy: "O God of my

father Abraham,". that is, a covenant God,

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"and God of

my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee," — pleading God's promise; then he adds, "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant." I am most unworthy; I have done nothing to deserve it, I have done everything to forfeit it; I am a miserable sinner; I can only appeal to thy great mercy, who hast set purposes to accomplish in thy providence, to deliver me from the wrath of my brother Esau, whom I have justly offended. He pleads God's promise, "I will surely do thee good." This is a very just precedent for us.

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He then sends a present a very handsome present — to Esau. Remember that the age was a pastoral age, and property was cattle. I explained before that the very word money in Latin, and in some degree in English, has a reference to cattle as its origin. Pecunia, which means money, from

which our word pecuniary is derived, comes from the word pecus, cattle; and on ancient coins we find the picture of an ox in alto-relievo. He sent Esau a very handsome present, and he arranges his present so that one present should come after another, till Esau should suppose that there was no end to the property that he was to receive from successive companies coming up, telling him the reason why they had come. from Jacob, and the liberality which they were commissioned to exercise. All ended far better than he had expected.

We read next of his retirement and sequestration for a little, and of that remarkable scene in the close of the chapter, an actual scene, not a vision,— wherein he wrestled with some mysterious Being;-how, we cannot say,-who said, "Let me go, for the day breaketh." The Hebrew word meaning to wrestle, like the corresponding Greek, literally implies to raise the dust. It might have been said that Jacob dusted with this Being, wrestling being so called in consequence of its raising the dust. This is so both in Hebrew and in Greek. And Jacob said, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." What intense desire for a blessing! "And he said unto him, What is thy name?"— not that he was ignorant of it, "And he said Jacob," which means a supplanter. Then this Being changed this name, which arose from a discreditable occurrence, and gave him a more noble and aristocratic one in its place- “Israel," literally "a man with God," or, "a man with power with God." Here is the origin of a word that has lasted to this day, and that will last while human speech is spoken, or while human recollection survives, or this dispensation runs. This change of name often occurs in ancient history. You will recollect that in this most interesting history of the patriarch that we have been reading, Abram was altered to Abraham, in consequence of a change of circumstances, and Sarai was altered to Sarah, from another change of relation and circumstances.

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