Genesis 33:20

This is the name Jacob gave to the altar he built near Shechem. God had just before changed his name to Israel, which means "a prince of God." Jacob tied the blessing carried in this name to a piece of land he bought, instead of to God's house at Bethel. So he calls the altar he had built "God, the God of Israel."

The name El-elohe-Israel means "God the God of Israel." He did use his new God-given name, not his old name of Jacob. Yet even so he connected God with himself instead of connecting himself with God. In effect he was saying "God belongs to me," instead of "I belong to God."

He builds an altar at Shechem for the first time, after he has returned to the land. The name of the altar recalls the blessing of Israel, but not the name of the God who made the promises. He calls the altar "God, the God of Israel." Thankfulness does recognise the blessing Jacob has received. But the God who blessed him is not yet revealed.

Jacob clearly meant to stay at Shechem. He had bought his field, so he built an altar there and called it El-elohe-Israel. His intentions were good, but it seems clear that he had not entered fully into the mind of God. It was Bethel that God had spoken to him about while he was still in Paddan-aram, for had He not said, "I am the God of Bethel"?

The altar comes next in the list, after the house and the field. At first it may look like a relief, something that makes the whole scene holy — the one good thing in the middle of the corruption. But it is perhaps the worst of all. It was not raised to Him who had appeared to him. There had been no communion between the Lord and Jacob at either Succoth or Shechem. Shechem was not Bethel… It looks like an attempt to get the Lord's approval of Jacob's loss of his separated, pilgrim character.

The name of our altar and the character of our worship express the same idea. El-Bethel worship is higher than El-elohe-Israel worship, for this simple reason: it conveys a higher idea of God. True, there is beautiful grace in the title "God, the God of Israel." The soul is always glad to see God connect Himself with every single stone of His house and every single member of the body. But God is the God of His house. When our understanding grows enough to see Him that way, we enjoy a higher kind of worship than the worship that comes from only grasping what He is to us as individuals.

This was only a half-way measure. There he bought a parcel of a field, a picture of a part of the world. It was not a large part, but it drew him into a compromise that brought sad results. He erected an altar there, but it was not because of God's word that he did so. God told him later to make an altar at Bethel… For it was still not God's honour he was chiefly seeking, but his own blessing. At Bethel his altar's name was "El-Bethel," "God of the house of God." There he finally learned that God's glory was more important than Jacob's blessing.