He; your famous progenitor of whom you boast. Had power; behaved himself as a prince with God, Genesis 32:28. Over; with: the angel was willing to be conquered, or Jacob could not have gotten the victory. The angel; called God, Hosea 12:3, and, Hosea 12:5, is Jehovah, Lord of hosts. He was no created angel, but the uncreated Angel Christ, the Messiah, eternal God by nature and essence, angel by office and voluntary undertaking. And prevailed; got the victory, went out of the field a conqueror, but not by such arms and methods as you use. You are conquered by man because of your sins, he conquered with God by faith and prayer. He, not the angel, as some through mistake, but your father Jacob, wept: by this we know he prayed with tears, though the story say not so, with sense of his own unworthiness, with earnestness for the mercy he desired, and apprehensive of the majesty of him with whom he wrestled. But you, quite contrary, proud as if worthy, regardless of the best part of the blessing, and earnest only for the meaner part, seek it not of God, but idols. And made supplication unto him: it is Christ who is here intended; it was no mere creature, Jacob might not have prayed to such, but it was the Creator of angels and the Redeemer of man, the blessed Jesus, to whom every knee ought to bow, Philippians 2:10. He, God, found him, Jacob, full of weariness, fears, and solicitude on his journey to Laban, Genesis 28:12,20, when prayers obtained a blessing; but with this, and more directly, when on his return after this wrestling bout, Genesis 35:1, &c., God appeared to him, Genesis 35:7-15, and blessed him. Beth-el; formerly called Luz, but by Jacob new named and called Beth-el, Genesis 28:19. There he, God, spake, renewed his promise and confirmed the blessing, with us: by the current of the words in their grammatical order it should be, he spake to him; but it is, not without good reason, changed to the plural first person, us, as posterity were in Jacob's loins, and blessed with him. Yet more, where God appeared to Jacob he commanded him to build an altar there to God, to restore religion and reform his family from idolatry, which he did, Genesis 35:4. But you, children of this Jacob by natural descent, are of another and far different humour; though you have been called and exhorted to leave your idols, yet these two hundred years you have kept them, and will, I see, keep them: this is your sin, and in it you are obstinate, and I will punish such a Jacob as you.
Related Commentaries of Hosea 12:4
Hosea 12:4
4 Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us;