Name It: Part One
Living Up to the Name
Genesis 32:22-32
22 The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children,
and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and
everything else that he had. 24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the
breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip
socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for
the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to
him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be
called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29 Then
Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And
there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God
face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel,
limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the
thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the
thigh. 1
— Genesis 32:22-32
1) Intro:
a) There is one thing in the room that I’m certain everyone in the room has. We all have a
name.
b) Your name is a part of who you are. When people who know you, say your name they are
thinking of you and your attributes.
c) TRUTH 1: There is something we know for absolute certain about God. He has a name. In
fact, the Bible records many names for God, each revealing something about His nature.
d) Names are important to God. Each part of this new series we are going to introduce three
names of God and their meaning.
e) Today’s three are:
f) Elohim: “Creator, Mighty and Strong”
g) Adonai: “Lord” (used in place of YHWH, which was thought by the Jews to be too sacred to
be uttered by sinful men.
h) Jehovah-Jireh “The Lord will Provide” (Genesis 22:14- Abraham and Isaac)
i) One of the very first callings God gave man was to name the animals.
j) God modeled the importance of names
i) In His Word
ii) Through His Son
iii) By Giving People Names
k) As we go through this series, we are going to be studying how God uses names in His Word
to reveal things about himself and His relationship to us.
1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ge 32:22–32.
l) TRANSITION: Today, we will look at how God changed Jacob’s name.
2) Jacob’s Story & Situation:
a) Jacob’s name means “deceiver” or “heel grabber.”
b) From his birth, Jacob had struggled.
c) He wasn’t the first born, and he wasn’t the image of a man’s man.
d) He works with his mom in a crazy, dysfunctional family situation to lie to his father
and steal from his brother.
e) He tries to solve his problems by looking to his own ways and strength.
f) He cheats, lies, steals, yet remains in a struggle.
e) Jacob’s entire life has been filled with hard work and struggle, yet he finds himself
still in pursuit of the life he’s never had.
3) Jacob’s dilemma
a) When we pick up with the story, we see Jacob in another difficult spot.
b) His brother, Esau, whom he had cheated, was ahead of his family.
c) God had called him to return to his father’s homeland (Genesis 31:3) after his father-in-
law had experienced a stressed/cheated relationship with Jacob.
d) Jacob is afraid of Esau’s response to his return.
e) Jacob is afraid and stressed to the max ( Genesis 32:7)
4) Jacob’s prayer
a) Genesis 32:9-12
b) “Please deliver me…”
i. May we never forget the power behind that prayer.
ii. If you ever find yourself in a place of stress, discouragement, fear, or danger,
Remember the power of this prayer: “Please deliver me.”
iii. God is a God who saves. He delievers. His name reveals His ways.
iv. He is Elohim “mighty” and God who delivers his people.
5) The Wrestling of Jacob with God
a) “Man” refers to a theophany, an OT appearance of Christ.
b)“The femur is also the strongest bone in your body. It can support as much as 30
times the weight of your body.” 2
i. The femur runs from the hip to just above the knee.
ii. By touching the hip, Jacob’s walk was changed. It is a literal change,
but it is also a spiritual change.
iii. Jacob had faced the reality of personal failure. In his wrestling, he had
overcome.
iv. The tendons in the hip socket are some of the strongest in the human body.
c) MAJOR POINT: When God touches Jacob’s hip, he is changing Jacob’s walk.
i. For the rest of his life Israel will now limp because of his experience with
God. At the end of Genesis we see Jacob worshipping as he leans on his
staff.( Genesis 47:31 )
ii. A reminder of his brokenness and submission to his God.
d) MAJOR POINT: When God gives Jacob a new name, he changes Jacob’s identity
i. Israel means: “he strives with God”
e) No longer is Jacob the swindling, second born. Now his life belongs to God. No longer is
Jacob struggling to find his place in the world. He knows who he is.
2 https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/22503-femur
f) Jacob’s pursued his own blessings and it was a constant wrestle against God. God himself was
Jacob’s blessing.
6) TRUTH 2: God knows you by name. God is a deeply, personal God.
a) We started by knowing some meanings of God’s different names.
b) Do you know what your name means to God?
i. Does your name reveal one who is struggling?
ii.Does your name reveal someone who is striving to live with Him?
The Takeaway
NOTES:
Genesis 28:13-15
13 At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, “I am the Lord, the God of your
grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to
you. I am giving it to you and your descendants. 14 Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust
of the earth! They will spread out in all directions—to the west and the east, to the north and the
south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. 15 What’s
more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this
land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.” 3
Genesis 28:20-22
20 Then Jacob made this vow: “If God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, and if
he will provide me with food and clothing, 21 and if I return safely to my father’s home, then the
Lord will certainly be my God. 22 And this memorial pillar I have set up will become a place for
worshiping God, and I will present to God a tenth of everything he gives me.” 4
ii. Jacob first of all gets alone; he removes all others from himself. iii. Secondly Jacob cries out to the
Lord. 1. “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me,
‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least
of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for
with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from
the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the
mothers with the children. But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the
sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.” a. Although Jacob is crying out to God
3 Tyndale House Publishers, Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2015), Ge
28:13–15.
4 Tyndale House Publishers, Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2015), Ge
28:20–22.
he has still not fulfilled his vow that he made at Bethel. He has not made God his God. b. Jacob
must face God in his weakness.
The dialogue between the two combatants that follows centers on Jacob’s request for blessing that
he eventually wins from the stranger. That the “man” renames him “Israel” confirms what the
reader already had suspected, namely, that the opponent was more than a “man” (vv. 26–29[27–30]).
The naming of the site “Peniel” (“face of God [El]”) and Jacob’s explanation for it explicitly solves
the riddle of the “man’s” identity (vv. 31–32[32–33]). The final verse is the concluding etiology,
exhibiting the enduring prominence of the event by the dietary tradition Israel had long maintained
(v. 31[32]). 5
the blessing Jacob obtains, transforming him into Jacob-Israel. The river is important only as part of
the prototype that depicts the nation Israel’s future inhabitation of Canaan 6
Jacob’s pursued his own blessings and it was a constant wrestle against God. God himself was
Jacob’s blessing.
“On a hard plot of ground with his head resting on a rock Jacob dreamed of heaven opened but his
dream wouldn't be fully understood until thousands of years later when it would be explained to a
Galilean fisherman named Nathaniel as he dreamed Jacob saw a stairway reaching down from
heaven to the plot of ground where he slept angels were coming and going on this staircase but
Jacob did not approach to try to climb up himself instead the Lord descended the staircase to meet
with him and speak with him God came down and spoke to Jacob in the very place where the Lord
had spoken a promise to his grandfather Abraham the Lord spoke the same promise Jacob his
descendants would be as numerous as the dust and would inherit the land surrounding Bethel to the
north-south east and West of all of these promised descendants one would bring blessing to all
people.” — Joel Kramer
“All peoples on the earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.” Genesis 28:14
5 K. A. Mathews, Genesis 11:27–50:26, vol. 1B, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman
Publishers, 2005), 555.
6 K. A. Mathews, Genesis 11:27–50:26, vol. 1B, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman
Publishers, 2005), 557.
