PENIEL (Hebrew *Péni'el*, “face [appearance] of God”). — Name given to the place where Jacob wrestled with the angel (Gen. 32:30). P. was most probably located along the river Jabbok. The patriarch himself explains its name: “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” In a later period the existence of a fortified city in that region is recorded. Because its inhabitants had not helped the Israelites in their struggle against the Midianites, P. was cruelly punished by Gideon (Judg. 8:8, 17). It was again fortified by King Jeroboam I (1 Kgs. 12:25).
Modern archaeologists do not agree on the identification of the site, since there is no reference to it in modern place names. Even in antiquity every memory of the city was lost. Eusebius (cf. Jerome, *De situ et nominibus locorum hebraicorum*, ed. P. De Lagarde, *Onomastica sacra*, 123:6) merely notes that it lay “near the Jabbok.”