The All Night Wrestling Match That Got Jacob a New Name!

Jacob is renamed Israel after wrestling God

THE JUNIOR PATRIARCH BECOMES “ISRAEL” AFTER A MANO A MANO BOUT WITH THE LORD

 

Genesis 32:28 > Exodus 

WARNING: All night amateur male wrestling

CONTEXT:  ~ 1750 BCE Once sold into slavery by his brothers, Jacob’s son Joseph is now Viceroy of Egypt during the Middle Kingdom. 

SUMMARY

CONTEXT: ~ 1800 BCE to 1020 BCE After leaving his father-in-law in Syria, Jacob prepares to spend the night alone on a riverbank in Jordan.1 

This short incident takes place out of the blue and has no connection to any previous event.2  After sensing his family ahead, a “man” appears and wrestles with Jacob all night, apparently to a draw. We are not specifically told who the man is, but the context of the conversation indicates it is God.3  Around dawn the man/deity dislocates his opponent’s thigh but Jacob holds on to him. The man demands to be released but Jacob will not let go until the fellow blesses him.4

The man decides that Jacob has earned the right to be renamed. He will now be called “Israel” which translates from the Hebrew as “Struggles with God.”5

Jacob asks his sparring partner his name and God answers quizzically “why do you want to know my name.” But he doesn’t tell Israel his name.6

Incident concluded, the narrator explains that Israelites/Jews “to this day” do not eat the hollow of the thigh (tenderloin or gid hanasheh). 

This is a very short interlude wedged in the middle of another of Jacob’s family dramas. It doesn’t even get its own chapter. While on the one hand the baffling text explains why some Jews don’t eat tenderloin, it also seems to be a rather understated way to introduce the name of entire people.

 

Fun Bible Stories tells the stories they forgot to mention

“Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for thou hast striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed.”

– Genesis 32:28 [ASV]

 

NOTES:

  1. The Jabbok is a small stream running east to west and is the traditional  boundary between the Amorites and the Ammonites.
  2. It is remarkably similar to an bizarre event six hundred years later, when God physically ambushes Moses and tries to kill him.
  3. This is a recurrence of the original god of the Hebrew Bible taking an anthropomorphic form, a man who is also an angel. 
  4. Although Jacob shows every sign of being a physical coward in other Biblical episodes, he seems to have chose the bout with El to man up. By the same token, he is also portrayed as very stubborn in other stories.
  5. This is more interesting than may first appear: The term “El” refers to the Canaanite god, who was initially worshiped by the ancient Hebrews (who were also Canaanites). The god of the Old Testament doesn’t introduce himself to Moses until Exodus 3:14 by the name YHWH or “I am who I am.”
  6. God may be amused here, as he has already provided the master herdsman a hint as to who he was wrestling with: He is the Canaanite god “El,” the deity that Jacob (now Israel) has wrestled with.
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