How did Israel get the name Israel? And what does it mean? The answer is not so simple. The word “Israel” is mentioned 2362 times in the Bible, 2284 times in the Hebrew Scriptures and 78 times in the New Testament as well. Where does the word come from and what can we learn from its meaning? The origin of the name says a lot about the nature and destiny that would come from the twelve tribes, and also tells us a lot about God.
What does the name Israel mean?
The word Israel is first mentioned during Jacob’s wrestling match with God, right before he crossed the Jordan river on his way to reconcile with his brother, Esau. Jacob was accosted by the Angel of God and they fought till daybreak.
“Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel,” said the Angel of the Lord, “for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” (Genesis 32:28)
When we look at the Hebrew of this verse in Genesis, the word “Israel” is broken down into the words “struggle” (or “strive”) and “God”.
In a parallel passage Hosea 12:3-4 recaps this story with Jacob, the grandson of Abraham:
In the womb he took his brother by the heel,
and in his manhood he strove with God.
He strove with the angel and prevailed;
he wept and sought his favor.
When we look at the second part of the passage, in verse 4, we read:
“So he strove with an angel, and prevailed” which looks like this in Hebrew:
וַיָּשַׂר אֶל-מַלְאָךְ וַיֻּכָל
You can see the letters spelling Israel (ישראל) although here the word Israel appears in the words strove (יָּשַׂר) and “with” (אֶל) because Jacob was wrestling with the Angel of God. The concept and identity of the Angel of God comes up many times in the Bible, and we’ll meet Him again a bit later here. In short, the Angel is God in human form: the pre-incarnate Messiah, Yeshua. The word אֶל in this context is the preposition “with” but it’s also the way we spell “God” (El, אֵל)1. In its most straightforward sense then, Israel means “one who struggled / strove with the Angel of God”. Pretty accurate, I’d say!
However, with Hebrew being the rich and wonderful language that it is, there’s more to it than the straightforward meaning. For one thing, the way Biblical Hebrew and modern Hebrew show the tense in a word is different, so the words “ישר אל” could mean both “strove with God” in the past tense but also “will strive with God” in the future. As the biblical narrative unravels through the pages of Scripture, we see that the descendants of Israel, the twelve sons of Jacob, continued to strive with God throughout the pages of the entire book we have today.
Jacob means “crooked” but God is straight
In another wordplay, we see the contrast of characters between God and Jacob in this name of Israel. While the root letters in the name of Jacob (יעקב) have connotations of crookedness, the Hebrew letters “ישר” can also mean “straight”, upright or trustworthy. A bit of poetic license is required2, but God is a poet and the Scriptures are replete with clues like this to deeper meanings.
Strong’s concordance shows the meaning of Jacob as “to seize by the heel; figuratively, to circumvent (as if tripping up the heels); also to restrain (as if holding by the heel):—take by the heel, stay, supplant”. Certainly this meaning comes through in Genesis 25 when Rebecah names her twin boys:
“When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.” (Genesis 25:24-26)
The word עָקֹב from the same root (עקב) means deceitful, sly, insidious, crooked, or polluted. In this way we see the contrast between God being faithful, straight, upright and true (ישר) and Jacob (aka Israel) being crooked or deceitful. The way the story of Jacob goes, we see him deceiving and conniving to get the birthright from his brother and then the best of the herd from his father-in-law Laban, who had also done a few twists and turns to trick Jacob into marrying not one of his daughters but two, and then working twice as long as Jacob originally agreed to.
God may be perfectly straight and upright, but human beings are not. Not just Jacob, but all of humanity.
This contrast is seen with the two roots juxtaposed in Isaiah 40:4 which says,
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
The words for “uneven ground” and “made level” include the root words, עקב (crooked) and ישר (straight):
כָּל-גֶּיא, יִנָּשֵׂא, וְכָל-הַר וְגִבְעָה, יִשְׁפָּלוּ; וְהָיָה הֶעָקֹב לְמִישׁוֹר, וְהָרְכָסִים לְבִקְעָה.
However twisted things might get, God can straighten us out.
What does this tell us about God?
Jacob and the twelve tribes are like a microcosm of all sinful humanity, and the contrast with God is stark! Yet God gives Jacob this profound name. Yes, he strove with God and prevailed, but Jacob also gets to carry the name of God: The Straight One, replacing his own human name: the crooked one.
Isn’t this just like God? He gives us His own righteousness to wear like a robe. He covers our sin and gives us His stamp of approval, even though we do not deserve it.
It can be very easy for those in the nations to point at the pages of the Bible and see the sin of Israel, the twelve tribes of Jacob and all the crookedness there. The Scriptures air Israel’s dirty laundry for all to see. God has chosen Israel to give an illustration for the whole world of how He relates to fallen humanity. But this name change is indicative of the justification that God can give when He imputes His righteousness as we put our faith in Him. The process is laid out in this beautiful vision given to Zechariah the prophet:
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord was standing by. (Zechariah 3:1-5)
Notice too that the pointing finger of accusation comes from Satan. Beware of joining in that company. Better to join with God’s heart of grace and covering, mercy and redemption that comes from the Angel of the Lord:
And the angel of the Lord solemnly assured Joshua, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. (Zechariah 3:6-9)
God’s redeeming sacrifice was foreseen here in Zechariah 3, some 600 years before it happened, and Yeshua, the Angel of the Lord, is right there in God’s courts, while they discuss the coming of God’s Servant, the Branch, and the day that all of Israel’s iniquity will be removed. A few chapters later, Zechariah speaks of that day when all the twelve tribes of Israel will understand about the identity of God’s Servant the Branch and receive His grace and His mercy:
“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.” (Zechariah 12:10)
When God gave Jacob the name “Israel”, He was not only declaring His righteousness in contrast to Jacob’s crookedness, but He was stamping Israel with His approval and promise that He would one day make the crooked places straight. All our days are written in God’s book before one of them came to be.
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord‘s hand
double for all her sins.
(Isaiah 40:1-2)
- The letters are the same even though the nouns are slightly different, as seen in the dots underneath.
- The letters שׂ and שׁ are different, but close enough to make a wordplay.
