“He said: ‘Release me” – as the time for my lauding, to laud the Holy One blessed be He has arrived.’ He said to him: ‘Let your colleagues laud Him.’ He said to him: ‘I cannot, as the next day I will come to laud, and they will say to me, just as you did not laud yesterday, so you will not laud today.’ He [Jacob] said: ‘If you complete your task, you receive your reward – “I will not release you unless you bless me.”’
He [Jacob] said to him: ‘Those angels who came to Abraham, they took their leave from him only with a blessing.’ He said to him: ‘They were sent only for that purpose, but I was not sent for that purpose.’ He said to him: ‘If you complete your task, you receive your reward’ – “I will not release you.” Rabbi Levi said in the name of Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman: He [the angel] said: ‘The ministering angels, because they revealed the secrets of the Holy One blessed be He,4They revealed to Lot that the city of Sodom was going to be destroyed. they were banished from their partition for one hundred and thirty-eight years.
If I heed you, I will be banished from my partition.’ He said: ‘If you complete your task, you receive your reward – “I will not release you unless you bless me.”’ Rav Huna said: Ultimately he said: I will reveal it to him. If the Holy One blessed be He says to me: Why did you reveal it to him?
I will say before Him: Master of the universe, your prophets issue decrees, and you do not abrogate their decrees; would I be able to abrogate their decree.5He is asking rhetorically. He said to him: ‘He is destined to reveal Himself to you in Beit El and change your name, and I will be standing there. That is what is written: “In Beit El he found him, and there he will speak with us” (Hosea 12:5).’ It is not written here, “with you,” but rather, “and there he will speak with us.”