Jacob is the typical Jew; he is the epitome of the character of the chosen people, who, again, are an epitome of the great human world. All the virtues, all the vices, all the strength and all the weakness, all the nobleness and all the baseness, of the people whom Jehovah loved and whom He took to be His own, meet in this patriarch's character and life.
I. Jacob was a man who could cheat and lie; he could lie roundly and cheat coolly when it suited his purpose; and he could carry on what would everywhere be esteemed sharp practice to a wonderfully successful issue, A man of deep schemes, of far sight, of silent vigilance, of untiring patience, and apparently not much troubled by questions so long as his schemes were justified by success. He was a man of cunning, scheming, crafty nature, with some grand deep qualities beneath them all, which God's eye discerned, which His hand drew forth, and by a long stern discipline educated for Himself.
II. If we would know why God set a mark on him and made him, rather than his more shallow and splendid brother, the father of a great nation and a prince in His Church, we must note that he could believe and pray: (1) Jacob's faith was a power in his life; it became in the end a mighty power. Esau could live only for the moment, and found it hard to sink the present in the future; but Jacob could live and suffer for a day far distant, for a day whose light would never gladden him, but would shine upon his heirs. (2) Jacob could wrestle in prayer. No man can believe who cannot pray. The wrestling with the angel was the great crisis in Jacob's history. It is as though he rose that night into his higher, nobler life. Jacob, the supplanter, disappears, and Israel, the Prince with God, stands up in his room.
J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 97.