The name "Israel" is rooted in the Hebrew bible, the Tanakh, where Jacob is renamed Israel after wrestling with a mysterious adversary ("a man", and later "God" according to Gen. 32:24-30; or "the angel", according to Hosea 12:4). Israel means "he who has wrestled with God." The Jews, the nation fathered by Jacob, were then called "the children of Israel" or the "Israelites." The Land of Israel (Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל, Eretz Yisrael) is the region which, according to the Hebrew Bible, was promised by God to the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham's grandson. It constitutes the Promised Land and forms part of the Abrahamic, Jacob and Israel covenants. Mainstream Jewish tradition regards "the promise" as applying to all Jews, including descendants of converts.
The earliest known mention of the name 'Israel', probably referring to a group of people rather than to a place, is the Egyptian Merneptah Stele dated to about 1210 BCE. For over 3,000 years, Jews have held the Land of Israel to be their homeland, both as a Holy Land and as a Promised Land. The Land of Israel holds a special place in Jewish religious obligations, encompassing Judaism's most important sites — including the remains of the First and Second Temples (see temple), as well as the rites concerning those temples. Starting around 1200 BCE, a series of Jewish kingdoms and states existed intermittently in the region for over a millennium.
Under Babylonian, Persians, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and (briefly) Sassanian rule, Jewish presence in the province dwindled due to mass expulsions.
In particular, the failure of the Bar Kochba Revolt against The Roman Empire resulted in the large-scale expulsion of Jews.
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According to the Bible, the Land of Israel (Hebrew: Eretz Yisrael) was promised to the descendants of Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by God, making it the Promised land. The concept is frequently used symbolically by Christians, especially in hymnody as a reference to Heaven, or to a new land, such as North America colonized by the Pilgrims. In the Bible, particularly in Genesis, Deuteronomy and Joshua, the Land of Israel was promised as an everlasting possession.
