Metaphysical meaning of Jabbok (mbd)
Jabbok, jab'-bok (Heb.)--pouring out; emptying; flowing rapidly; effusing; diffusing; dissipating; pounding; beating down; pulverizing; covering with dust; wrestling.
A tributary of the river Jordan; it was on the east side of the Jordan. Jacob wrestled with the angel at the ford of the Jabbok (Gen. 32:22). This river was at the border of the country inhabited by the children of Ammon (Num. 21:24), and became a boundary of the land allotted to the tribes of Reuben and Gad (Deut. 3:16).
Meta. The definitions of Jabbok point to an undue dissipation, effusion, pouring forth of the life force in man; they suggest a very swift and unrestrained flowing of this stream of life, with no intimation of conservation or of wise direction. This is because the life flow has been activated entirely by the "mind of the flesh"; the Jabbok river ran through the country of the Moabites, Amorites, and Ammonites. Israel smote Sihon, king of the Amorites, and possessed his land from the Arnon (see ARNON) to the Jabbok (Num. 21:24), even to the children of Ammon; for the Ammonite border was strong. (See AMORITES, MOABITES, and AMMONITES.) Thus the life stream is coming nearer to the dominion of the real, true thoughts and activities (Israelites) in the individual.
Jabbok ford (Gen. 32:22), where Jacob gives up and sends over his ideas of possessions when he is about to meet his brother Esau, means in the Hebrew evacuation or dissipation. At every forward move in his evolution, man gives up his present ideas that he may receive greater ones. The idea of struggle (wrestling), given in the meaning of this name, infers that it was hard for Jacob to put away all the things that he loved and alone enter the invisible and wrestle with the forces of the subjective consciousness in darkness. The individual does not like to undertake the struggle necessary to the overcoming of material habits.
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Preceding Entry: Jabal
Following Entry: Jabesh
