Necessary Trauma

Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. Genesis 32:24 NASB

Left alone – “When you know the story to which you belong, and when you know your role in that story, you have a profound sense of purpose. That is what we are invited into: God’s ongoing work in this world. When we find ourselves contributing to a greater story, we thrive.”[1] But Jacob didn’t realize this when he crossed back over the Jabbok on that fateful night. All he knew was that something was left unfinished. It took a midnight struggle for Jacob to understand his own story, and when he understood it, his life didn’t suddenly get better. In fact, in many ways it got worse. What Jacob gained was not peace and tranquility. What he gained was purpose. When we finally discover that we too are left alone, the fight isn’t about getting back what we think we have lost. The fight is about realizing why we are here, what we are about, who we are in God’s scheme of things. But it takes a particular kind of midnight struggle to deal with our defenses, to deal with the way we want the world to work. In Hebrew, there is a special word for this kind of struggle. It is badad. Its meaning reveals just how complicated and interwoven our misperceptions about life really are.

“The core concept is ‘to be separate and isolated.’ It can also connote the idea of dividing into parts. This verb underscores the idea of isolation, e.g. the lonely bird on the housetop (Ps 102:8), the donkey (simile of Ephraim) wilfully going alone to Assyria (Hos 8:9), and the lone army straggler.”[2] Badad expresses “Israel’s deplorable isolation” and the psychological/emotional situation “when a man is abandoned by his community or by God.” It is used to describe the social condition of a leper, the unique call of the prophet and the emotional turmoil of the disconsolate psalmist. It is “cold solitude.”[3] Amazingly, it seems that we cannot progress in the recognition of purpose unless and until we encounter badad. In modern parlance, we might say that this necessary trauma is the awareness of lack of connection, the pressing reality that there is no one who really knows me, and know one who really cares.

Human beings will do virtually anything to avoid this place. It is unraveling and uncomfortable. When Brené Brown notes that we are hardwired for connection, she touches the excruciatingly painful experience of badad. Addiction is simply humanity’s attempt to avoid Jabbok. Perhaps that’s why the story is crucial. Yisra’el does not exist without Yabbok. No man can find his purpose until he faces the stranger in the night.

But there is another side to badad. “The word is used of the Lord’s incomparability and uniqueness in his exclusive claim to deity as seen in his extraordinary works.”[4] Badad is a word of ultimate contrasts. The incomparable uniqueness of YHVH is contrasted to the unimaginable emptiness of man separated from his God. The height of heaven and the depths of hell—all wrapped up in a single word. Perhaps it’s not possible to know the joy of the incomparable Father until we have tasted the despair of our own self-reliance.

Topical Index: badad, alone, Genesis 32:24

[1] Pamela Ebstyne King, “On Helping Young People Find Their Coordinates,” Fuller, Issue #7, p. 60.

[2] Goldberg, L. (1999). 201 בָּדַד., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (90–91). Chicago: Moody Press.

[3] All descriptions from TWOT

[4] Op. Cit., TWOT, 201.