Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." (Genesis 32:28, NIV). The name Israel therefore means: "he struggles with God", or "may God prevail". It is a combination of the Hebrew words for "wrestle" (sareta) and "God" (El). It is a name that expresses the concept of wrestling, clinging firmly to God and overcoming. The name speaks of the man being bound with a bond of life and love to God.
Initially, at birth this son of Isaac had been named Jacob, meaning "holder of the heel" (figuratively meaning "supplanter" or "he deceives" or in common parlance "conman"). It is a name that landed him in lots of trouble in his relationships with other people, first with his twin brother Esau, and later with his uncle Laban, both of whom he had to flee from over perceived underhand dealings (Genesis 27:34-44; 31:1-2, 22-23; 32:6-7). 
The divinely ordained name-change was therefore a game changer and represented a tectonic shift in the man's fortunes henceforth. Except for cases where Israel deliberately sinned before God and were "...handed over to the sword of their enemies", it is safe to say that Israel has never been defeated in war by any enemy. Says Isaiah the prophet: "...if anyone does attack you, it will not be my doing. Whoever attacks you will surrender to you..." (Isaiah 54:15, NIV). In verse 17, the seer declares:  "...no weapon forged against you will prevail and you will refute every tongue that accuses you..."
This blessing has devolved to Israel since that ancient angelic encounter in Genesis 32 down through the ages up to the present. If in doubt, just ask the Arabs.
In Exodus 4:22, God refers to Israel as his first born. It is a weighty statement given the fact that in ancient Israel, the firstborn inherited half of all his father's property. Thus we see that God destroyed superpower Egypt on account of refusing to let God's firstborn go. This exalted position is further enunciated by Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. He says; "... I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: FIRST FOR THE JEW, then for the Gentile." (Romans 1:16, NIV, emphasis mine).

This concept can also be seen fulfilled in the 2,520 year prophetic period of punishment outlined in Leviticus 26:28,21,24,29. Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that this period of chastisement began with the Babylonian exile in 606BC and ended in 1914AD.
The cup of God's wrath (Jeremiah 25:15 - 16) then passed from Israel to the Gentiles with the beginning of the First World War (Isaiah 51:22-23). Already the Gentiles have fought two such global conflagrations with much suffering. The third such war (Armageddon), is yet future and with it, God's cup of wrath shall have been completely drained. So we see the Jews punished FIRST, then the Gentiles.

But Israel was not merely God's firstborn. He was appointed to be a holy nation, a treasured possession, a teacher of God's ways to the people of earth. "For you are a holy people to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth." (Deuteronomy 14:2, NKJV). The "very oracles of God" were committed to him (Romans 3:2, Psalms 147:19-20). He was to be a peculiar people (Numbers 23:9)...in dress, in customs, in diet, in worship...in all facets of life. The Gentiles were to learn God's ways through Israel (Zechariah 8:23, Acts 26:15 -17, 8:26 - 39, John 4:22). God does not have two approaches to the salvation of man...no, the Gentile must be saved through the same gospel available to the Jew (Exodus 12:49). The Gentile must be grafted onto the "tame olive tree" (Israel), though his origins be of a "wild olive tree" (Romans 11:13 - 24).
We see therefore that God appointed Israel to be "...a light unto the Gentiles..." (Isaiah 49:6) in the spiritual sense. Yahshua, a Jew, fulfilled this prophecy when he proclaimed that he is the Light of the world (John 9:5).

However, this statement has profound import as one reflects on the secular course of human history too. Many groundbreaking concepts like democracy, town hall meetings, law, philosophy, banking, manufacturing, medicine etc, have come down to modern society partly through the Jews. Much of modern cutting edge technology in such fields as computing, ICT, communication, spying, agriculture, warfare etc have undeniable Jewish contributions. Today, Israel leads the world (per capita) in patent registration, book publishing, people with a second degree and innovation. Many of the world's top technology companies have research laboratories in Israel. If Israeli contributions to today's society were withdrawn, humanity would no doubt find themselves back in the Stone Age. Thus in secular, just as in spiritual terms, Israel is a light unto the world.

The above home truth is further reinforced by the statement in Isaiah 61:9. Said the prophet: "...their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people. All who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the posterity whom the LORD has blessed..." (Isaiah 61:9, NKJV). Today's banking world is dominated by the Jews...the Rothschilds, the Morgans, the Warburgs, the Sachs, the Kuhns, the Bronfmanns etc. Most of the world's print and electronic media is also controlled by the Jews. In academia, Jewish scholars and professors again are disproportionately represented compared to their numbers in population. Out of the slightly more than 900 Nobel prizes in different fields of knowledge given so far, more than 200 have gone to the Jews. This despite the fact that the Jews make a paltry 0.2 percent of the world's population! Such names as Noam Chomsky, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Adam Weishaupt, Friedrich Nietzsche, Baruch Spinoza, Johann Sebastian Bach, Sigmund Freud etc easily come to mind when one looks at human endeavour over the last two centuries.
Today, the world's most profitable/richest companies are mostly in the information and computing industry. When we look at the ownership of these global behemoths, again the Jews predominate: Apple (the late Steve Jobs), Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg), Google (Sergey Brin and Larry Page), Alphabet (Lawrence Page), SanDisk (Eliyahu Harari), Amazon (Jeff Bezos). Even in the other fields the preponderance of the Jews is obvious. Other notable Jews include Elon Musk, Alan Greenspan, Roman Abramovich, George Soros, the Oppenheimers, Henry Kissinger, the Astors, the Guggenheims and so on ad infinitum. The point is, without the Jewish factor we would probably be in a markedly very different world!
Going forward, Israel is destined to play a huge role in the Millennial Kingdom of Yahshua. Yahshua pointed out that his Second Coming is directly linked to the fate of the Jews. Here is what he said: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets and those sent to you! How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.But you are not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate, for I tell you that you will not see me again until you say; 'blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord...' " (Matthew 23:37-39). The Jews will utter this prophetic statement in the thick of the battle of Armageddon the final armed conflict of this Age (Joel 3, Zechariah 14:1-4, Isaiah 63:1-5 etc). Already the storm clouds are fast gathering over Jerusalem and Israel. The convulated, never ending Arab - Israeli conflict continues to grow by the day.  Only Yahshua, in his capacity as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5) and the Star of Balaam's vision (Numbers 24:17) is qualified to put an end to it, once and for all (Zechariah 12). Then, and only then, shall the Edenic conditions of Isaiah 11:1-9 where the "wolf shall lie with the lamb" be fulfilled. It shall be a Jewish kingdom, the times of the Gentiles (Luke 21:24 last part) having completely past into the annals of history. This peaceful Kingdom shall be headquartered in Jerusalem (Matthew 5:34 - 35, Luke 1:31-33). Then Jerusalem shall live up to its true meaning as the "City of Peace." My dear reader, are you prepared for this transformative Kingdom? As Yahshua did, so we proclaim; "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand." (Matthew 7:17). Blessings.

By Pst Kennedy Chang'andu