Jacob's Angel

I know it can be debated if Jacob actually wrestles with an angle, or god, or just some crazy guy off the street, but for the purposes of this entry lets just stick with the assumption that Jacob wrestled with an angel, or some other sort of divine presence at least.

One aspect I really liked about this story was the 'non-stereotypical' angel that Jacob wrestles. So many of the popular biblical stories leave you with the impression that all angels do is appear to deliver messages to people in a soft gentle voice before slowly fading away. Which, if you think about it, doesn't make for a very good story at all. Jacob's angel on the other hand, gives you a real story. This angel, in a sense, also has a message to deliver. It just manifests itself as more of a test. And to top off the strangeness of this story, instead of leaving with a message of hope or of warning, the angel instead breaks Jacob's hip bone and then leaves. I don't know about you, but the first time I heard this story it made me not want to run into any angels anytime soon.

We talked a bit about this angel being both good and bad. It is out of the ordinary, but, strictly non-theologically speaking, this is one of the few exciting angel stories in the Bible. Where as most angel stories have the angel appearing then giving his message or doing his good dead then leaving, Jacob's angel actually adds some depth to the plot and makes for a much more interesting story.