It seems that God has perhaps finally met his match!
Bible Reading: Genesis 11, 28, & 32
Tower of Babel
4: And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5: And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 6: And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Jacob Dreams of the Ladder
12: And [Jacob] dreamed, and beheld a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. 13: And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; 14: And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15: And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. 16: And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.
Jacob Wrestles the Angel and Prevails
24: And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. 25: And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. 26: And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. 27: And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. 28: And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. 29: And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. 30: And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
John's Midrash
In a previous Midrash, I explained how God was clearly terrified by the growing powers of Man, and confounded our language to prevent us from completing the Tower of Babel. He clearly saw us as a formidable competitor and did not want us using the Tower to storm his sanctuary up in Heaven.
After many generations of begettings, along comes Jacob, grandson of old Abraham. I must say that I have had issues with Jacob’s sense of morality, as I pointed out in my Midrashes about Jacob’s abominable treatment of his twin brother Esau, but God clearly likes him more than I do. He presents Jacob with a vision of a Ladder to Heaven, essentially letting him know that despite the failure of the Tower to link Heaven and Earth, there may indeed be a physical means for certain preferred sorts to climb on up and visit Heaven.
A little while later, Jacob gets into an all night wrestling match with a mysterious being. This “man” sometimes has been characterized as an angel but in fact it is God, as any close reading of the relevant Scripture makes abundantly clear. Amazingly God cannot get the better of Jacob in this wrestling match, which just goes to show that the panic He felt back in the Babel days is not altogether unjustified.
If you can’t beat him, join him seems to be God’s thinking at this point, and so He gives Jacob the works, not only a Blessing, but the always coveted Name Change. Abram had been Blessed and also renamed “Abraham”, and now his somewhat conniving grandson too is being Blessed and renamed “Israel”.
Why do you suppose God is treating Jacob so well? Here are my thoughts. Since He couldn’t best Jacob in their wrestling match, He may still be a bit afraid of him, and thus is sticking to the “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” school of thought. But it is also possible that He sees a lot of Himself in the young, self-centered, and ambitious Jacob, a man eager to get his own way regardless of whom he has to climb over on his way to the top.