Genesis 32:6-20

⁶ And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are also four hundred men with him.”

⁷ Then Jacob was greatly afraid and upset. He split the people who were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps,

⁸ thinking, “If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape.”

⁹ And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your relatives, that I may do you good,’

¹⁰ I am least worthy of all the deeds of faithful love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.

¹¹ Please rescue me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, because I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children.

¹² But you promised, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your family as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.'”

¹³ So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took a gift for his brother Esau,

¹⁴ two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,

¹⁵ thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.

¹⁶ These he entrusted to his servants, every drove separately, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me and put a space between one drove and the next drove.”

¹⁷ He instructed the first, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose property are these ahead of you?’

¹⁸ then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau. And what is more, he is behind us.'”

¹⁹ He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, “You shall say the same thing to Esau when you meet up with him,

²⁰ and you shall say, “What is more, your servant Jacob is behind us.'”For he thought, “I may appease him with the gift that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.”

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wise caution

Jacob decided to separate his camp into two, and then to further divide his property into separate droves. It was a risk he was prepared to take, hoping that his gift would appease his brother’s anger. He probably got the idea from his recent encounter with angels from the LORD, and his declaration that there were two camps – one his, the other, the LORD’s. Now, people will remember Mahanaim for a different reason.

As it turns out, Jacob will not need to do this, but it was a wise strategy. In the New Testament, Jesus will tell his disciples to be cautious of others, to be wise in dealing with them. Jacob is demonstrating that characteristic here.

LORD, teach us how to be wise when dealing with others, because we do not know how they may react.