# Jacob Named His Altar 'God, the God of Israel' (Genesis 33:12–20)

**Author:** Garth Watson
**Published:** 2026-11-08
**Last updated:** 2026-11-08
**Canonical URL:** https://doxa.app/blog/daily-lift-74-genesis-33-12-20

![A shepherd's tent and a low altar of rough fieldstones on a grassy slope below two hills at first light, flocks grazing nearby, seen from a distance, no text, no faces](https://doxa.app/images/blog/daily-lift-74-genesis-33-12-20-hero.jpg)

The LORD had told Jacob, "Go back to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you" ([Genesis 31:3](https://doxa.app/bible/GEN/31#v3)). After the night at Peniel and his brother's embrace, Jacob came to Shechem in the land of Canaan, bought a field, and set up an altar with God's name and his own new name on it. We are the people who mark the place where God's promise came true, the way Jacob did at Shechem.

## At the pace of the children

Jacob asked Esau to go on ahead because his children were frail and his young animals could not be driven hard. Esau had offered, "Let us be on our way, and I will go ahead of you" ([Genesis 33:12](https://doxa.app/bible/GEN/33#v12)). Jacob answered, "If they are driven hard for even a day, all the animals will die" ([Genesis 33:13](https://doxa.app/bible/GEN/33#v13)), and he said he would follow "at a comfortable pace for the livestock and children, until I come to my lord at Seir" ([Genesis 33:14](https://doxa.app/bible/GEN/33#v14)).

Esau went back to Seir that day ([Genesis 33:16](https://doxa.app/bible/GEN/33#v16)), and Scripture records no visit by Jacob to Seir. He travelled to Succoth, where "he built a house for himself and shelters for his livestock" ([Genesis 33:17](https://doxa.app/bible/GEN/33#v17)), and then crossed into Canaan. Jacob had told his brother he would come to Seir, and he went instead to the land God had named.

## Safe at Shechem

At Shechem Jacob bought land and camped on it, in the place where God had first promised the land to Abraham. Genesis 33:18 records that "he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in the land of Canaan, and he camped just outside the city." He bought the plot where he pitched his tent "for a hundred pieces of silver" ([Genesis 33:19](https://doxa.app/bible/GEN/33#v19)).

Long before, at the same place, the LORD had told Abram, "I will give this land to your offspring" ([Genesis 12:7](https://doxa.app/bible/GEN/12#v7)). Now Abram's grandson owned a small piece of it.

## God, the God of Israel

El-Elohe-Israel means God, the God of Israel, and in it Jacob used the new name God had given him. "There he set up an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel" ([Genesis 33:20](https://doxa.app/bible/GEN/33#v20)). At Peniel the man who wrestled with him had said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel" ([Genesis 32:28](https://doxa.app/bible/GEN/32#v28)).

Twenty years earlier, at Bethel, Jacob had vowed that if God brought him back "safely to my father's house, then the LORD will be my God" ([Genesis 28:21](https://doxa.app/bible/GEN/28#v21)). God had brought him back safely into the land. Jacob had come to know God as the One who keeps what He says, and he answered with a name on an altar, telling anyone who passed Shechem who God was to him.

## Jacob's field and Jacob's well

The field Jacob bought is where Jesus later sat beside Jacob's well and offered water that springs up to eternal life. John records that Jesus "came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph" ([John 4:5](https://doxa.app/bible/JHN/4#v5)). There He told a Samaritan woman, "the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life" ([John 4:14](https://doxa.app/bible/JHN/4#v14)). On the ground where Jacob named God the God of Israel, the Son of God offered Himself to a thirsty stranger.

## Give the place a name

We are the people who remember what God has said and mark the place where He kept it, as Jacob did at Shechem. When God brings you through what He promised, write down what He said, the place and the date in the [Doxa app](https://doxa.app/download), with the name you would give God for it, so you can read it back in ten years and in thirty and find the God of Israel still keeping His promise.

Where has God brought you through safely, and what name would you give that place?

Deeper study today in the Doxa Deeper Dive: the Hebrew behind arrived safely, and why Joseph was buried in Jacob's field. [Read it here.](https://doxa.app/blog/daily-deeper-dive-74-genesis-33-12-20)