Jacob Wrestles with God Bible story for kids

Everyone Jacob loved was on the other side of the river.

He had sent them across in the dark. On purpose.

Listen — you can still hear them going. Feet splashing through the shallows of the Jabbok. Sheep bleating. A camel grumbling. Somebody's sleepy child asking why. And then the splashing faded away, and there was nothing left but the river tumbling over the rocks, crickets singing in the tall grass, and one man sitting all by himself on the empty bank.

His name was Jacob.

Now, Jacob hadn't always been a good man. When he was young, he had tricked his brother Esau — tricked him out of something very, very important. And Esau had been so angry, so hurt, that Jacob had to run away from home.

Do you remember the night he ran? He slept out on the hard ground with a stone for a pillow, and he dreamed of a stairway full of angels. And God stood at the top of it and made him a promise. "I am with you," God said. "I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you."

Then Jacob kept walking. He went far, far away — and he stayed gone for twenty long years. Twenty years working for his uncle Laban. Seven years for Rachel, and then seven more, and all the sheep and sun and dust in between.

Twenty years. That's a long time to be away from home.

But now... God had said it was time. Time to go back. Time to face his brother. Time to go home — just the way God had promised, all those years before.

And Jacob was terrified.

Because tomorrow morning — when the sun came up — Jacob would see Esau again. Esau, who was coming toward him with four hundred men. Four hundred! Were they coming to welcome him... or to fight him?

Jacob didn't know.

And that is why he had done the strange thing. That is why he had woken everyone in the middle of the night and sent them over the water — Leah and Rachel. His eleven children. His servants, his sheep, his goats, his camels, his donkeys. Everything he had — over the Jabbok in the dark, safe on the far bank before the sun ever came up.

And then... Jacob stayed behind. Alone.

Just him. And the river. And the dark.

Jacob sat there in the cold night air, his heart pounding. Maybe he prayed. Maybe he cried. Maybe he just listened to the water and wondered if God was still with him after all the mistakes he'd made.

And then...

Someone was there.

Out of nowhere — out of the darkness — a man. Jacob couldn't see his face. He couldn't see anything. But suddenly, strong hands grabbed him. And the man began to wrestle.

Jacob wrestled back. He grabbed on tight and would not let go. The two of them twisted and turned and pushed and pulled in the dirt by the river. Dust flew up around them. Stones scattered. The water roared beside them.

Who was this man? Where had he come from? Jacob didn't know. But something deep inside him — something he couldn't explain — told him this was no ordinary stranger.