And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two womenservants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok.
Passed over the ford Jabbok, х Yaboq (H2999)]. Gesenius quotes Simonis ('Onomast'), who derives it from a root-verb, signifying to pour out, to empty-namely, its waters into the Jordan. But that lexicographer seems to prefer tracing its etymology to a different verb х 'aabaaq (H80), to wrestle or contend]; so that the Jabbok means the river of wrestling or contest.
The Jabbok, now the Zerka, which rises in the Hauran, flows westward to Bozrah, where, after a circuit of about fifteen miles to the south, it again flows in a westerly direction across an extensive arid plain, until it penetrates a deep gorge, cleft through the mountains of Gilead, which rise precipitously 500 feet in height on either side of it, and after a winding course of about sixty miles, discharges itself into the Jordan, about forty miles south of the sea of Tiberias. At the point where it runs through the ravine of tall and abrupt cliffs in Gilead, its banks are thickly wooded with oleander and plane, wild olive and almond trees, pink and white cyclamen flowers, with tall reeds, about 15 feet in height. The Jabbok is generally a small, but impetuous stream, flowing down a deep and wide torrent-bed. It is properly termed х naachal (H5157)] a wady-a ravine, generally dry, except immediately after rain (cf. Psalms 74:15; Psalms 126:4). But in consequence of the numerous torrents which, running down the sides of the adjoining hills, feed it, the Jabbok becomes, after its entrance into Gilead, a permanent stream. It was about the middle of its course, among the Gileadite hills, that the incident described in this chapter took place; and the ford there, which is about ten yards wide, is sometimes difficult and dangerous to cross, but in the summer it is shallow.
He rose up ... and took. Unable to sleep, he waded the ford in the night-time by himself; and having ascertained its safety, he returned to the north bank, and sent over his family and attendants-remaining behind, to seek anew, in solitary prayer, the divine blessing on the means he had set in motion. 'The ford by which Jacob crossed was hardly the one which he took on his outward journey, upon the Syrian caravan road, by Kalaat-Zerka, but one much further to the west, between Jebel Ajlun and Jebel Jelaad, where there are still traces of walls and buildings to be seen, and other marks of cultivation' (Delitzsch).