The Jabbok
Scripture first
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Jacob is left alone at the Jabbok ford, and a man wrestles with him until daybreak: your name shall be Israel.
The Jabbok was a boundary river between peoples and the place of the most mysterious night in Genesis. Jacob crossed it into fear and out of it into blessing, limping and renamed.
The tributary gorge east of the Jordan where Jacob wrestled through the night and left as Israel.
- the Jabbok
- Wadi Zarqa · Jordan
The Jabbok cuts a deep, narrow gorge down to the Jordan. At its ford a man could be genuinely alone in the dark; the terrain makes the scene.
- Genesis 32:22-28 Jacob is left alone at the Jabbok ford, and a man wrestles with him until daybreak: your name shall be Israel.
- Numbers 21:24 Israel takes the land from the Arnon to the Jabbok
- Deuteronomy 3:16 The Jabbok as the border given to Reuben and Gad
What we know
Certain
- The Jabbok is securely identified with the Zarqa river of Jordan.