Elelohe-Israel: God, the God of Israel

Elelohe Israel (also written El Elohe Israel) is the name Jacob gave to an altar he built on his own land near the town of Shechem. It means "God, the God of Israel." Jacob had only just received the name Israel, so when he used it here he was saying something very personal: the God of his grandfather and his father was now his God too. You can find it once in the whole Bible, in Genesis 33:20.

A long road home to Shechem

To feel the weight of this name, you have to know what Jacob had been through. As a young man he tricked his brother Esau out of their father's blessing. Esau was so angry that Jacob ran for his life to his uncle Laban in Haran, far to the north. He stayed there for twenty years. He married, raised a large family, built up big flocks, and was cheated by Laban over and over (Genesis 31:41).

When God told him to go home, Jacob faced the one person he feared most. Messengers came back with bad news: Esau was on his way with four hundred men. Jacob was terrified. He prayed, and he admitted he did not deserve any of God's kindness: I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies (Genesis 32:10).

That night, by a stream called the Jabbok, Jacob sent everyone across and stayed back alone. A man wrestled with him until dawn. Jacob refused to let go and begged for a blessing. Before the sun came up, the stranger changed his name.

And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

Genesis 32:28

Jacob called that spot Peniel, which means "face of God," because he said he had seen God face to face and lived (Genesis 32:30). He limped away with a hurt hip. Then came the surprise. Esau did not attack. He ran to his brother, hugged him, and they both cried (Genesis 33:4).

After a stop at a place called Succoth, Jacob came to Shechem in the land of Canaan. For the first time in his life, he bought ground of his own. He paid the sons of Hamor a hundred pieces of money for the field where his tent stood (Genesis 33:19). On that field he built an altar, a raised pile of stones for worship, and gave it a name.

Three Hebrew words, one big step

The name is made of three short Hebrew words, El Elohe Yisrael.

• El is the oldest and simplest Hebrew word for God. It carries the idea of strength.
• Elohe is a form of Elohim, the most common word for God in the Old Testament. In this form it means "God of."
• Yisrael is Israel, the name Jacob was given at the Jabbok. It is usually explained as "God prevails" or "he strives with God." Genesis gives its own reason for it: Jacob had power with God and had won.

Put together, the words say "God, the God of Israel." Lexicons, the dictionaries scholars use for Bible words, often give it as "the mighty God of Israel." Some scholars read the name as a short sentence instead: "El is the God of Israel." Either way, the meaning lands in the same place.

Here is the part that is easy to miss. At this point there was no nation called Israel. There was no tribe, no temple and no king. "Israel" was one man, a few wives and a crowd of children, camped on a single field. So the name was not about a country. It was Jacob saying, "God is the God of me, the man He renamed."

It also kept a promise. Two decades earlier, sleeping on a stone at Bethel while running from Esau, Jacob made a vow. If God would protect him and bring him home, then shall the LORD be my God (Genesis 28:21). Now he was home. The altar was his answer.

The King James text and how it is printed

The King James translators did not turn the name into English. They kept the Hebrew sounds, as they did with other place names like Beer-sheba and Peniel. Most printings today show it with hyphens:

And he erected there an altar, and called it El-elohe-Israel.

Genesis 33:20

So if you search for "Elelohe Israel," "El Elohe Israel" or "El-elohe-Israel," you are looking for the same name. To erect something is simply to set it up. At Shechem Jacob pitched his tent outside the city (Genesis 33:18), and the first lasting thing he set up there was a place to worship.

Verses to read with Genesis 33

These passages fill in the story around Jacob's altar and show how the name kept growing.

And he bought a parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem's father, for an hundred pieces of money.

Genesis 33:19

A parcel is a piece of land. This small purchase mattered. God had promised the whole land to Abraham's family, and here was the first field Jacob could call his own.

Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments:

Genesis 35:2

A short time later, Jacob found out that some of his family still kept idols, small statues of other gods. Naming an altar was a start, not the finish. He had to lead his whole household to the God he had claimed.

And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.

Joshua 24:32

Hundreds of years later, the same field became the burial place of Jacob's son Joseph. The ground where Jacob named God his own stayed in the family.

Ancient Shechem is usually identified with a mound called Tell Balata, on the east side of the modern city of Nablus, in the pass between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. Archaeologists have dug there many times. A well near the mound has long been known as Jacob's well, and John's Gospel mentions the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph (John 4:5).

Over time, the short phrase "the God of Israel" became one of the most common ways the Bible speaks of God. In the Hebrew, the first time those words are joined is at this altar, with one man and one field.

Making God your own

Lots of people grow up around faith. They know the songs, they have heard the stories, and they can say the right words at the right time. That is a real gift. But Jacob's story shows that at some point the question turns personal. Is He only the God of your mom, your grandfather or your church, or is He your God?

For Jacob, that change came after a hard night. He was scared, he was alone, and he had run out of tricks. He came out of it limping. Many people find that God becomes real to them in a season like that, when their own plans have fallen apart.

Jacob also did something with what he had learned. He did not just feel grateful. He marked the moment so he would never forget it.

• Write down the day or the season when God became real to you, even if it was small.
• Tell one person, out loud, that God is your God and not only your family's.
• Ask what "strange gods" still sit in your house or your phone, and put one of them away this week.

Elelohe-Israel is name 12 of the 70 in the book. Before it came the Fear of Isaac, the name Jacob used for his father's God. Next is the Mighty God of Jacob, the name Jacob spoke on his deathbed. You can also browse more Hebrew names of God.