Genesis 32:1-21 - Jacob Fears Esau

¹ So Jacob went on his way and the angels of God met him. ² When Jacob saw them, he exclaimed, "This is the camp of God!" So he named that place Mahanaim.

³ Jacob sent messengers on ahead to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the region of Edom. ⁴ He commanded them, "This is what you must say to my lord Esau: 'This is what your servant Jacob says: I have been staying with Laban until now. ⁵ I have oxen, donkeys, sheep, and male and female servants. I have sent this message to inform my lord, so that I may find favor in your sight.'"

⁶ The messengers returned to Jacob and said, "We went to your brother Esau. He is coming to meet you and has four hundred men with him." ⁷ Jacob was very afraid and upset. So he divided the people who were with him into two camps, as well as the flocks, herds, and camels. ⁸ "If Esau attacks one camp," he thought, "then the other camp will be able to escape."

⁹ Then Jacob prayed, "O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord, you said to me, 'Return to your land and to your relatives and I will make you prosper.' ¹⁰ I am not worthy of all the faithful love you have shown your servant. With only my walking stick I crossed the Jordan, but now I have become two camps. ¹¹ Rescue me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, as well as the mothers with their children. ¹² But you said, 'I will certainly make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand on the seashore, too numerous to count.'"

¹³ Jacob stayed there that night. Then he sent as a gift to his brother Esau ¹⁴ two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, ¹⁵ thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. ¹⁶ He entrusted them to his servants, who divided them into herds. He told his servants, "Pass over before me, and keep some distance between one herd and the next."

¹⁷ He instructed the servant leading the first herd, "When my brother Esau meets you and asks, 'To whom do you belong? Where are you going? Whose herds are you driving?' ¹⁸ then you must say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They have been sent as a gift to my lord Esau. In fact Jacob himself is behind us.'"

¹⁹ He also gave these instructions to the second and third servants, as well as all those who were following the herds, saying, "You must say the same thing to Esau when you meet him. ²⁰ You must also say, 'In fact your servant Jacob is behind us.'" Jacob thought, "I will first appease him by sending a gift ahead of me. After that I will meet him. Perhaps he will accept me."

²¹ So the gifts were sent on ahead of him while he spent that night in the camp.