The name Yisrael (יִשְׂרָאֵל) was given by God to the patriarch Jacob after he wrestled with the divine messenger at Peniel (Genesis 32:28). The name is commonly interpreted as "one who strives/wrestles with God" or "God strives/prevails." It combines sarah (to strive, contend) with El (God). From Jacob's twelve sons descended the twelve tribes of Israel, the covenant nation. Yisrael appears over 2,500 times in the Old Testament — one of the most frequent proper nouns — and refers variously to the individual patriarch, the national community, the northern kingdom, and the eschatological people of God.
The name Yisrael encodes the entire covenantal story in miniature: a people chosen not because of their greatness (Deuteronomy 7:7), but because God set His love on them and swore an oath to their fathers. Like Jacob their ancestor, Israel as a nation was marked by both struggle and divine clinging — they wrestled with God through rebellion and repentance, exile and restoration. The prophets speak of a future new Israel (Isaiah 43:1–7; Ezekiel 36) — a renewed people with the law written on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:31–34). Paul's theology in Romans 9–11 grapples with the relationship between ethnic Israel and the "Israel of God" (Galatians 6:16) — the community of faith in Christ. Jesus himself embodies true Israel, recapitulating Israel's history: baptism, 40 days of testing, call of twelve, and new exodus through death and resurrection.