Hosea 12:4

Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us;

Yea, he had power over the angel - the uncreated "angel of the covenant," as God the Son appears in the Old Testament ().

He wept, and made supplication unto him - (, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me").

And prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him. Jacob "prevailed" by the power of tears and prayers as a suppliant. Herein he was a type of Christ, "Who in the days of His flesh, offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared," (). Since Moses does not mention Jacob's tears, Hosea shows that he had an independent spirit of revelation.

He found him in Beth-el. The angel found Jacob, and appeared to him in the dream of the ladder between earth and heaven, when he was fleeing from Esau, into Syria; the Lord appearing to him "in Beth-el," first, when Jacob was on his way to Haran (); secondly, on his return (). What a sad contrast, that in the same Bethel now Israel worships the golden calves!

And there he spake with us - "with us," as being in the loins of our progenitor Jacob (cf. , "they ... we;" Hebrews 7:9). What God there spake to Jacob appertains to us. God's promises to him belong to all his posterity who follow in the steps of his prayerful faith.