Bible Names

Israel: meaning of the name

Israel means “who prevails with God.”
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary (1869)boy name

Israel in Hebrew and Greek

יִשְׂרָאֵל H3478

Yisrâʼêl (yis-raw-ale') — Jisrael, a symbolical name of Jacob; also (typically) of his posterity

from H8280 (שָׂרָה) and H410 (אֵל); he will rule as God;

יִשְׂרָאֵל H3479

Yisrâʼêl (yis-raw-ale') — {Jisrael, a symbolical name of Jacob; also (typically) of his posterity}

(Aramaic) corresponding to H3478 (יִשְׂרָאֵל)

Ἰσραήλ G2474

Israḗl — Israel (i.e. Jisrael), the adopted name of Jacob, including his descendants (literally or figuratively)

of Hebrew origin (H03478);

Who named Israel in the Bible

Israel in Scripture

“Israel” appears in 2,301 verses of the King James Version; here are the first 8.

  • Genesis 32:28

    And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

  • Genesis 32:32

    Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew that shrank.

  • Genesis 33:20

    And he erected there an altar, and called it El–elohe–Israel.

  • Genesis 34:7

    And the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it: and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob’s daughter; which thing ought not to be done.

  • Genesis 35:10

    And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel.

  • Genesis 35:21

    And Israel journeyed, and spread his tent beyond the tower of Edar.

  • Genesis 35:22

    And it came to pass, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine: and Israel heard it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve:

  • Genesis 36:31

    And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.