Genesis 32 records the return trip of the patriarch Jacob from his 20-year sojourn in upper Mesopotamia back toward his home in Canaan. Still on the eastern side of the Jordan, the text reads, “That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok” (v.22). It would be that same night that Jacob wrestled with the Divine Messenger (cf. Hosea 12:4), who gave Jacob his new name, “Israel.”
The Jabbok marked the northern border of Sihon, king of the Amorites (Num. 21:24), who were defeated during the period of the Conquest.
The Anchor Bible Dictionary has the following:
JABBOK (PLACE) [Heb yabbōq (יַבֹּק)]. One of the four major streams of Transjordan, now known as the Wadi Zerqa or the Nahr ez-Zerqa, “the blue river.” Its sources are near Amman, the biblical Rabbath-ammon. Its upper courses flow in a NE direction to modern Zerqa. From there the stream curves to the W where the lower courses rapidly descend into the Great Rift valley, a drop that begins at ca. 820 m above sea level to ca. 300 m below. It joins the Jordan river just N of Adam, ca. 37 km N of the Dead Sea. Its total length is about 100 km. (Vol. 3, p. 549).
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