He with whom Jacob wrestles, in Gen. xxxii. 24, makes himself known as God, partly by giving him the name Israel, _i.e._, one who wrestles with God, and partly by bestowing a blessing upon him. Jacob calls the place _Peniel_, _i.e._, face of God, because he had seen God face to face, and wonders that his life was preserved. The answer which Elohim gives here to Jacob's question regarding His name, remarkably coincides with that which in Judges xiii. 17, 18, is given by _the_ Angel of the Lord to a similar question. In Hosea xii. 4 (comp. the remarks on this passage in the Author's "_Genuineness of the Pentateuch_," vol. i. p. 128 ff.), he who wrestled with Jacob is called Elohim, as in Genesis; but in ver. 5, he is called מלאך, a word which is more distinctly defined by the preceding Elohim; so that we can, accordingly, think only of the Angel of God. As it was certainly not the intention of the prophet to state a new historical circumstance, the mention of the Angel must be founded upon the supposition, that all revelations of God are made by the mediation of His Angel,--a supposition which we have already proved to have its foundation in the book of Genesis itself. _Delitzsch_ says, S. 256, "Jehovah reveals Himself in the מלאך, but just by means of a finite spirit becoming visible, and therefore in a manner more tolerable to him who occupies a lower place of communion with God." And similarly, _Hofmann_ expresses himself, S. 335: "It is quite the same thing whether it be said, he saw God, or an angel, as is testified by Hosea also; and nowhere have we less right to explain it as if it were an appearance of God the Son, in contrast with the appearance of an angel."