Genesis 32:30

And Jakob asked and said, Show me now thy name. And he said, Why dost thou ask for my name? And he blessed Jakob there.

WHY IS IT THAT THOU DOST ASK AFTER MY NAME? The angel said: “There is no advantage to you in knowing my name for no one possesses the power and the capability other than G-d alone. If you will call upon me I will not answer you, nor will I save you from your trouble. However, I will now bless you, for so I am commanded.” But Scripture does not explain the contents of the blessing. That which our Rabbis have said is most probable, namely that the angel, despite himself, conceded to him at that place the legitimacy of his father’s blessings, as Jacob did not wish to wait for him until he arrived at Beth-el.

הגידה נא שמך, which would describe your essence, your function, and how you would go about performing same. This would enable me to understand why you attacked me in the first place. I would then be able to do penitence for my sin, something I cannot do as long as I do not know what precisely my sin consists of.

?למה זה תשאל לשמי, our (angels) format does not in any way correspond and shed light on the level of our intelligence which cannot be explained in terms of language used by human beings. The angel confronting Manoach in Judges 13,18 summed this up in the single word: “פלאי,” it is concealed, [because it would only be misunderstood if put into words. Ed.] The angel’s activity reflects G’d’s will at the time. [Clearly, this implies that most angels perform their tasks ad hoc. Ed.]

וישאל...הגידה נא שמך, for each angel has a name appropriate to his mission. This is what Isaiah meant when he said (Isaiah 40,26) לכולם בשם יקרא, “Who calls them each by name. ”We find names of angels spelled out in Daniel 9,21 והאיש גבריאל, as well as chapter 10,12 in Daniel כי אם מיכאל שרכם. Seeing that the angel had changed his name, Yaakov wanted to know the angel’s name in order to find out what this angel’s primary task was.

?למה זה תשאל לשמי; a polite way of saying: “you do not need to know my name.” The same happened to Manoach in Judges 13,18 when he wanted to know the name of the angel who had announced that his wife would give birth to Shimshon. However, the difference there was that at the time Manoach asked he was still unaware that he was addressing an angel, thinking that he was dealing with a prophet, a human being. We do not really know why the angels keep their names secret. According to Bereshit Rabbah 78,4 the angel’s question meant that seeing each angel has a name assigned to him for each specific assignment he carries out on earth, there was no point in knowing his name as it would change before he would be given a new assignment. Rabbi Ami, quoting Abba Yossi, draws attention to two verses, one in Psalms 147,4 saying לכולם שמות יקרא, “He will call all of them by names,” and Isaiah 2,26 לכולם בשם קרא, “He calls all of them by name.” This appears to state that whereas the stars do not undergo name changes, angels names do. He uses the angel’s question to Manoach as proof that this is so. The angel answered Manoach that he did not know what his name would be on his next mission.

ויברך אותו שם, apart from the fact that he had told him about his impending name change to Yisrael, explaining the reason for this, he gave him an additional blessing. The reason the verse ends with the word שם is that it is a reference to Bet El where G’d would confirm the name change.