Other way around. The Israelites are called that because they’re descended from Israel. Though I don’t remember off the top of my head how Jacob got that name.
It was after his night wrestling match with some sort of divine being. Israel means “one who wrestles with God”.
I mean, like, this…
I picture Jesus heaving a heavy sigh and rolling his eyes.
And the gospel takes pains to show that not only does Jesus turn water into wine, it’s good wine. Somebody points out to the groom that usually, a party starts with good wine and then when the guests are hammered and can’t tell the difference, you switch to Two Buck Chuck. But this party saved the best for last.
I’m copying this from the Skeptic’s annotated Bible because it is better worded than I could do, but I always found funny God’s vulgar nickname for men, especially men that did not meet His favor, those that “pisseth against the wall”.
Pissing against walls
“A person could piss against a tree, he could piss on his mother, he could piss on his own breeches, and get off, but he must not piss against the wall – that would be going quite too far. The origin of the divine prejudice against this humble crime is not stated; but we know that the prejudice was very strong – so strong that nothing but a wholesale massacre of the people inhabiting the region where the wall was defiled could satisfy the Deity.” – Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth
The phrase “pisseth against the wall” occurs six times in the Bible. It is generally used to describe the killing of all of the males in a particular group of people.
David used it when referring to Nabal and his household.
(Nabal’s wife, Abigail, saved the wall-pissers in her husband’s household by bribing David. Later God killed Nabal so that David could obtain Nabal’s wife and other stuff.)
So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall. 1 Samuel 25:22
Surely there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall. 1 Samuel 25:34
God told Jeroboam’s wife that he would kill everyone in Jeroboam’s family (and their descendants) who pissed against a wall.
(The message was delivered by the prophet Ahijah to Jeroboam’s wife who was trying to save her sick son. Ahijah told her that God would kill her son by the time she got home. God did as Ahijah prophesied.)
Behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall. Thus did Zimri destroy all the house of Baasha, according to the word of the LORD. 1 Kings 14:10-12
Zimri killed all of the wall-pissers among Baasha’s family and friends, “according to the word of the Lord.”
(Zimri was later burned to death for doing God’s dirty work in the Baasha killing.)
Zimri … slew all the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall, neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friends. 1 Kings 16:11
God killed everyone in Ahab’s family that pissed against a wall.
(Because Ahab allowed a captured king to live.)
Thus saith the LORD … Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall. 1 Kings 21:19-21
For the whole house of Ahab shall perish: and I will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall. 2 Kings 9:8
It does work in Aramaic: “kepha” means “rock”. The Greek translator(s) just translated the word.
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.
From the same source as my previous post: The Method and Message of Jesus' Teachings - Robert H. Stein - Google Books
IIRC, it was the Easter/Passover edition of the inspirational Match unto My Feet hosted by Father Duffy (Joe Flaherty), the last thing they air before they sign off for the night.
Looking at IMDB, I see it was preceded by a PSA titled “So You’re Dead…Now What? Seven simple warning signs that you may be dead.”
Kurt Vonnegut makes the argument that Jesus made a joke the evening before Palm Sunday. Starting from a quote from the New Standard Bible:
Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment.
But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was to betray him), said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it. Jesus said, “Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”
He argues that the joke got lost through multiple translations and re-writes the dialogue:
This is too much for that envious hypocrite Judas who says, trying to be more Catholic than the Pope: ‘Hey-this is very un-Christian. Instead of wasting that stuff on your feet, we should have sold it and given the money to the poor people.’
To which Jesus replies in Aramaic: ‘Judas, don’t worry about it. There will still be plenty of poor people left long after I’m gone.’
This is about what Mark Twain or Abraham Lincoln would have said under similar circumstances.
I kinda think Lincoln would have said, “If this is ointment, please bring lotion; if it’s lotion, please bring some ointment.”
“Yes, friends—God has a sense of humor.”
—Father Duffy
Jesus walks into Jerusalem, wildly popular with thousands of Jews, who expect him to remove Rome from their lives. People shouting and waving palm branches. Jesus proceeds to flip over tables and swing some whips and cause quite a ruckus in the temple a couple days before the Passover. Also just before the Passover, one of his closest followers betrays him and hands him over to the authorities. Jesus is arrested, flogged, he meets with the king and the governor. Crowds are whipped into a murderous frenzy by the religious leaders. Jesus is crucified, darkness covers the land. Dead people come out of the graves and walk around. The massive curtain in the holy temple mysteriously rips in two. Jesus is buried but his body goes missing. There are reports that Jesus isn’t actually dead now.
Two guys walking down the road to Emmaeus suddenly are joined by Jesus, but they don’t recognize him. He asks them, “Why the long faces?”
One of them says, "You kidding me? You gotta be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about all the stuff that’s happened. "
Jesus says, “What stuff?”
-Luke 24:13-19
I mean, come on, that’s pretty funny!