To Strive With God
- Jacob's new name, Israel, marked a profound change in his identity.
- The name is connected to the Hebrew verb meaning "to strive," "wrestle," or "persist," and Genesis 32:28 explains the name by saying, "you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed."
- Jacob had spent much of his life striving through deception, manipulation, and self-reliance. At the Jabbok, however, he encountered God and came away changed.
- He was no longer simply Jacob, the man who grasped and struggled to secure his own future. He became Israel, a man who had wrestled with God and learned to cling to Him.
- This name would become far more than Jacob's personal identity. Israel would become the name of the nation God formed from Jacob's twelve sons and the people through whom God would fulfill His covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His twelve sons would become the twelve tribes of Israel.
- What happened at the Jabbok, therefore, became part of the story of an entire people. God did not simply give Jacob a new name. He gave him a new identity, and that new identity would eventually become the name of a nation.
- The man who once tried to secure God's promises through his own strength would now carry the name of the people who belonged to God's covenant.
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