Hosea 12:3 ....by his strength he had power with God

Hos 12:3    He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God:

Hos 12:4    Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us;

Hos 12:5    Even the LORD God of hosts; the LORD is his memorial.

Hos 12:6    Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually.

Hos 12:7    He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.

by his strength he had power with God:

Gill clarifies this....see below

Not his own strength but a strength given him....

In our pursuit and preservance of faith we are to gather and rely on his strength.

AKA The vine and the branches.

Joh 15:3    Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

Joh 15:4    Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

Joh 15:5    I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Even Pilate was subject to this..

Joh 19:10    Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?

Joh 19:11    Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.

Hosea 12:3

He took his brother by the heel in the womb,.... That is, Jacob took his brother Esau by the heel, as he came forth from his mother's womb; the history of it is in Gen 25:25. It is here observed, upon mentioning the name of Jacob in Hos 12:2, meaning the posterity, of the patriarch; but here he himself is intended, and occasionally taken notice of, to show how very different his posterity were from him, and how sadly degenerated; as well as to upbraid them with ingratitude, whose ancestors, and they also, had received such and so many favours from the Lord; Jacob the patriarch was a hero from the womb, but they transgressors from it; this action of his observed was a presage and pledge of his having the superiority of his brother, and of his getting the birthright and blessing from him. So the Targum,

"prophet, say unto them, was it not said of Jacob, before he was born, that he would be greater than his brother?''

see Rom 9:11. In this action there was something divine, miraculous, and preternatural; it was not the effort of nature merely, but contrary to it, or at least above it; and not done by chance, but ordered by the providence of God, as a prediction and testification of his future greatness, and even of his posterity's, in times yet to come, as Kimchi observes, who refers to Oba 1:18;

and by his strength he had power with God; the Targum is, with the angel, as in Hos 12:4; he is called a man in the history of this event in Gen 32:24; not that he was a mere man, since he is here expressly called God, and afterwards the Lord God of hosts; and there it is evident, from the context, he was a divine Person, and no other than the Son of God; who, though not as yet incarnate, appeared in a human form, as a presage of his future incarnation; though this was not a mere apparition, spectre, or phantasm, as Josephus (t) calls it; for it was not in a dream, or in a visionary way, that this wrestling and striving was between this divine Person in this form and Jacob, but in reality; it was a real substance which the Son of God formed, animated, actuated, and assumed, for that time and purpose, and then laid it aside; which touched Jacob, and he touched that, laid hold on it, and held it fast, and strove with it, and had power over it, and over God in it; even over him that is God over all, the true God and eternal life, the Lord Jesus Christ; not a created God, or God by office, but by nature; as the perfections that are in him, and the works and worship ascribed to him, declare: now Jacob had power over him "by his strength"; not by his natural strength; either of his body, which could not have been equal to the strength of this human body assumed for the time, as it was used and managed by a divine Person, unless he had been extraordinarily assisted and strengthened; or of his mind and soul, not by any spiritual strength he had of himself; but by what he had from this divine Person, with whom he wrestled; who put strength into him, and supported and increased the power and strength of faith in prayer; so that he prevailed over him, and got the blessing, for which reason his name was called Israel, Gen 32:28.

(t) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 20. sect. 2.