Perhaps this custom was piously observed by the Israelites, in order to keep alive the remembrance how prevailing fervent prayer is, as manifested in this instance of their Great Ancestor.
REFLECTIONS
Reader! I charge you not to close your review of this lovely chapter, which under God's teachings hath refreshed the minds of thousands, and will continue so to do until time shall be no more, without first gathering to yourself some of the many sweet things it speaks of to the people of God. You see, in the Patriarch's instance, how those unto whom angels minister, and even unto whom Jesus himself is revealed, may, and will, be exercised with many sharp and trying dispensations. Are you thus exercised in the spiritual warfare? Do you know what it is to have the ministry of angels meeting you in the way to Canaan? Do the seed of Esau come forth, to obstruct your path? And are you thereby constrained to seek aid from God? What nights of wrestlings in prayer have you counted? What days of sunshine have broken in upon your soul, to manifest divine communions? Can you call to mind the brook, the place, the time, when you have sent away the best and tenderest of all earthly endearments, that you might be left alone to enjoy the visits of God your Saviour.
Let these and the like questions arise in your minds, from the perusal of this chapter. And may the same gracious Covenant God and Saviour, (for he is the same yesterday, today, and forever), grant both to you and to me, that in our going home to our Father's house, like the Patriarch, Jesus's host may meet us, and give us comfort: nay, may Jesus himself be there, in every step of the way; that Jordan's waves, and the valley of the shadow of death, that lie between, may not affright: for when he is near, his rod and staff shall comfort. So will goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our life, till we come to dwell in the house of our God forever.