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| Delacroix, "Jacob at Penuel" |
A hill-shrine adjacent to Machanayim, on the north bank of the river Yavok, on the western slopes of what are today known as the Golan Heights.
Genesis 32:25 ff: Ya'akov's (Jacob's) wrestling match with a "man", who may be an early form of "angel", or even, in today's psychological terminology, his own alter ego, but which should be understood as one of the Lilim, the night-spirits (the key evidence for this lies in verse 37: "And he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking").
Panim (פנים) = "face"; thus Penu-El = "the face of El", though it is sometimes rendered as Peni-El. The Vav-Yud alteration appears to be a matter of language development, in the same way that Chaucer and modern Americans vary between "plow" and "plough", or "nite" and "night", or do or do not use the "u" in colour, vigor, rigour, valor etc.
Other references can be found in Judges 8:8 and 1 Chronicles 4:4, the latter of which presents Penu-El as a man rather than a place, though what exactly is his genealogy is something which the methodology of the Book of Chronicles makes it almost impossible to work out. Most scholars unravel the messy labyrinth which is the text with the conclusion that he was a descendant of the Beney Tsar'a (צָּרְעָ - Zorathites), who we encountered two chapters earlier (1 Chronicles 2:53) as part of the family of Hur which became the clans of Kiryat-Ye'arim (the town where the Ark of the
Covenant was kept during the years of the prophet Shemu-El - Samuel), and from whom two further clans emerged, one the Mishpechat Eshta'ol, the other the Mishpechat Tsara; but actually the phrasing of 1 Chronicles 4:4 does not endorse this, rather it seems to make him part of the clan of Eytam (עֵיטָ֔ם), whose genealogy is likewise extremely difficult to decipher (see this alternate link for the problem of two Eytams), and whose sons, depending on how you choose to add punctuation to the text, may only have been (1 Chronicles 4:3) Yizre-El (יִזְרְעֶ֥אל - Jezreel - see my notes to Judges 6:33), Yishm'a (יִשְׁמָ֖א) - those first two rather interesting variations on Yisra-El (יִשְׂרָאֵל) and Yishma-El (יִשְׁמָעֵאל) - and Yidbash (יִדְבָּ֑שׁ), plus a daughter Hatselel-Poni (הַצְלֶלְפּֽוֹנִי and note the connection between Poni and Penu or Peni); or it may have been those four and Penu-El (פְנוּאֵל֙), who is definitely said to have fathered Gedor (גְדֹר), while Ezer (עֵ֖זֶר), equally definitely Penu-El's brother, fathered Chushah (חוּשָׁה).
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| "Jacob wrestling with the angel", Jacob Epstein |
1 Chronicles 8:25 then adds another layer of complexity, by naming what is presumably an entirely different Penu-El, this one, with Yiphde-Yah (יִפְדְיָ֥ה) his brother, sons of Shashak (שָׁשָֽׁק). But are either of these men named Penu-El because of the shrine, or is the dhrine named Penu-El because of one of the men. Unusually for a book which is keen to give aetiological sources for all important shrines, the Tanach does not answer that question; and it was quite obviously, an important as well as an ancient shrine, and also a very complicated ritual of great symbolic importance. See the commentaries on Genesis 32.
The text informs us that Ya'akov came to Machanayim on the evening of the encounter at Penu-El. From the root Mechaneh = a camp, but using the "double" form by which Hebrew simplifies the need to use two words ("two" and "camps"). Mayim (מיים - water). Shemayim (שמיים - heavens), Pa'amayim (פעמיים - twice), Alpayim (אלפיים - two thousand) all use the same rule. This rule rarely exists in English - the obvious example is "fortnight" for a period of two weeks, where two words would be "fourteen nights".
Two possible explanations are given for his naming it Machanayim:
a) Genesis 32:3, having crossed the river Yarden (Jordan) and reached Yavok (Jabbok), Ya'akov encountered so many angels that he said: "There are two camps here, Elohim’s and mine".
b) Genesis 32:7-8, awaiting Esav at Yavok, he divided his retinue into two camps: "If Esav plunders the first, the second may still survive."
a) Genesis 32:3, having crossed the river Yarden (Jordan) and reached Yavok (Jabbok), Ya'akov encountered so many angels that he said: "There are two camps here, Elohim’s and mine".
b) Genesis 32:7-8, awaiting Esav at Yavok, he divided his retinue into two camps: "If Esav plunders the first, the second may still survive."
Machanayim became one of Shlomo's (Solomon's) twelve principal-capital cities (1 Kings 4:14) and shrines, noted in Song of Songs 7:1 (6:13 in most English translations) for its companies of singers and dancers, one of whom is named the Machanayim (מַּחֲנָיִם), the other the Mecholat (מְחֹלַת) for which see my notes to Machalat.
Yavok (Jabbok): from the root Yavak (יבק) = "to strive". However the aetiological explanation given does not work (that it acquired its name because Ya'akov strove there with his god), as the place is already named Yavok when he arrives.
Is there any religious significance in Ya'akov's "offering" to Esav? 200 she-goats and 20 he-goats, 200 ewes and 20 rams; 30 milch-camels with their colts, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 20 she-asses and 10 foals? That is quite a sheikhdom!
All of Ya'akov's wanderings lead to scenes and places of mythic significance. He "founds" Beit-El, Mitspeh, Machanayim, Penu-El, Yavok and Sukot; all apparently get their names from his acts or sayings. But in other parts of the Tanach they also get their names from other people's acts or sayings, which suggests that Ya'akov was only one local-tribal version of the same popular hero that others knew by a different name.
That Ya'akov becomes Israel (Yisra-El) at Penu-El, and that Penu-El is on the north bank of the river Yavok, cannot be pure coincidence. There is much dispute about the root and meaning of the name Yisra-El,but none about the text itself, which tells that, having wrestled the night-spirit to stalemate, and with the dawn coming up that requires the night-spirit to depart, it yields to Ya'akov saying "Your name shall no longer be Ya'akov, but Yisra-El; for you have striven with gods and with men, and you have prevailed." The Yavok should then be translated as "the river of striving", and the crowning of Ya'akov as the priest-king, which is what this rite of immolation is really describing, names him "the king of striving".
Cf Graves/Patai for a rather feeble attempt at explaining the thigh/wrestling etc, which both acknowledge is an expurgated version of the ceremony of the anointing of the king. They are happy to explain the thigh as symbolic of the castration of the father (Zeus-Chronos etc, the probable original for No'ach's son Kena'an's sin in Genesis 9:20-27) which later becomes reduced again into the circumcision rite, but avoid explaining the seizing of the loins, which is not so much the night-spirit cheating as his swearing an oath in the traditional manner, and likewise avoid explaining "the man" as a night-spirit, though elsewhere Graves is fully explicit about Lilith and the Lilim. Can we presume (from "The White Goddess) that Graves knew this but deferred in compromise to the reluctant Patai? ("Hebrew Myths", p228ff).
Is the early Moshe story a parallel? He flees from Mitsrayim in disgrace, serves Yitro (Jethro) to gain Tsiporah (who he met at a well), returns home with his wife and sons (whatever happened to his sons?) but is attacked on the way by a supernatural being (inside the burning bush). Circumcision then follows, in Ya'akov's case with a name-change and the immolation of the sexual organ, in Moshe's case as part of a marriage ceremony (why did he need to be circumcised if he was a Hebrew? Answer, he must have been put in the bulrushes before eight days. Or: he wasn't a Hebrew, his story is that of Osiris).
The account of Ya'akov and Esav makes Esav the "good" son, and very "successful" (G/P 233), which opens the question, for a Hebrew text: why slander the patriarch and favour the enemy? Was it originally an Edomite legend brought to Yerushalayim by Beney Kalev and Beney Kenaz when they were incorporated into Yehudah? Yehudah was a son of Le'ah who conquered Rachel's Bin-Yamin and incorporated him and warred with Rachel's other heirs Ephrayim and Menasheh, Gad and Naphtali (the hard core of the northern kingdom). Kalev (Caleb) held Chevron (Hebron) and Machpelah and the Edomites were Judean aristocrats. Was the north then Rachel and the south Leah?
All of Ya'akov's wanderings lead to scenes and places of mythic significance. He "founds" Beit-El, Mitspeh, Machanayim, Penu-El, Yavok and Sukot; all apparently get their names from his acts or sayings. But in other parts of the Tanach they also get their names from other people's acts or sayings, which suggests that Ya'akov was only one local-tribal version of the same popular hero that others knew by a different name.
That Ya'akov becomes Israel (Yisra-El) at Penu-El, and that Penu-El is on the north bank of the river Yavok, cannot be pure coincidence. There is much dispute about the root and meaning of the name Yisra-El,but none about the text itself, which tells that, having wrestled the night-spirit to stalemate, and with the dawn coming up that requires the night-spirit to depart, it yields to Ya'akov saying "Your name shall no longer be Ya'akov, but Yisra-El; for you have striven with gods and with men, and you have prevailed." The Yavok should then be translated as "the river of striving", and the crowning of Ya'akov as the priest-king, which is what this rite of immolation is really describing, names him "the king of striving".
Cf Graves/Patai for a rather feeble attempt at explaining the thigh/wrestling etc, which both acknowledge is an expurgated version of the ceremony of the anointing of the king. They are happy to explain the thigh as symbolic of the castration of the father (Zeus-Chronos etc, the probable original for No'ach's son Kena'an's sin in Genesis 9:20-27) which later becomes reduced again into the circumcision rite, but avoid explaining the seizing of the loins, which is not so much the night-spirit cheating as his swearing an oath in the traditional manner, and likewise avoid explaining "the man" as a night-spirit, though elsewhere Graves is fully explicit about Lilith and the Lilim. Can we presume (from "The White Goddess) that Graves knew this but deferred in compromise to the reluctant Patai? ("Hebrew Myths", p228ff).
Is the early Moshe story a parallel? He flees from Mitsrayim in disgrace, serves Yitro (Jethro) to gain Tsiporah (who he met at a well), returns home with his wife and sons (whatever happened to his sons?) but is attacked on the way by a supernatural being (inside the burning bush). Circumcision then follows, in Ya'akov's case with a name-change and the immolation of the sexual organ, in Moshe's case as part of a marriage ceremony (why did he need to be circumcised if he was a Hebrew? Answer, he must have been put in the bulrushes before eight days. Or: he wasn't a Hebrew, his story is that of Osiris).
The account of Ya'akov and Esav makes Esav the "good" son, and very "successful" (G/P 233), which opens the question, for a Hebrew text: why slander the patriarch and favour the enemy? Was it originally an Edomite legend brought to Yerushalayim by Beney Kalev and Beney Kenaz when they were incorporated into Yehudah? Yehudah was a son of Le'ah who conquered Rachel's Bin-Yamin and incorporated him and warred with Rachel's other heirs Ephrayim and Menasheh, Gad and Naphtali (the hard core of the northern kingdom). Kalev (Caleb) held Chevron (Hebron) and Machpelah and the Edomites were Judean aristocrats. Was the north then Rachel and the south Leah?
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