Seeing the Face of God

Parashat Vayishlach (Gen. 32:4–36:43)is filled with angels, but the text of the Torah sometimes calls them men (ish). For example, the text tells us that Jacob sees “angels of God” at Mahanaim but in Sefer Ha Yashar, we learn that the band of angelic beings is actually seventy-two men who are Isaac's servants sent by Jacob's mother, Rebecca, warning her son of the threat of Esau's advance against him. Later, Jacob meets a “man” who wrestles him through the night. That man is identified by the prophet Hosea as an angel. The reader will recall that, years earlier, the patriarch Abraham entertained visitors who appear as “three men," we learn later they were angels. You will recall Joseph sent to check on his brothers and is redirected by a “man” in the field. Rashi tells us that the stranger is the angel Gabriel (see Genesis Rabbah 84:14).

This linguistic ambiguity is deliberate but reveals how God intervenes in our lives, though we may never be aware.

An angel is not defined by what it is, but by what it does. In Hebrew, the word malach means messenger. Rashi teaches that such a being is created for only one mission. It may be a heavenly entity, a human, or even a natural force acting according to God’s will.

When a mysterious man appears at a decisive moment in the Torah, the Sages often understand the mysterious figure signals that we are observing divine providence veiled in what seems to be reality. The ordinary human encounter becomes the doorway to something far greater. Nowhere is this clearer than in Jacob’s epic wrestling match:

Jacob was left alone. And a figure wrestled with him until the break of dawn.

When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was strained as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” (Gen. 32:25-27)

The prophet Hosea later reveals what Genesis only hints at: Jacob wrested with an angel:

"He strove with an angel and prevailed; he wept and beseeched him; In Bethel he shall find Him, and there He shall speak with us." - Hosea 12:5

Commentators differ on who was weeping. Many say Jacob did so, worn down by the uncertainty of facing Esau. Midrash Rabbah imagines that it was the angel who wept—overcome by Jacob’s spiritual strength. The Zohar suggests both wept, each from his own realm. Whoever shed the tears, they mark the emotional turning point of the night. The angel wounds Jacob, striking his hip. Jacob refuses to let go without receiving a blessing. The figure blesses him, renames him Israel, and vanishes with the dawn.

Boiled down to its essence, the Torah places “ish” and “malach” all through the narrative to reveal that the events of Vayishlach are guided directly by God,
sometimes through heavenly messengers,
 sometimes through human messengers,
and sometimes through beings who are both.

When the sun rises, Jacob is limping. This is not incidental. Ramban says the wound is a sign of Jacob’s transformation. Sforno sees it as humbling Jacob before meeting Esau. Midrash Rabbah views it as a symbol of Israel’s future struggles—and eventual healing at the dawn of a new world.

Jacob’s injury teaches that an encounter with the Divine cannot leave a person unchanged. Here Jacob makes his astonishing declaration:

“I have seen God face to face, and my life was spared.”

This statement calls to mind a later event, when Moses’ at Sinai, asks to see God's kavod (glory). God says, “No man can see Me and live.” Then, God's shows Moses His "back" in the form of a panorama of unfolding world history. God's glory is revealed when His promises come to pass. In the aftermath of the wrestling match, Jacob realizes that what he thought were the hands of Esau, the schemes of Lavan, or random twists of fate were, in truth, the guiding hands of the Living God.

With his new name, he is no longer the Jacob who fled in fear. He wrestled with God and lived. He is the one who saw the Divine in the darkest of nights.

Jacob's wound was not a setback, rather it was the seal of his calling. He is Israel, the namesake of a nation that struggles with God, with history, with enemies, yet refusing to let go. Jacob embraced the whole of human experience, knowing that the joy, fear, conflict, love, struggle, renewal—all of it--comes from God.