"Save me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him." Jacob's plea in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 32:12) names two things most ancient prayers leave implicit: the specific enemy and the specific fear.
Jacob's fear is not that Esau hates him — that much is obvious. His fear is more subtle and more terrible: "He has been mindful of the glory of his father." Esau has been carrying, for twenty years, the weight of his father Isaac's honor. Every day Esau has thought about what he owes the old man. And the Targum names the unspeakable possibility that follows: "lest he come and smite the mother with the children."
Why this phrase matters
The phrase "mother upon children" (em al banim) is the same phrase the Torah uses later to forbid taking a mother bird with her chicks (Deuteronomy 22:6). Jacob fears Esau will violate the most basic decency the Torah would one day legislate. He fears annihilation root and branch.
The takeaway: real prayer names the real fear. Jacob does not pretty up his terror for the Holy One. He lays it down plainly and waits to be answered.