Genesis 33:20

Genesis 33:20, in plain English

Jacob sets up an altar at the location and names it El-Elohe-Israel, which means 'God, the God of Israel'—signifying that this is holy ground where he honors the God who has blessed him.

Why it's here

After all the traveling, wrestling, negotiating, and settling, Jacob pauses to worship. He builds an altar—a physical sign that this place, this moment, belongs to God. By calling it 'El-Elohe-Israel' (God, the God of Israel), he's acknowledging that his entire identity—his new name 'Israel,' his new family, his new home—is rooted in God. It's an act of gratitude and consecration.

Who's speaking

The narrator, describing Jacob's altar and its significance

Where it sits in the story

Jacob completes his journey home not just by arriving physically, but by returning spiritually to God. Despite his compromise about going to Seir, he recognizes that his true destination is not Esau's land or any earthly place—it's a relationship with God. The altar is his way of saying, 'I'm home because God brought me here.'

The scholarly reading

Jacob erects an altar at his new settlement and dedicates it with the name El-Elohe-Israel, meaning 'God, the God of Israel'—a profound declaration of his reconstituted identity.

Language and setting

The altar construction (וַיַּצֶּב־שָׁם מִזְבֵּחַ, vayatzev-sham mizbeach) represents both practical religious practice and theological proclamation. More significantly, the name Jacob assigns—אֵל אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל (El Elohe Israel)—constitutes a radical self-identification: he names the altar not 'Jacob's God' but 'God of Israel' (Yisrael being his divinely-given name from Genesis 32:28). The name consciously echoes his new identity; the altar simultaneously commemorates both his personal encounter with the divine and his establishment as patriarch of a people. Augustine and later Christian interpreters recognized this act as Jacob's ultimate surrender of private ambition in favor of covenantal communal identity. The altar at Shechem will become a site of tremendous importance: it prefigures not only Joshua's covenant renewal but also becomes the later site of Abimelek's would-be kingship and eventually the location where the northern kingdom will be established.

Voice

The Genesis narrator, describing Jacob's altar dedication

Significance

Jacob's naming of the altar 'El Elohe Israel' represents the theological culmination of his narrative arc—from deceiver to wrestler to patriarch, he has become Israel, and his God is now publicly identified as the God of this people. The altar at Shechem becomes a threshold: behind it lies the Jacob-Esau reconciliation; ahead lie the trials that will test whether this reconstituted identity can endure the coming generation's crisis.

18After Jacob had come from Paddan-aram, he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in the land of Canaan, and he camped just outside the city.

19And the plot of ground where he pitched his tent, he purchased from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of silver.

20There he set up an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel.

Read all of Genesis 33 — Jacob prepares for war. Esau runs to embrace him. The reunion neither of them expected — and a picture of grace.