A New Dawn: Jacob’s Struggle, Messiah’s Gethsemane, and the Spiritual Breakthrough After Pressure

The upcoming weekly Torah portion, Parashat “Va’yishlach”, brings us to one of the most remarkable moments in the life of Jacob: a night of struggle with the angel of the Lord. It is a night in which fear, loneliness, and tension reach their peak. Jacob stands before a fateful meeting with his brother Esau, and the weight of his past rises over him like powerful waves. At that moment, alone by the riverbank, he encounters a man (angel) and wrestles with him until daybreak (Genesis 32:24). This struggle is not against a human enemy, but a divine encounter meant to shape Jacob. When the angel gives him the name Israel and says, “For you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:28), it becomes clear that this night birthed a new identity and a new blessing within him. The prophet Hosea echoes this: “He wrestled with the angel and prevailed” (Hosea 12:4).

The significance of Jacob's name change goes deeper than what we may think. In Hebrew, the root of the name Jacob means to follow after and comes from the word for heel. The name Israel is broken into two parts: Isra meaning dwell and el God, God dwells. So, Jacob, who once came after his brother Esau, (Genesis 25:19), now goes forth as the one in whom God dwells.

The experience of Yeshua the Messiah in Gethsemane likewise reminds us that before great light of spiritual breakthrough and blessing comes deep pressure. Yeshua prayed under immense spiritual tension, as though the weight of the entire world rested on His heart. His prayer to the Father was simple yet filled with depth: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Matthew 26:39). It was a moment when His humanity cried out, yet His Messiahship stood firm.

To understand the depth of that night, we must understand what Gethsemane truly is. The name “Gethsemane” means “oil press,” a place where olive oil is produced. In ancient times, olives were crushed under a massive stone, and then tremendous pressure was applied to extract the pure oil. The olive does not release what is inside it while intact, but only when it is pressed. So it was that night in Gethsemane. Yeshua was in the place where olives are crushed to produce oil, and He Himself underwent deep internal pressure until His sweat became “like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). The pressure did not come to break Him but to reveal from within Him the oil of redemption and the light of sacrificial love.

Hannah, the mother of Samuel, carried a very different kind of pain. Her womb was closed, and this brought upon her deep and ongoing sorrow. Scripture emphasizes, “For the Lord had closed her womb” (1 Samuel 1:5). Hannah approached God "out of bitterness of soul and poured out her heart in prayer and tears" (1 Samuel 1:10). Her prayer rose from longing that had not yet been fulfilled, and from that place Samuel was born, a great prophet in Israel.

I once heard an excellent illustration of our lives under pressure. There are moments in life when a person feels as if he is lying on the ground with the metal track of a heavy tank passing over him. Each link in the track presses him further and further into the earth. The pressure is strong, the breath becomes short, and the heart whispers that if it continues even one more moment, he will break. Yet at that very moment he does not realize that the track has almost finished passing over him. The greatest pain appears just before emerging on the other side, and the deepest pressure is the sign that dawn is near. Suddenly the weight lifts, the track moves forward, and the person rises from the dust and draws in a new breath.

This is how God works in human life. Jacob’s night ended with a dawn of blessing (Genesis 33:4). The pressure Yeshua the Messiah bore in Gethsemane led to the opening of the path of redemption. Hannah’s prayer ended with an answer that lit her future: “And the Lord remembered her” (1 Samuel 1:19). And the person beneath the tank’s track eventually stands; free, clear-minded, and strengthened in spirit.

In all these examples we see what Scripture declares about the end of Job’s journey: “And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning” (Job 42:12). Even when a journey begins in pain, in darkness, or under a heavy burden, in God's hands it can end with a great blessing. God leads a person from pressure to dawn, from pain to blessing, and from deep cries to divine answers and spiritual breakthrough. And if someone feels today that they are under a crushing weight, they must know that the Messiah is with them in every moment, and that a far better end than the beginning is already waiting ahead.