Komentaryo sa Genesis 32:31: Kli Yakar, Or HaChaim, Radak & Rav Hirsch

And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face. This is the matter which I spoke about — that Samael wanted to blind the eyes of his intellect with the dust of evil speech, to the point where he would deny God’s existence and not see the face of God. And when my soul was saved through the rising of dawn, then I saw God face to face, to grasp His blessed existence through the shining of the sun at dawn’s rise, contrary to the view of Samael who blinds and defiles and mixes the holy with the mundane. This is what is meant by and the sun rose for him — namely to heal him. Yet afterward it says and he was limping on his hip — these verses seem to contradict each other. Rather, the meaning is that through the rising of the sun came healing for the blow that Samael wanted to strike him with, which was to blind his intellectual eyes and bring him to deny God. Therefore it says for him — for his benefit — as the sun of righteousness shone upon him with healing in its wings, and because of its rising his eyes shall see the King in His beauty. Nevertheless, Samael’s actions succeeded in making him limp on his hip and closing the gates of understanding before him, preventing him from entering into the secret counsel of God reserved for those who fear Him, so long as his eye was on his money and he was consumed by the uncontrolled desire for worldly possessions.

פנים אל פנים, face to face. Jacob's amazement was not due to the fact that he had had an encounter with an angel; he had previously encountered angels. What amazed him was that he had been in a confrontation with an angel. The word פנים אל פנים is a term used in warfare as we know from Kings II 14,8.

ויקרא יעקב....פניאל...פנים אל פנים. According to one of the commentaries which we quoted (verse 26) that the angel had assumed human form, this experience was something new for Yaakov. For the first time he had seen a divine being face to face while being awake. Adding to this the fact that this angel had twisted his hip joint out of shape and he had survived this he was amazed that he had survived such an encounter. This is why he used the expression פנים אל פנים. He added the words