Genesis 32:12

Remember that promise you made to me. You said, ‘I promise that I will be good to you, and I will give you a really big family. Lots of kids and grand-kids will be born into your family later on, and they will become a really big mob of people. Nobody will be able to count them, just like nobody can count all those little bits of sand that are at the beaches by the sea.’ Please be good to me and my family, God, just like you promised. Please don’t let my brother kill us.”

Plain English Version

In The King James Version

And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.

In Context

11Then Jacob said to God, “I’m frightened of my brother Esau. Maybe he will come and attack me and kill me, and even kill my wives and my kids. God, please save us from my brother.

13Jacob stayed in that place that night. He wanted to give his brother Esau a present, so he picked some of his animals to give to Esau.

Read all of Genesis 32

Cross References

Genesis 22:17So I will do really good things for you. And I will give you a really big family. You see, lots of people will be born into your son’s family later on, and they will become a really big mob of people. There will be lots and lots of them, just like there are lots of stars in the sky, and lots of little bits of sand at the beaches beside the sea. And when other nations get up to fight against them, your family will win, and they will take the towns from those other nations.

Genesis 32:6Then those men came back, and they said to Jacob, “We went and talked to your brother Esau, and now he is coming here to meet you. He has 400 men with him.”

2 Timothy 2:13But if we break our promise to him, that is different. He is not like us. He can never break his promise to us. He will always do what is right. That’s the sort of person he is.”

Matthew Henry on Genesis 32:10-13

Jacob's Prayer. ( b. c. 1739.) 9 And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee: 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands. 11 Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Genesis 32:12