Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives the wrestling angel a confession that the plain text never imagined (Genesis 32:27). When dawn came, the angel pleaded: "Let me go, for the column of the morning ascends, and the hour comes when the angels on high offer praise to the Lord of the world."
And then the angel said something astonishing. "I am one of the angels of praise — but from the day the world was created, my time to praise has not come until now."
An angel's first song
The rabbis imagined the heavenly choirs in careful rotation. Every angel had its assigned moment, and this angel had been waiting since the first morning of creation — thousands of years — for its turn. And now, because of Jacob, the angel was trapped beside the Jabbok, about to miss the only song it had ever been given to sing.
Jacob's response is perhaps the most audacious line in the patriarchal narratives: "I will not let you go until you bless me." He held an angel at the edge of its one debut performance and demanded a blessing first. And he got it.
The takeaway: sometimes the Holy One's greatest gifts come to those who refuse to let go until dawn, even when the whole heavenly choir is waiting.