From time immemorial men have been known by their mental traits. One king is known as "the lion-hearted," another as "the wise." A great general and wise statesman was called "the father of his country." A similar use of appellations to designate character has been employed in the Bible. When through spiritual understanding a transformation of mind and character took place in a man, he was so changed that the name by which he was formerly known in mortal thought no longer fitly identified him.
Thus the word Jacob means "supplanter." Jacob had formerly been a crafty trader, at times gaining his ends by guile and duplicity; but after his struggle with material error at Peniel, when he saw the vision supernal of God's perfection and of man as His perfect likeness, there was an entire change. He reasoned no more from the basis of matter and mortality. He reasoned, lived, and worked from the basis that man is spiritual, the child of God, and that the universe is spiritual and everlasting. Commenting on Jacob's experience on this momentous occasion, Mrs. Eddy wrote in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 309): "The result of Jacob's struggle thus appeared. He had conquered material error with the understanding of Spirit and of spiritual power. This changed the man. He was no longer called Jacob, but Israel,—a prince of God, or a soldier of God, who had fought a good fight." The name Jacob could no longer convey the right connotation of his character, and so a change of name was necessary.
In this blessed experience of receiving a new name that befitted his real status, Jacob was but repeating the experience of his grandfather, Abraham. Abraham's name before he grasped the monotheistic nature of God was Abram, but after he had followed God's command and had come out of Ur of the Chaldees into the land of Canaan, he finally gained a right understanding of God and was so regenerated that a mortal name no longer represented him. The voice of God came to him saying, "Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.... And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee."
