Two House Theology

Now he arose that same night and took his two wives and his two maids and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. Genesis 32:22 NASB

Jabbok – Everyone knows the story. Jacob wrestles. He loses. He is blessed. Israel is born. But maybe we know the story too well to actually hear it. Let’s start again.

Jabbok, the Hebrew word Yod-Bet (doubled)-Qof, is an ancient name. That means it was probably written (if at all) in the pictographs of Paleo-Hebrew. Perhaps its origin came from the picture “to make the last household,” or “work of the house behind.” But notice that the middle radical is doubled. This is a “two house” word. One house is connected with work (Yod), the other with what is behind (Qof). Speculation, of course, but the use of the Bet is intriguing since it looks both behind and ahead. The future is “behind my head,” not visible to me. Could it be that this brook represents both the life Ya’akob will leave behind and the life he cannot yet see in his future? Whatever is happening at this tributary of the Jordan means that one life is finished and another begins, one household ends and another proceeds. Yabboq is transition, the place where we are emptied before something else can fill us.

Notice the story’s sequence. At night (an odd time for defensive moves), Ya’akob removes himself from his family, the last of his “assets” from the days with Laban. He takes his wives and children across the ford. But he returns. Why? Why go back where there is nothing left? The story makes it very clear that “everything else he had” was on the other side of the stream. Does this strategy make any sense? Ya’akob leaves himself completely vulnerable, exposed to the impending army of Esau. Furthermore, the stream is not like the Mississippi. It is small. Putting his family and possessions on the other side certainly doesn’t remove them from danger. It doesn’t even remove them from sight. There is no military maneuver here. For some reason, Ya’akob is impelled to place everything else on one side while he returns to the other side.

The text tells us that he was left alone. The verb is yatar—to remain over, to leave. Derivatives include some things we wouldn’t think of: abundance (yitra), advantage (yoter), excellence (yitron) and profit (motar). Most of these ideas are connected with excess, that is, what is left over. But this is not Ya’akob’s word group. His is what remains after everything else is gone. Himself. He remains. He is the left over, the profit of all his labors, the last of what matters to him. What he discovers is what we all discover at the point of emptiness. We are alone.

The Hebrew, lebaddo does not simply mean “solitude.” It can carry the sense of being apart, being separated from community and from God. It can mean abandoned, the recognition and emotional trauma of unexpected isolation. Ya’akob is abandoned, perhaps intentionally so because there is no logical reason for him to retreat to this side of the place where past labor and future household are divided. Perhaps he is compelled to cross because there is still something unfinished in that place, something non-tangible that cries out to be carried across or be buried on this side. Whatever it is, he must return to face the emptiness of his life. It has all come down to this. In the end, he is alone. All his possessions, all his relationships, evaporate in the dark. It is night—the night when there is nothing left of the former Ya’akob, the night when it has all moved on—except him.

In that night, in that place, he wrestles. The story isn’t clear about his opponent. Eventually Ya’akob believes it to be YHVH, or some representative. That doesn’t matter nearly as much as the outcome. Ya’akob is defeated by what is left behind. Of course, there is a sense in which he cannot leave what is left behind until it defeats him. It is accumulation of all that has always been his downfall: his maneuvering, his calculation, his self-reliance, his ability to turn mistakes into advantage. In fact, his life has always been about yatar, until now, until yatar turns into nothing but the fight.

Let’s go down to the ford of Yabboq. No, that’s not quite right, is it? You see, we can’t go there. Only you or I can go there—alone. This is the empty place where you and I are when we are “left over.” There is no community here. There is only the last fight with God. What we bring of the life we constructed by ourselves is of no use anymore. That life is done. Here, fighting what is left behind, we are defeated. The result is inevitable even if we prolong the battle. In order to leave this place, we must be blessed—and that blessing does not come without permanent injury. You and I cannot cross Jabbok again without a limp.

Topical Index: Jabbok, Jacob, yatar, left behind, lebaddo, alone, Genesis 32:22