Evening had arrived, and the actual meeting of the brethren could not take place till the next day. Jacob had now reached the banks of the Jabbok, ... which, descending from the mountains of Gilead, makes its way... to the Jordan.... He needed solitude, perfect quiet, a time for undisturbed meditation, reflection, prayer. So, in the stillness of the night, on the banks of the Jabbok, he lay, and thought, and prayed, when suddenly he was aware of a strange presence—"there wrestled a man with him." All through the livelong night the struggle continued, neither wrestler prevailing over the other. As the day broke beyond the eastern mountains, Jacob's antagonist exerted a superhuman power, and by a touch of his hand put Jacob's thigh out of joint, at the same time saying, "Let me go, for the day breaketh." But Jacob, though disabled, would not yield. "I will not let thee go," he said, "except thou bless me." . . . The boon craved is granted to his persistence. "Thy name," says the mysterious one, "shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God, and with men, and hast prevailed." The changed name indicated a changed character. No more should he be Jacob, "the Supplanter"—the dark crafty character of his youth, purged in the furnace of affliction, should pass away; henceforth he should be Israel, "the prince of God"—mighty with Him, prevailing, powerful—his original mean and sordid temper changed into the princeliness and royalty of character which in the remainder of his life he exhibited.
—From "Isaac and Jacob. Their Lives and Times"
