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Updated: June 26, 2025
At last the angel departed, after Jacob had blessed him, and Jacob called the place of wrestling Penuel, the same place to which before he had given the name Mahanaim, for both words have but one meaning, the place of encounter with angels. At the break of day the angel left off from wrestling with Jacob. The dawn on that day was of particularly short duration.
A great arch of sevenfold radiance spanned the valley, based on either side from the twin slopes, and reaching with its crown to the summit of the skies. It was now a passage from Hebrew tradition came to his mind, and he thought of him of whom the poet wrote, 'and as he passed over Penuel, the sun rose upon him. And yet his heart failed him as he drew within sight of the cottage door.
Jacob called the name of that same place Penuel, saying: I have seen our Lord face to face, and my soul is made safe. And anon as he was past Penuel the sun arose. He halted on his foot, and therefore the children of Israel eat no sinews because it dried in the thigh of Jacob.
No doubt many of His promises are contingent on our activity in material things; and no man has a right to expect that' his bread shall be given him, for instance, unless he contributes the 'sweat of his brow' towards it. But Jeroboam had had the conditions of safety and stability clearly laid down. So there was no need for building Shechem and Penuel, nor for casting calves and serving them.
And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank. And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred men.
The 'building' of Shechem and Penuel is probably to be understood as 'fortifying'; for, in regard to the former town, we know from the preceding section that it was a town before the disruption, and the same is probably true of the latter. Two fortresses, one in the heart of his kingdom, one on the eastern border, where attack might be expected, were Jeroboam's first care.
They hearkened therefore to the word of the LORD, and returned to depart, according to the word of the LORD. Then Jeroboam built Shechem in mount Ephraim, and dwelt therein; and went out from thence, and built Penuel.
You begin with that of Babel; then you remember Gideon beating down the tower of Penuel, in order more completely to humble the pride of the men of the city; you remember the defense of the tower of Shechem against Abimelech, and the death of Abimelech by the casting of a stone from it by a woman's hand; you recollect the husbandman building a tower in his vineyard, and the beautiful expressions in Solomon's song, "The tower of Lebanon, which looketh towards Damascus;" "I am a wall, and my breasts like towers;" you recollect the Psalmist's expressions of love and delight, "Go ye round about Jerusalem; tell the towers thereof: mark ye well her bulwarks; consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following."
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