Bible Study · A Name That Became A People

Israel In The Bible: From One Man's Name To One Family

It starts as a new name for a limping man at a river. It grows into twelve tribes, a kingdom, an exile and a return. Then it finds its center in Jesus.

By Apostle Johnny Ova · Sound of Heaven · 10 Min Read

The Short Answer

God's Covenant People, Centered In Jesus

Straight Answer

Israel in the Bible is first a man, then a people. God renamed Jacob Israel in Genesis 32:28, and his twelve sons became the twelve tribes God bound to Himself as His covenant people, called to carry His blessing to the nations.

That story runs through kingdom, exile and return and arrives at Jesus, the faithful Israelite in whom Jew and Gentile become one family. Israel's story was not thrown away. It was fulfilled.

That is where we stand at Sound of Heaven, and I want to show you how the Bible gets there. One line up front: this is about the biblical story and the covenant. It is not commentary on any modern government, war or border, and nothing in it gives anyone permission to look down on Jewish people.

The Name

It Started With A Wrestling Match

Jacob spent half his life grabbing: a birthright, a blessing, his uncle's flocks. Then one night at the Jabbok, afraid of meeting Esau, a man wrestles him until dawn. Jacob will not let go without a blessing, and he gets one. We walk through that night in Jacob wrestles with God.

“Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

Genesis 32:28

HebrewYisraelיִשְׂרָאֵלGenesis 32:28

The Explanation

The verse ties the name to a verb meaning to strive or contend, joined to El, God. The one who wrestles with God.

The Man

Jacob keeps both names for the rest of Genesis. The new identity arrives first and the old habits take a while to leave, which we trace in Jacob in the Bible.

The People

His twelve sons become the children of Israel. One man's name becomes the name of a nation.

Outside The Bible

A victory stele of Pharaoh Merneptah from about 1205 BC names Israel as a people in Canaan. The Biblical Archaeology Society notes it has long been called the earliest reference to Israel outside the Bible.

Think about who God named His people after. Not a hero. A limping man who had run out of schemes and finally told the truth about himself. That is grace written into a name.

The Story

Twelve Tribes, A Kingdom, An Exile, A Return

You cannot understand what the New Testament does with Israel until you feel how long this road was.

Genesis 12

A Promise To Abraham

God promises Abraham a land, a great nation and a blessing for all the families of the earth. More in the Abrahamic covenant.

Genesis 29 To 35

Twelve Sons

Jacob's sons become the heads of the tribes. Joseph's line later splits into Ephraim and Manasseh, and Levi becomes the priestly tribe.

Exodus 19

Covenant At Sinai

Rescued from Egypt, the tribes become a covenant nation with a calling.

Around 1000 BC

A Kingdom

Under David the tribes are united with Jerusalem as the capital. After Solomon the kingdom breaks in two, Israel in the north and Judah in the south, a story told in why the kingdom of Israel split.

722 BC

The North Falls

Assyria takes Samaria and scatters much of the northern kingdom.

587 Or 586 BC

Exile

Babylon destroys Jerusalem and the temple and carries Judah away. Historians differ by a year on the date. More in Babylon in the Bible.

538 BC

The Return

Cyrus lets the exiles go home and they rebuild the temple. Yet the prophets promised more: a new covenant, a new heart, God Himself returning.

When faithful Jews in Jesus' day waited for what Luke calls the consolation of Israel, they were waiting for the exile to be truly over. That longing is the doorway into the Gospels.

The Calling

Chosen For The World, Not Over It

Why Israel? The Bible never says it was because they were bigger or better. Deuteronomy 7 says the opposite: they were the fewest of all peoples, and God set His love on them anyway. Election in Scripture is about vocation, and we look at that language in God's chosen people.

“Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

Exodus 19:5 to 6

A priest brings God and people together. Israel was meant to do that for the whole world.

Be honest about the record too. Israel did not always live up to that calling, and neither has the church. Some passages speak in the voice of a people at war and call violence God's command. We read those through Jesus, who shows us what the Father is actually like. The Bible is one story moving toward Him, not a flat book.

And the promised land? It was real soil for a real people, and the New Testament widens it. Paul says Abraham was promised he would be heir of the world (Romans 4:13), and Jesus takes a psalm about the meek inheriting the land and says they will inherit the earth.

Takeaway

Israel was chosen to carry God's blessing to the nations. Being chosen was a job description before it was ever a privilege.

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The Center

Jesus, Israel In One Person

Matthew does more than say Jesus came from Israel. He retells Israel's story with Jesus in it. Jesus was a Jew of the tribe of Judah, which we lay out in what ethnicity Jesus was, and He walks the road His people walked.

“And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’”

Matthew 2:15, quoting Hosea 11:1

Hosea meant the nation. Matthew applies it to one child, and that is the point.

Through The Water

Israel passed through the sea. Jesus comes up from the Jordan to hear the Father call Him Son.

Forty In The Wilderness

Israel was tested forty years and stumbled. Jesus is tested forty days and answers every temptation from Deuteronomy, the book of Israel's wilderness.

Twelve Around Him

Twelve disciples, on purpose. Matthew 19:28 ties them to the twelve tribes.

The True Vine

Israel was God's vine in Psalm 80 and Isaiah 5. In John 15 Jesus is the true vine.

Isaiah saw it coming. In Isaiah 49:3 God calls His servant Israel, and a few verses later that servant is sent to restore the tribes of Jacob. A servant named Israel who restores Israel. Only one person fits.

In Isaiah 49, what is the servant God calls Israel sent to do?

Build a second temple in Babylon

Restore the tribes of Jacob and be a light for the Gentiles

Conquer the nations by force

Isaiah 49:6 says it is too small a thing for the servant only to restore the tribes of Jacob, so God will also make him a light for the Gentiles. Paul and Barnabas quote that verse in Acts 13:47 to explain their own mission. The servant restores Israel and opens the door to the world.

One Family

Jew And Gentile, One People In Him

If Jesus is Israel in one person, belonging to Israel's family runs through Him.

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

Galatians 3:28 to 29

Paul, a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, is not erasing Jewish identity. He is saying the promise to Abraham now has a door, and the door is Christ. Ephesians 2 says Gentiles once excluded from citizenship in Israel have been brought near, and that Christ made the two groups into one new humanity. More on that in who the Gentiles are today.

He closes Galatians with a blessing on “the Israel of God” (6:16), right after saying what counts is the new creation. And in Romans 9:6 he hands us the key: “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” Israel was always defined by God's promise, not by blood alone.

As we read Romans 9 to 11 in predestination in the Bible, those chapters answer a first century question: if Israel's Messiah has come and most of Israel has not received Him while Gentiles pour in, has God's word failed? No. There is one olive tree. Gentiles are wild branches grafted into Israel's tree, and natural branches broken off through unbelief can be grafted back in.

“Do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.”

Romans 11:18

Where We Stand, Plainly

We believe Jesus is the true Israel, and everyone who is in Him, Jew and Gentile together, is the one people of God. That is fulfillment. God did not scrap Israel. He brought its story to its goal and opened the family to the world, which is why the bride city in Revelation carries the names of the twelve tribes on its gates, as we explore in the bride of Christ.

We refuse two things just as plainly. First, contempt for Jewish people. Antisemitism is sin. The church has a shameful record here, and Paul's warning not to boast is aimed at us. He says they are loved on account of the patriarchs, “for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). Second, turning this into politics. This is a claim about covenant, not a position on any modern state, government, border or war.

The Temple Question

What About A Rebuilt Temple?

Many Christians were taught that God still runs a separate program for national Israel, with a rebuilt temple and restored sacrifices. That framework is called dispensationalism, and we give it a fair hearing in what is dispensationalism.

Its strengths are real. Dispensational teachers take God's promises seriously and many have loved the Jewish people well. We just believe the New Testament has already answered their question.

Two Tracks, Still Waiting

Israel and the church run on separate tracks. Ezekiel's temple and the land promises still wait for a literal fulfillment, with the temple rebuilt and sacrifices restored.

One Story, Fulfilled

Every promise of God is yes in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20). The temple is now His body and His people. The old covenant order closed when the temple fell in AD 70.

Jesus looked at the temple and said not one stone would be left on another, and that all of it would come on that generation (Matthew 24:2 and 34). In AD 70 Rome destroyed it, as He said, which we walk through in the Olivet Discourse. After the Lamb of God was offered once for all, there is nothing left for another altar to do.

What about Romans 11:26, where Paul says all Israel will be saved? It is honestly debated. Some read it as a future turning of the Jewish people to Christ. Others read all Israel as the whole people of God. Our reading is that Paul is describing what God was doing in his own generation, gathering a remnant of Israel together with the full number of the Gentiles into one people as the old covenant age closed. Sincere believers differ, and no reading licenses contempt.

Where This Lands

Everyone In Christ Carries Jacob's New Name

Go back to the river. God took a man who had spent his life grasping for a blessing and gave him a name he could not earn. Then He built a people from his family, carried them through exile and return, and came to them in person.

Jesus is where the whole story lands. He is the faithful Israelite, the servant who restores the tribes and the light for the Gentiles. In Him a Jewish fisherman, a Roman soldier and a kid from Long Island sit at the same table as family. Nobody there got in by bloodline, and nobody gets to look down on anyone.

So the Old Testament is not somebody else's history you skim. It is your family story, told by people who struggled with God and held on.

For related reading, see what the name Israel means, the new covenant, the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the New Jerusalem. If you are wrestling with something right now, we would love to pray with you, and if you are nearby, plan your visit.

The Whole Thing In One Line

Israel began as a new name for a struggling man, became a covenant people called to bless the world, and found its center in Jesus, the true Israel who makes Jew and Gentile one family.

Wrestling With Where You Belong?

If this raised questions, or you would like someone to pray with you, send us a note. Somebody at Sound of Heaven will get back to you.

Questions People Ask

Questions About Israel In The Bible

Who is Israel in the Bible?

Israel is first the new name God gave Jacob in Genesis 32:28, after he wrestled through the night. The name then passed to his descendants, the twelve tribes, who became God's covenant people at Sinai and were called to be a kingdom of priests for the world. In the New Testament Jesus fulfills Israel's story, and Paul says everyone who belongs to Christ is Abraham's seed and an heir of the promise.

What are the twelve tribes of Israel?

They are the families descended from Jacob's twelve sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph's portion was divided between his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, while Levi, the priestly tribe, received towns instead of territory. Judah became the royal tribe of David, and Jesus descended from it. Revelation writes the names of the twelve tribes on the gates of the new Jerusalem.

Is the church the new Israel?

Jesus is the true Israel, and everyone in Him, Jew and Gentile together, belongs to the one people of God. That is fulfillment, not God abandoning Israel and starting over. Paul pictures one olive tree with Gentiles grafted in among the natural branches, warns the Gentiles not to boast, and says the Jewish people remain loved on account of the patriarchs. Any version of this teaching that breeds contempt for Jewish people is wrong, and antisemitism is sin.

What does all Israel will be saved mean in Romans 11:26?

It is one of the most debated lines in Romans. Some read it as a future turning of the Jewish people to Christ. Others read all Israel as the whole people of God, Jew and Gentile together. At Sound of Heaven we read Romans 9 to 11 as Paul explaining what God was doing in his own generation, gathering a remnant of Israel with the full number of the Gentiles into one people as the old covenant age closed in AD 70. Sincere believers differ here.

Does the Bible say the temple will be rebuilt?

We do not believe it does. Jesus said the temple would be torn down stone by stone within that generation, and in AD 70 Rome destroyed it. The New Testament then locates the temple in Jesus, who spoke of His body as the temple, and in His people, whom Paul calls God's temple. Dispensational teachers expect a rebuilt temple from Ezekiel 40 to 48, but after Christ's once for all sacrifice there is nothing left for another altar to do.