God-Elohim has many names. When Moses asked Him what His Name is, so he could tell the people of Israel that this is Who sent him, God replied: “I will be whoever I will be, אהיה אשר אהיה (future tense). He calls Himself יהוה (Yehova, Was, Is and Is To Be). In the first name the letter ה (H) appears four times, in the second it appears twice. When God changed Abram’s name אברם (high father) to אברהם AbraHam, He added the letter ה (H) meaning father of many nations. In the same way, He changed Abraham’s wife’s name Sarai to SaraH ה.
There was a reason for both name changes. It was so that they would know that He has a purpose for the two of them as mother and father of the son of promise. However, by the time God gave Abraham the promise that his seed would be as the stars and sand (Gen. 15:5,) and that through him all of the nations of the earth would be blessed, Abraham and his wife Sarah were too old to have children. Sarah gave her Egyptian maid Hagar to her husband Abraham to be the surrogate mother of their future heir, and Ishmael was born. But he was not the Son of the Promise.
Abraham fell on his face and laughed when God told him that Sarah would bear him a child. Abraham said to himself: “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!” (Gen. 17:17-18)
God made it clear to Abraham that Isaac, not Ishmael was the Son of the Promise:
Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac (will laugh – in Hebrew). I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you.“
Just as the Lord had said, a year later Sarah gave birth to Isaac. God told Abraham to send Ishmael away (he settled in Paran in Arabia,) that He would make him there a great nation also:
God said to Abraham, “Do not be grievous because of the boy (Ishmael) and because of your slave woman…For from Isaac will your seed be called.” (Gen. 21:12)
So two great nations came out of Abraham; the Arabs from Ishmael (not the Seed of the Promise) and Israel, from Isaac – the Seed of the Promise.
[Read more about the Promise on our Blog]
Where does the name Israel come from?
The name “Israel” comes from the Hebrew words Isra (verb meaning to wrestle) and El (meaning God). Genesis 32:24-30:
“And Jacob remained alone (all night). A man fought with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he could not prevail, he struck Jacob on the hip and threw it out of joint. The man said, “Let go of me! It’s daylight.” And he said: “I will not let you go until you bless me.” Then the man asked, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. The man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel. You have wrestled with God (Elohim) and with men and you have prevailed. Jacob said, “Now tell me your name.” “Why do you ask for my name?” (Don’t you know who I am?) And he blessed him there. And Jacob named the place Peniel (face of God), because he said, “I have seen God face to face, and I am still alive.”
God reaffirmed the change of name, the Blessing, and the Promise, in Gen. 35:9-12:
Now that Jacob had returned from Paddan-Aram, God appeared to him again at Bethel and blessed him, saying, “Your name is Jacob, but you will not be called Jacob any longer. From now on your name will be Israel.” So God renamed him Israel. “And God, Elohim said to him, I am El Shaddai, be fruitful and multiply, a big nation and a multitude of nations will come out of you. And kings will come out of your loins. And the land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and to your seed after you I will give the land.”
Modern archaeology confirms the Biblical account of ‘Israelite’ people in the land of Canaan sometime during the first Iron Age. These people differentiated themselves from the Canaanites by not intermarrying, genealogy, and religion.
In the Bible, Israel is mentioned 2566 times. Only the Name of God is mentioned more times. There are many prophetic scriptures concerning Israel including Isa. 11:12, Isa. 66:8, Ezek. 37:21, Jer. 31:3,10-11, Ezek. 34:28. It is to Israel that God says: “I have loved you with an everlasting love”, and that he is “the apple of His (God’s) eye”.
So Where does the name Israel come from? From the Lord Himself, its the name that God gave to change Jacob’s name, and use for His people and His Promised Land He gave them.
Where does the name Palestine come from?
Read part two in our next newsletter.