45 "Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree’, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”"
John 1:45-51
Nathanael was a man with doubts (46), and not untouched by prejudice. We can learn from Philip here how to deal with such problems. One does not argue with prejudice, for prejudiced people are not generally amenable to argument. What Philip said was, 'Come and see'. And, give Nathanael his due, he was impressed with what Philip said, in spite of himself, and went. Thank God when prejudice begins to crumble. Our Lord's words to Nathanael (47, 50, 51) are full of significance. There is more in them than a first reading of them generally yields. Scholars are fairly certain that there is a reference in 47 to the story of Jacob, and particularly to his experience at Peniel in Genesis 32 when he wrestled with the angel. The force of the phrase 'in whom there is no guile' is that up to the time of Peniel there was a great deal of guile in Jacob, and only in wrestling with the angel was the guile driven out of him and he became a new person. In speaking of Nathanael in such terms we must assume that Jesus had something like this in mind. Nathanael was sitting under the fig tree meditating, thinking out the whole disturbing upheaval that had come to the community through the preaching of John the Baptist, wrestling with his doubts and, still more, it may be, with his prejudices. And Jesus sees in him another case of Jacob wrestling with God and emerging into newness of life even as he came to Jesus. 'Here is a man', says Jesus, 'for whom the wrestling is already over, and who has become a prince with God'. It seems just as clear that there is another reference to Jacob's experience in 51 - to Jacob's ladder in Genesis 28. But why the repeated reference to Jacob at this point? Well, in 43 we read that Jesus was travelling from the south northwards to Galilee, and He and His disciples would have passed by Bethel and Jabbok, places full of association for the patriarch, and may well have made comment on the incidents to the disciples on the way. This must remain conjecture on our part, but it is surely one possible explanation of the references to the patriarch.