John Calvin Commentary Genesis 32:29

"And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there." — Genesis 32:29 (ASV)

Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. This seems opposed to what was stated above, for I have recently said that when Jacob sought a blessing, it was a token of his submission. Why, therefore, as if he were of doubtful mind, does he now inquire the name of Him whom he had before acknowledged to be God?

But the solution to the question is easy. For, though Jacob acknowledges God, yet, not content with an obscure and slight knowledge, he wishes to ascend higher. And it is not surprising that the holy man, to whom God had manifested Himself under so many veils and coverings that he had not yet obtained any clear knowledge of Him, should break forth in this wish. Indeed, it is certain that all the saints under the Law were inflamed with this desire.

A similar prayer of Manoah is also found in Judges 13:18, to which the answer from God is added, except that there the Lord pronounces His name to be wonderful and secret, so that Manoah might not proceed further. The sum, therefore, is this: though Jacob’s wish was pious, the Lord does not grant it, because the time of full revelation was not yet completed. For the fathers, in the beginning, were required to walk in the twilight of morning, and the Lord manifested Himself to them by degrees, until, at length, Christ the Sun of Righteousness arose, in whom perfect brightness shines forth.

This is the reason He rendered Himself more conspicuous to Moses, who nevertheless was only permitted to behold His glory from behind. Yet because Moses occupied an intermediate place between patriarchs and apostles, he is said, in comparison with them, to have seen face to face the God Who had been hidden from the fathers.

But now, since God has approached more nearly to us, our ingratitude is most impious and detestable if we do not run to meet Him with ardent desire to obtain such great grace, as Peter also admonishes us in the first chapter of his first epistle (1 Peter 1:12, 13).

It is to be observed that although Jacob piously desires to know God more fully, yet because he is carried beyond the bounds prescribed for the age in which he lived, he suffers a repulse. For the Lord, cutting short his wish, commands him to be content with his own blessing. But if that measure of illumination which we have received was denied to the holy man, how intolerable will our curiosity be if it breaks forth beyond the limit now prescribed by God.