Genesis 32:30

Summary

Jacob names the place where he wrestled Peniel ("Peniel", H6439G), giving as reason that he has seen 'Elohim ("God", H0430G) panim 'el panim ("face to face", H6440H), and that his nefesh ("life", H5315H) was delivered. The verse combines an act of naming with a first-person explanatory clause introduced by ki ("for", H3588A).

Key words

• va-yikra' ("and he called", H7121H) — qal narrative form (vav + prefix conjugation), marking the next event in the story sequence: the act of naming.
• Peni'El ("Peniel", H6439G) — proper noun for the place; formed from the same root as panim ("face"), the same word used later in the verse.
• ki ("for", H3588A) — subordinating particle introducing Jacob's own stated reason for the name, shifting from third-person narration to his direct explanation.
• ra'iti ("I have seen", H7200G) — qal perfect, first person, indicating a completed action from Jacob's own point of view.
• tinnatzel ("it has been delivered", H5337) — niphal (passive) form, narrative vav, with grammatical subject nafshi ("my life", H5315H+H9020), indicating the nefesh was the one acted upon, not the one acting.

What the text says

The verse has two parts joined by the narrative vav chain typical of Biblical Hebrew storytelling. First, va-yikra' Ya'aqov shem ha-maqom Peni'El ("and Jacob called the name of the place Peniel") follows the standard naming formula: verb + subject + "name of the place" + the name itself. Second, the causal clause beginning with ki gives Jacob's own reasoning, shifting into first-person speech embedded within third-person narration: ra'iti 'Elohim panim 'el panim, va-tinnatzel nafshi ("I have seen God face to face, and my life was delivered").

The word panim ("face", H6440H) appears twice in the phrase panim 'el panim ("face to face"), and this same root underlies the place name Peni'El itself — the noun panim combined with 'El ("God"). This repetition is visible in the Hebrew consonants but not always preserved in translation, where "Peniel" functions as a proper name disconnected from the following clause about seeing "face to face."

The final clause uses the niphal form tinnatzel ("it has been delivered", H5337), a passive/reflexive verb form, with nafshi ("my life", H5315H + H9020, "my") as its grammatical subject. The construction places nefesh ("life/soul") as the entity that undergoes the action of being delivered, rather than Jacob himself as an active subject of that verb.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the place name as "Εἶδος θεοῦ" ("Form/Sight of God"), a descriptive Greek phrase, rather than transliterating Peni'El as a proper name. The Vulgate uses "Phanuel," a transliteration closer to the Hebrew form. The LXX also renders 'Elohim with the accusative θεόν following ἴδον ("I saw"), in a phrase construction similar to the Hebrew but expressed with a finite verb ἐσώθη ("was saved") rather than reproducing the niphal passive nuance of tinnatzel through a distinct grammatical voice choice, though both LXX and Hebrew mark the deliverance as something happening to the subject rather than performed by it.