What Is Your Name?

I’m in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, and I am at the part where Jacob and his family have left his wive’s father, his uncle (his mother Rebekah’s brother), and are heading back towards Canaan and his brother Esau.

Today’s read was when Jacob spent all night wrestling with God! I have read this passage numerous times, but today, the Bible I’m reading this year included a side devotion regarding Jacobs’s name and its meaning!!!

Genesis 32:22-28 CSV “During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two slave women, and his eleven sons, and crossed the Ford at Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, along with all his possessions.

Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he could it defeat him, he struck Jacobs’s hip socket as they wrestled and dislocated his hip. Then he said to Jacob, ‘Let me go for it is daybreak.’

But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’

‘What is your name?’ the man asked.

‘Jacob,’ he replied.

‘Your name will no longer be Jacob,’ he said.

‘It will be Isreal because you have struggled with God and with man and have prevailed.”

What is the meaning behind the name Jacob? “To Supplant or the Supplanter” I looked up the definition of supplant or supplanter, which means to take over or take the place of someone else, usually on purpose. To supersede or replace.

From the Hebrew Ya’aqov, Jacob can mean “to follow, be behind, but can also mean to supplant, overreach or come from the Hebrew word for ‘heel,’ it can also mean, ‘may God protect.”

If you’ve read much or know much about Jacob, his name fits him to a Tee! Jacob was the second-born to his twin brother Esau, and the Bible states he came out of the womb grasping his brother’s heel. We also know Jacob took advantage of a situation and manipulated his brother out of his due birthright as being born the eldest. We have also read that with the help of his mother, Jacob maneuvered himself falsely before his father Isaac and received Esau’s blessing. Jacob could definitely be a heel!

Because of these actions, Jacob flees to his mother’s homeland, to his uncle Laban. Now, Laban was not without his own bag of tricks of greed and deceit, making he and Jacob equal adversaries, and they began their dance.

Again, tho we read that within the name of Jacob comes, ‘may God protect’ and we see that God’s hand of protection, direction, and mighty provision was upon Jacob.

Interesting.., but God changed Jacobs’s name to Israel! What is the meaning behind his new name?

Israel: “God perseveres, someone who struggles with God, one who prevails with God.”

Jacob had twelve sons. These sons and their families became known as the twelve tribes of Israel. Israel became the nation we know today!

Do our names carry any significance to our spirits or personalities?

My name is Charlene: It’s a girl’s name from Old German origin, meaning ‘free or free thinker, spirit and man.’ ‘Youthful feminine delight.’

How funny, because if you know me, you know I am a free spirit and dislike being hemmed in, shut down, put upon, or bossed around! I’d rather be out in the garden, flitting freely from one flower bed to another, basking in the warmth of the sunlight on a beautiful summer day but I have found, within my freedom of spirit and personality, an imp! I can be self-centered and selfish (something I’m working diligently on). I have been blessed with a very youthful spirit for a woman of 63, and I pray that will always be!

What’s your name? ☺️