This painting illustrates a scene from the biblical Book of Genesis in which Jacob, travelling alone upon his return to Canaan, wrestles all night on the side of a riverbank with an opponent in the form of an Angel. As morning approaches, Jacob agrees to let his opponent go on the condition that he blesses him first and the angel gives him the name Israel, meaning ‘the one who strived with God and has prevailed’. Feibusch first exhibited a work of this title in his first British solo exhibition at the prestigious Lefevre Galleries in Mayfair in 1934. In this later version, the angel seems poised between struggle and embrace. It is one of a series of five oil paintings on Old Testament subjects that together explore issues of faith, sacrifice, courage, love, and redemption, originally commissioned by Rabbi Hugo Gryn for the Stern Hall in the West London Synagogue in 1973. The Ben Uri Collection also houses the smaller gouache study for the painting which employs a predominantly red palette.

In his Times obituary (21 July 1998), it was noted how Feibusch’s religious works exhibited ‘brilliant colour and a composition which is generally suave and classical, often lyrical: he was a man who valued warmth and passions in religion, knew how to project joy and sorrow in his painting, sorrow for European conflict being for many decades a keenly felt emotion’.