Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XVI/Chapter 39

Chapter 39.—The Reason Why Jacob Was Also Called Israel.

As I said a little ago, Jacob was also called Israel, the name which was most prevalent among the people descended from him.&#160; Now this name was given him by the angel who wrestled with him on the way back from Mesopotamia, and who was most evidently a type of Christ.&#160; For when Jacob overcame him, doubtless with his own consent, that the mystery might be represented, it signified Christ&#8217;s passion, in which the Jews are seen overcoming Him.&#160; And yet he besought a blessing from the very angel he had overcome; and so the imposition of this name was the blessing.&#160; For Israel means seeing God, which will at last be the reward of all the saints.&#160; The angel also touched him on the breadth of the thigh when he was overcoming him, and in that way made him lame.&#160; So that Jacob was at one and the same time blessed and lame:&#160; blessed in those among that people who believed in Christ, and lame in the unbelieving.&#160; For the breadth of the thigh is the multitude of the family.&#160; For there are many of that race of whom it was prophetically said beforehand, “And they have halted in their paths.”