Genesis 32:1-12 ▼

1 And Jacob has gone on his way, and messengers of God come on him;

2 and Jacob says, when he has seen them, “This [is] the camp of God”; and he calls the name of that place “Two Camps.”

3 And Jacob sends messengers before him to his brother Esau, toward the land of Seir, the field of Edom,

4 and commands them, saying, “Thus you say to my lord, to Esau, Thus said your servant Jacob: I have sojourned with Laban, and I linger until now;

5 and I have ox, and donkey, flock, and manservant, and maidservant, and I send to declare to my lord, to find grace in his eyes.”

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

7 and Jacob fears exceedingly, and is distressed, and he divides the people who [are] with him, and the flock, and the herd, and the camels, into two camps,

8 and says, “If Esau comes to one camp, and has struck it—then the camp which is left has been for an escape.”

9 And Jacob says, “God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, YHWH who says to me, Return to your land and to your family, and I do good with you:

10 I have been unworthy of all the kind acts and of all the truth which You have done with your servant—for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.

11 Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I am fearing him, lest he come and has struck me—mother beside sons;

12 and You have said, I certainly do good with you, and have set your seed as the sand of the sea, which is not numbered because of the multitude.”