Jacob Wrestling with Angel. Jacob wrestling with the angel is an episode from Genesis. The angel in question is referred to as man in Genesis, while Hosea references an angel, but the episode is also often referenced as Jacob's wrestling with God. The account includes the renaming of Jacob as Israel. In the Genesis narrative, Jacob spent the night alone on a riverside during his journey back to Canaan. He encounters a man who proceeds to wrestle with him until daybreak. In the end, Jacob is given the name Israel and blessed, while the man refuses to give his own name. Jacob then names the place where they wrestled Penuel. The Masoretic text reads as follows: The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, Let me go, for the day has broken. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. Then he said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked him, Please tell me your name. But he said, Why is it that you ask my name? And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered. The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh. The account contains several plays on the meaning of Hebrew names, Peniel, Israel, as well as similarity to the root of Jacob's name and its compound. The limping of Jacob, may mirror the name of the river, Jabbok, and Nahmanides gives the etymology one who walks crookedly for the name Jacob. The Hebrew text states that it is a man with whom Jacob wrestles, but later this man is identified with God by Jacob.Hosea 12:4 furthermore references an angel. Following this, the Targum of Onkelos offers because I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face, and the Targum of Palestine gives because I have seen the Angels of the Lord face to face. The identity of Jacob's wrestling opponent is a matter of debate, named variously as a dream figure, a prophetic vision, an angel, a protective river-spirit, Jesus, or God. In Hosea 12:4, Jacob's opponent is described as malakh angel: Yes, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication to him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spoke with us;. The relative age of the text of Genesis and of Hosea is unclear, as both are part of the Hebrew Bible as redacted in the Second Temple Period, and it has been suggested that malakh may be a late emendation of the text, and would as such represent an early Jewish interpretation of the episode. Maimonides believed that the incident was a vision of prophecy, while Rashi believed Jacob wrestled with the guardian angel of Esau, his elder twin brother. Zvi Kolitz referred to Jacob wrestling with God. As a result of the hip injury Jacob suffered while wrestling, Jews are prohibited from eating the meat tendon attached to the hip socket, as mentioned in the account at Genesis 32:32. The interpretation that Jacob wrestled with God is common in Protestant theology, endorsed by both Martin Luther and John Calvin, as well as later writers such as Joseph Barker or Peter L. Berger.Other commentaries treat the expression of Jacob's having seen God face to face as referencing the Angel of the Lord as the Face of God. The proximity of the terms man and God in the text in some Christian commentaries has also been taken as suggestive of a Christophany. J. Douglas MacMillan suggests that the angel with whom Jacob wrestles is a pre-incarnation appearance of Christ in the form of a man. According to one Christian commentary of the Bible incident described, Jacob said, I saw God face to face.