Please explain Genesis 32:32.

This verse states, “Therefore to this day the children of Israel do not eat the muscle that shrank, which is on the hip socket, because He touched the socket of Jacob’s hip in the muscle that shrank” (Revised Standard Version).

This is a custom that the children of Israel began to observe voluntarily. They observed it out of respect for their forefather Jacob. A renowned Jewish historian (of the Jews), Flavius Josephus, stated that the Jews of Christ’s time routinely observed this custom (Bk. I, Ch. XX, Sec. 2).

Even today, some Orthodox Jews still follow this. However, nowhere in the Bible do we find that Jesus himself observed this custom. It is a tradition of men and is not binding upon Christians today.

While it is not wrong to observe this custom today, such an observance is unnecessary.