And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
Ver. 26. Let me go, &c.] Pugna suum finem, cum rogat hostis, habet. Jacob, though lamed, and hard laid at, will not let Christ go without a blessing: to teach us, as our Saviour did, by the parable of the importunate widow, Luk 18:1-8 to persevere in prayer, and to devour all discouragements. Jacob holds with his hands, when his joints were out of joint. The woman of Canaan will not be put off, either with silence or sad answers. The importunate widow teacheth us to press God so far, till we put him to the blush, yea, leave a blot in his face (as the word there used signifies, υπωπιαζη, Luk 18:5), unless we be masters of our request. Latimer so plied the throne of grace with his, Once again, once again, restore the gospel to England, that he would have no nay at God's hands. a He many times continued kneeling and knocking so long together, that he was not able to rise without help. His knees were grown hard like camels' knees, as Eusebius reports of James, the Lord's brother. Paul "prayed thrice," 2Co 12:8 that is, often, till he had his desire. Nay, Paulus Aemelius, the Roman general, began to fight against Perses, king of Macedonia, when, as he had sacrificed to his god Hercules and it proved not to his mind, he slew twenty various sacrifices one after another; and would not stop till in the one and twentieth he had descried certain arguments of victory. b Surely his superstition shames our indevotion, his importunity our faint heartedness and shortness of spirit. Surely, as painfulness of speaking shows a sick body, so doth irksomeness of praying a sick soul.
a Act. and Mon.
b Sabellicus.