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 CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
Jacob's Wrestling at Peniel, Genesis 32:22 - 32:32.

THE FACTS!

Jacob sends his wife and children and Zilpah and Bilbo over the Jabbok ford.

Jacob is left all alone.

Jacob wrestles a man all night.

The man Jacob wrestles touches Jacob's wiener while wrestling.

Jacob's wiener becomes 'out of joint'.

The man says, "Let me go, you big brute!"

Jacob says, "I won't let you go unleth you bleth me!"

The man asks Jacob what his name is and Jacob says, "Jacob!"

The man says, "Oh no! You should really be called Israel because you're a prince with God and have power over men, big guy!"

Jacob says, "Well, what ith your name?"

The man says, "Why do you need to know my name?"

Then the man blesses Jacob and runs away.

Jacob calls the place Penuel (or Peniel, depending on which verse you're currently reading) which means the Face of God.

Jacob says, "I have come face to face with God and my life is preserved."

Jacob continues toward Esau, halting to take care of his thigh.

The moral of the story is that Jewish people do not eat the inner thigh muscle which shrinks (you know which one that is, right?) when they consume human flesh.

STUDY QUESTIONS!
Question God and Religion!

At the beginning of this Chapter, we see Jacob remove his wives from his presence. Why would he do this? What is Jacob really wrestling with in this Chapter? Could it be his sexuality?

Jacob wrestles with a man all night long. Where does this man come from? Was this a blind date? Did he meet the man at www.naphtali.com? Or is the river Jabbok just a known place to meet other gay men since 'Jabbok' means wrestling? Was the ford at Jabbok the rest stop of the Biblical highway?

What is 'the hollow of the thigh'? How can it get 'out of joint'? And what kind of last ditch wrestling move is it to 'touch the hollow' of your opponent's thigh?

Is Jacob's opponent trying to prevail in the sense of winning the wrestling match or prevailing in trying to get Jacob to accept his gay side? Perhaps being 'out of joint' means that Jacob was impotent? And touching the hollow of the thigh was grabbing Jacob's wiener?

Okay, I think I got it! Jacob has heard about this place where men can meet other men so he sends his family across the river and hangs out to meet one of these guys. A guy comes along and he and Jacob begin foreplay (Do gay people engage in foreplay? Isn't foreplay just grabbing boobies? I mean, if there is more to it than that, I know what it is and it's a lot of fun! But not more fun than the doing it part which is why I can't always recall all of the foreplay stuff because I like to get right to the sexiest parts of doing it!). But Jacob is still fighting (or, um, wrestling!) with his sexuality and isn't really ready to go all the way! So by the time the sun starts to rise, the other man is pretty frustrated. So he grabs at Jacob's wiener to just get it all over with! But Jacob's wiener goes soft at the potential closing of the deal. At this time, the man realizes nothing is going to happen and asks Jacob to let him go so that he can get back home to his family or goats or whatever. Does that sound about right?

When the man finally declares that he wants to go home, why does Jacob refuse until the man blesses him? Could he be using the word 'blesses' euphemistically?

Why does the man give Jacob a new name? Is he being a smart ass? He calls him 'Israel' which The King James Bible translates as Prince of God. But Israel is a combination of the verb 'sara' and the word 'el'. El is almost exclusively short for Elohim, the Lord God. The verb 'sara' means persist or persevere. It's also the root of Jacob's grandmother's name, Sarah, which means princess. Since we've seen names in The Bible can get pretty complicated and mean many things (as Jacob does), is the man being a smart ass and punning on the meaning of sara to be both prince and princess? Is he actually calling Jacob the Princess of God? And does he use the word 'persist' to mean that Jacob persists in his delusion of being a heterosexual male by bringing the wrestling match to an unsatisfying stalemate?

The man explains that he calls Jacob 'Israel' because Jacob is a prince who has power with God and with men. Doesn't that sound like a bitchy, ironic comment? And the name Israel has nothing to do with power with men, so why would he say Jacob has power over men? That last question was rhetorical and just used to support my theory about the Princess of God thing.

Why doesn't the man give Jacob his name? Probably because the man is still in the closet himself! He doesn't want his family at home finding out about his wrestling tendencies!

Jacob then goes on to name the place Peniel which means 'the face of God'. Why would he suddenly name the place that? He wrestled with a man all night and then claims he saw God face to face and survived. Is Jacob delusional? Does he actually think that this man who just touched his wiener was God?

Why does The Bible give the little moral to the tale at the end of the Chapter? It has never done that before! I think the children of Israel don't eat wieners because it's just weird! Did they really need a morality tale to give them a reason for wasting that part of the animal? Unless this just means they don't eat that part of a human being. But that's even weirder, right? Why say the children of Israel don't eat certain parts of people because God likes touching people there? Shouldn't they not eat any people? Which is why I'm pretty sure it means thy don't eat cow or goat or chicken wieners. Unless the sinew that shrinks is something else. But I doubt it! If it is, just change the word to taint or whatever it really is whenever you read the word 'wiener'.

Apparently, Jacob is supposed to be wrestling an Angel of God. But this Chapter doesn't say anything about that, except for Jacob declaring that he met God face to face for absolutely no reason at the end. So do they re-interpret this chapter later in The Bible? Did a bunch of people read it and realize it looked bad that Jacob was hanging out at Jabbok wrestling strange men? Or did the Church later identify who you should read this strange man as being since it was too gay otherwise? I guess I won't find out until I finish reading The Bible!

If Jacob is actually wrestling an Angel of God, why would God send an Angel to fight with Jacob? Is it because Jacob has sent everyone to meet Esau but he is still dragging his feet about it? So God tries to get an Angel to drag him across the river? Or is the Angel really a Vampire since the Angel starts getting nervous about being held down when the sun begins to rise? Maybe Angels and Vampires are the same thing!

Don't you wish there was a baseball team called the Los Angeles Vampires? It would be better than calling your team the Los Angeles Angels, or, you know, The Angels Angels! How dumb is that?

We all fall in love but we disregard the danger. Though we share so many secrets, there are some we never tell. Why were you so surprised that you never saw the stranger? Did you ever let your lover see the stranger in yourself?

If that was an Angel that wrestled Jacob, do you think God was disappointed in him that he lost the match? Do you think God fired him? Maybe that was Satan! Satan is probably an Angel/Vampire hybrid! He'd be afraid of the sun! And then he failed in his mission and God probably sent him to Hell for failure! When does Satan actually make an appearance in The Bible? I can't wait until he does! That'll be so exciting! I'm going to be very disappointed if he doesn't appear.

I don't think it was an Angel at all! If it was one of God's Angels, it couldn't have lost, right? Unless that's exactly what God wanted. But then why bother? I think it was a gay shepherd with free will and so God had nothing at all to do with it and couldn't care less about the incident.

Jacob could have called a Rules Violation on God (or the Stranger, whatever!) during the wrestling match when God touched Jacob's wiener. If he'd done so, he could have instantly won the wrestling match and had the added bonus of giving God two finger snaps on the wrist or a kick in the balls (Jacob's choice).

Calling a Rules Violation is one of the most important lessons you can learn in life. Always yell out, "Rules Violation!", very loudly whenever somebody does something to you that you know is unfair or not very cool.

Calling a Rules Violation when there has been no Rules Violation can result in the person unfairly called calling a Reverse Rules Violation! A Reverse Rules Violation results in an immediate stoppage of life by all participants in the arena (or general area). A Neutral Player (anybody neither party knows who is nearby) must be called upon to become Supreme Rules Judge and asked to make a calling to see whose call is correct, the Rules Violation Caller or the Reverse Rules Violation Caller. If the Rules Violation Caller is deemed correct, he may double the penalty (four finger snaps or two kicks to the balls (or beavers)). If the Reverse Rules Violation Caller is deemed correct, everybody in the arena (or general area) excluding the Supreme Rules Judge gets to give the Reverse Rules Violator two finger snaps across the wrist or one kidney punch.

Wild Bill could have called a Rules Violation on Jack McCall excpet Jack McCall outsmarted Wild Bill by killing him instantly.

Doc Holliday wasn't really a Greased Lightning with his revolver. That jerko lunger just caused his opponent's to hesitate in their draws by screaming out, "Rules Violation, Mother Huckleberry!", every time he was about to get in a shoot-out. He tried this at the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral also but was trumped when Tom McLaury screamed, "Reverse Rules Violation!" But no Supreme Rules Judge came forward at that time because Doc Holliday Reverse Trumped Tom by shooting him in the chest with his shotgun and drawling, "Reverse Rules Violate that, Dingleberry!"

A. Why was the country of Israel called Israel? Why wasn't it called Abraham? Or Isaac? I bet The Bible explains it later but I want you to speculate now!
B. Write a Missed Connection Personal Ad from the stranger's point of view trying to locate Jacob later that week.
C. What do you think the wrestling match between Jacob and the stranger meant? What was it a metaphor or analogy for? Did it have any deeper meaning? Was God really wrestling with Jacob for some reason? If so, why? If not, what the hell was that all about?

DRAWING TIME!

Greeks and Romans all wrestled naked. And Jewish people probably did too! So draw Jacob wrestling with the stranger! Or do an anatomy drawing showing where you think the sinew that shrinks is.

WHAT DID CHRISTIAN LITERALISTS LEARN?

The children of Israel do not eat of the sinew that shrinks. But since Christians are not children of Israel, they can eat all the wieners they want!