So what does “Israel” mean?

• How does a human wrestle with God?
• How do you say this about the Most Gracious?
• How did the Most Gracious wrestle with Him?
• Doesn’t the Most Gracious have hands and feet???

These are the times Israel is mentioned in the Qur’an:

“O Children of Israel, remember My favor which I have bestowed upon you and fulfill My covenant; I will fulfill My covenant with you; and fear only Me.” — Al-Baqarah: 40

“O Children of Israel, remember My favor which I have bestowed upon you and that I preferred you over the worlds.” — Al-Baqarah: 47

It was said: Isra is the chosen one of God, and El is God.

It was said: Isra from tightening; so it is as if Israel was tightened by God and perfected his creation — Al-Mahdawi mentioned it.

Al-Suhayli said: Israel was named because he was taken prisoner one night when he migrated to God Almighty; so Israel was named, meaning he was taken prisoner to God and so on; so some of the name is Hebrew and some of it is in accordance with the Arabs. And God knows best.

Al-Qaffal said: It was said that “Isra” in Hebrew means “man,” so it was said that he is a man of God.

His saying, “O Children of Israel,” is an address to the group of Jews who were in Medina from the descendants of Jacob, peace be upon him, during the days of Muhammad ﷺ.

• (Asr) means a chosen or selected slave.
• (El) means God in Hebrew.

So the meaning of the word is God’s chosen one. And the chosen one here is for Jacob, not for his descendants. If we look at Israel, who is Jacob, how he got this name — we find that he got the name because he was afflicted by God with a great trial. He deserved to be chosen by God.

And when God Almighty calls the people of Moses, saying, “O Children of Israel,” He wants to remind them of Israel’s status with God. What trials he faced. And what he endured in his life. So remember what He commanded you when death approached him.

Read the words of the Most High: “Or were you witnesses when death approached Jacob, when he said to his sons, ‘What will you worship after me?’ They said, ‘We will worship your God and the God of your fathers, Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac — one God, and we are Muslims [in submission] to Him.’” — Al-Baqarah: 133

And read the words of the Most High: “O my sons, indeed Allah has chosen for you the religion, so do not die except as Muslims.” — Al-Baqarah: 132

This is the commandment that Jacob commanded his sons — in it is knowledge and in it is an admonition. Knowledge that God is one God, He has no partner. And that the religion is Islam. And an admonition and a reminder that God chose the religion for them. So let them be keen on it until death.

• The verb “שׂרה” which means “to persevere”
• “אֵל” which means “God”

So the meaning is “perseverance with God.”

(Israel) (God prevails)

1. The second name for Jacob given to him by God after his wrestling with the angel at Peniel. (The second name for Jacob that God gave him after his wrestling with the angel at Peniel)

— https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3478/kjv/wlc/0-1/

H3478 — יִשְׂרָאֵל Yisrâʼêl, yis-raw-ale’; from and; he will rule as God; Jisraël, a symbolical name of Jacob; also (typically) of his posterity — Israel.

— https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h8280/kjv/wlc/0-1/

Lexicon Results — Strong’s H8280 — sarah:

• (contend, contend with) — (struggle)
• (persist) — (exert oneself) — (persevere)
• (to persevere) — (Perseverance “perseveres”)
• (contend with) — (persistence and dealing with)

There is no problem at all with the name, as perseverance with God Almighty is the highest thing, as the Hebrew verb “שָׂרָה” (yishra) means “perseverance and patience” in obeying God.

This is what the previous commentaries stated: “Israel, who is Jacob, how did he get this name? We find that he took the name because he was afflicted by God with a great affliction.” — Al-Shaarawy

Genesis Chapter 32 (Hebrew): שִׁמְךָ—כִּי, אִם-יִשְׂרָאֵל: כִּי-שָׂרִיתָ עִם-אֱלֹהִים וְעִם-אֲנָשִׁים, וַתּוּכָל.

The word here is “sharit ‘em-elahim” (I shared with Elohim).

Plural of H433; gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural thus, especially with the article) of the supreme God; occasionally applied by way of deference to magistrates; and sometimes as a superlative:

— angels, X exceeding, God (gods) (-dess, -ly), X (very) great, judges, X mighty.

— http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/…ngs=H430&t=KJV

(with [an angel of] God) — (Angel of God)

— https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8227/showrashi/true

“And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the break of day.”

When Jacob and his family crossed the Jabbok River, he separated himself, as if he was preparing to meet Esau during his encounter with God, and a man appeared to him, whom most scholars believe to be an angel in human form, and not the Word of God, but he represents the divine presence, as Jacob says: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved,” and it was also said to him: “Because you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

— Interpretation of the Holy Bible — Old Testament — Father Tadros Yacoub, Genesis 32 — Interpretation of the Book of Genesis, Preparing to Meet Esau

Summary of what has been established:

• Islamic scholars unanimously agree that “Israel” means servant of God, chosen of God, or man of God — not “wrestler with God.”
• The Hebrew root H8280 (שָׂרָה) means to prevail, to persevere, to endure — not merely “to wrestle.”
• The wrestling was with an angel, not with God Almighty — as confirmed by Strong’s H430, Rabbi Rashi, and Father Tadros Yacoub Malti from within Christian and Jewish scholarship.
• The word “Elohim” in the Genesis text itself means angels or judges — not exclusively the Creator.

Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds.