Genesis 32

Gen. 32:31. Jacob goes away with a blessing, but yet halting on his thigh. God commonly, when He bestows some extraordinary spiritual blessing and peculiar favor, also at the same time brings some temporal affliction or difficulty, as Paul when admitted to the third heavens had a thorn in the flesh at the same time, lest he should be exalted above measure. Jacob's halting on his thigh represents the saints getting along with difficulty and trouble, disappointment of their temporal aims, and their failing in the steps they take, as what nature aims at and desires. Jacob's lameness after he had the blessing, made him lean more on his staff, so the saints' afflictions they meet with in the world, make them live more by faith (see verse Genesis 32:10, and Numbers 21:18). Jacob himself when he had the blessing had with it that kind of lameness of which his halting on his thigh was a type, and so he had ever since he first stole the blessing from Esau. He presently upon it suffered banishment, went away poor and solitary, with nothing but his staff, to Padanaram. There he met with crosses and disappointments: he was cheated with Leah instead of Rachel, for whom he served seven years, and was forced to serve another seven years. Rachel, his most beloved wife, was a great while barren, and after he had suffered twenty years' exile from his father's house, and hard service and a great deal of trouble from his father-in-law, he was forced to steal away, and his journey was attended with great difficulty and peril: he was in great danger first from Laban, and then from Esau, and was forced to purchase safety from him with the loss of great part of his substance. He made him a present of five hundred and eighty of his cattle, and was forced greatly to bow and cringe besides; and then his daughter Dinah was defiled, which doubtless was a very sorrowful thing to him; and then he had more sorrow by the cruelty and treachery of Simeon and Levi's two sons, which made him to stink in the nostrils of the inhabitants of the country, so that he was in fear of his life from them; and then Rachel, his most beloved wife, died in bringing forth her second child; and then Reuben, his first-born son, was guilty of incest with one of his own concubines, which must needs be a great grief to him; and then he had most bitter affliction in the loss of his beloved son Joseph; and then, doubtless, had a great deal of sorrow from the great sins and calamities there were in Judah and his family; and then there was a sore famine, and Jacob and his family were put to a great deal of trouble to get provision to support themselves, and he had much exercise, perplexity, and distress in the affair managed between Joseph and his brethren; and then he and all his family [had] as it were a second banishment from the land of Canaan, the land promised to him in Egypt, an idolatrous country, and never returned any more alive. That Jacob, who was so often blessed of God, and to whom God so frequently ministered such abundant favors to, should yet meet with so much trouble and sorrow in this life is a great evidence of a future state. The same may be observed concerning David. Halting is put elsewhere for affliction or adversity: Psalms 35:15 - "But in mine adversity they rejoiced;" in the original, "in my halting," (Micah 4:6; Micah 4:7; Zephaniah 3:19).

Gen. 33:1-7