Narkissos makes some cogent points as usual. The 'lhym in v. 29 is in parallelism with 'nshym "men", which lends to reading 'lhym as "gods" rather than "God," and it is also worth noting that the same seems to be true with the Mahanaim tradition in v. 1-2, which has a rather difficult relationship with the Jabbok tale. There the ml'ky-'lhym confront Jacob not far from the Jabbok (v. 1), and while the term can mean either "messengers of God" or "messengers of the gods," the next verse refers to them as the mchnh-'lhym which more naturally has a collective sense of "camp of the gods" (cf. "camp of Israel" in Exodus 14:19, "camp of the Levites" in Numbers 2:17, "camp of the sons of Judah" in Numbers 10:14, "camp of the sons of Dan" in Numbers 10:25, "camp of the Philistines" in 1 Samuel 17:46, 28:5, "camp of Aram" in 2 Kings 7:6, etc.). The Mahanaim tradition seems to be a fragmentary doublet of the Jabbok story, as it has a number of features in common: (1) The messengers/angels of 'lhym "meet" (pn`) Jacob at Mahanaim, and this verb often has more of a sense of "meet with hostility" or "oppose" (cf. Judges 8:21, 15:12, 18:25, 1 Samuel 22:17, 2 Samuel 1:15, 1 Kings 2:25), and the combination of this verb with mchnh "military camp" is especially suggestive of a hostile encounter. So here is a probable second reference to a hostile encounter between Jacob and the 'lhym, (2) The explanation of the name Mahanaim (Hebrew mchnym), referring to the "two camps" of Jacob and the divine ml'kym, has a resonance with the subsequent Jabbok story, wherein Jacob divides his company into shny mchnwt "two camps" (v. 7), (3) The reference to divine ml'kym of v. 1 is followed straight on with references to human mlk'ym sent by Jacob in v. 3. It is thus possible that the redactor here is combining two traditional stories about how two different toponyms got their names (Mahanaim, Jabbok), and which invoked a common tradition in their own ways. So the origin of the name Mahanaim has two explanations in the text: it could refer either to the two camps of Jacob and the messengers of the gods that confronted him, or it could refer to the two camps that Jacob split his own company into. Mahanaim and the Jabbok seem to both be attached to stories about a hostile encounter between Jacob and divine gods/angels. The Mahanaim story is extremely laconic and may have been truncated in favor of the Jabbok narrative. The Jabbok story does not make geographical sense in its present context (and it is pretty odd for Jacob to undertake the dangerous crossing in the darkness of night), particularly the relationship between v. 22-32 and the preceding narrative in v. 3-21, so this might be a sign that it originally belonged to another context. There is also a relationship between these two pericopes, as the confrontation that Jacob fears with Esau is realized with the "man" he wrestles with in the next story, and similarly, he looks forward to "seeing the face of [Esau]" ('r'h pnyw) in v. 20 and the statement in v. 30 that Jacob "saw" (r'yty) the gods/God pnym 'l-pnym "face to face" in his hostile encounter (cf. 33:10 where the two are brought together).
Notice the heavy wordplay in v. 22-32, characteristic of J. At the ybq "Jabbok" (v. 22), y`qb "Jacob" (v. 24) y'qb "wrestles" (v. 24) an unknown man. The passage also gives popular etymologies for Peniel and Israel. The latter is explained in a way contrary to the actual construction of the name: yshr'l "Israel" means "El prevails" and not "one who has prevailed over El".
