Genesis 33:20 Daily Devotional & Meaning – God, the God of Israel
Daily Verses Everyday! Day 213
“And he erected there an altar, and called it EleloheIsrael.”
Jacob’s first recorded act after purchasing the parcel of land near Shechem was not to build a monument to himself. He did not name the place after his own courage, wisdom, wealth, endurance, or success. Genesis 33:20 says, “And he erected there an altar, and called it EleloheIsrael.”
The name EleloheIsrael means “God, the God of Israel.”
This altar was a public confession. Jacob was acknowledging that the God who had appeared to Abraham, the God who had preserved Isaac, and the God who had followed Jacob throughout his long years of exile was now personally his God. He was not merely the God of Jacob’s grandfather or the God of Jacob’s father. He was the God of Israel.
Jacob had received the name Israel at Peniel. Genesis 32:28 records the Lord saying, “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel.” Now Jacob connects his new name directly to God. He does not present Israel as a self-made man who had finally conquered his circumstances. He declares that Israel belongs to God.
The altar says, in effect, “The God who changed my name is the God who changed my life. The God who gave me this identity is the God who brought me safely home. Everything I am and everything I possess belongs to Him.”
This is the proper response to the accomplishments, victories, and blessings of life. We are called to bring them before God and submit them to Him in worship.
Human beings naturally desire to take credit for what goes well. We speak of our discipline, our intelligence, our planning, our sacrifices, our strength, our connections, and our perseverance. There is nothing wrong with recognizing that faithful work matters. Jacob had labored intensely for many years. Genesis 31:40 records him saying that the drought consumed him by day and the frost by night, while sleep departed from his eyes. He had endured difficult labor, family conflict, deception, travel, fear, and danger.
Yet when Jacob finally stood safely in Canaan, he built an altar.
He knew that hard work alone did not explain why he was still alive.
Planning did not soften Esau’s heart.
Intelligence did not restrain Laban.
Wealth did not preserve Jacob at Peniel.
Flocks did not guarantee his return to Canaan.
Servants could not control what awaited him on the road.
Jacob had planned, worked, negotiated, prayed, prepared, and endured, but God had governed the outcome.
The same is true of us. We make real decisions, perform real work, and bear real responsibilities, but we do not control the final results. Proverbs 16:9 says, “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.” We may determine the direction we intend to travel, but God remains sovereign over every step.
Proverbs 16:1 says that the preparations of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Proverbs 16:33 adds, “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.” Even the events that appear random remain beneath the authority of God.
Jacob could arrange his family into companies, send gifts before him, and choose the words he would speak to Esau, but he could not command Esau to embrace him. Only God could prepare that moment.
Roughly twenty-one years earlier, Jacob had fled from home believing that Esau wanted to kill him. Genesis 27:41 says, “And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him.” Esau then said within his heart that after the days of mourning for Isaac, he would slay his brother Jacob.
Rebekah heard of Esau’s intention and warned Jacob. Genesis 27:43 records her telling him, “Arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran.” She expected him to remain there for only a few days until Esau’s anger turned away. Yet those few days became years.
Jacob left the home of his father without knowing when he would return. He did not know whether Esau’s anger would fade. He did not know whether he would ever embrace his mother again. He did not know what Laban would be like. He did not know whether he would find a wife, establish a household, or survive the long road before him.
When he stopped at Bethel, he possessed no great company. Genesis 28:11 says that he took stones from that place and used them for his pillows. Jacob later admitted in Genesis 32:10, “With my staff I passed over this Jordan.”
He had left with a staff.
He returned with a household.
He had left alone.
He returned with wives, children, servants, flocks, and herds.
He had left fearing murder.
He returned after being embraced by the brother he feared.
He had left as Jacob, the deceiver and supplanter.
He returned bearing the name Israel.
None of this could be explained apart from the grace of God.
At Bethel, God had promised Jacob in Genesis 28:15, “Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest.” The Lord also promised, “I will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.”
Genesis 33 shows that God had fulfilled His word. Jacob had come back into Canaan. The promise had survived every delay, every deception, every danger, every human failure, and every fearful night.
Jacob’s altar was therefore not merely a religious structure. It was an answer to the promise of Bethel.
God had said, “I will bring thee again.”
Jacob now stood in the land and declared, “God is the God of Israel.”
Every stone placed upon that altar testified that God had been faithful.
Jacob could have built a monument to his survival skills. He could have named the location after his successful negotiations with Laban. He could have celebrated the wealth he had accumulated or the wisdom of sending gifts before Esau. Instead, he directed the glory upward.
Psalm 115:1 expresses this same spirit when it says, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory.” The psalmist does not deny that God’s people act, labor, and obey. He declares that the ultimate glory belongs to God because of His mercy and truth.
That must become the confession of every believer.
When a goal is reached, we build an altar in our hearts and say, “God did this.”
When a family survives a difficult season, we say, “God preserved us.”
When a ministry grows, we say, “God gave the increase.”
When a door opens, we say, “God made the way.”
When reconciliation occurs, we say, “God softened hearts.”
When provision arrives, we say, “God supplied our need.”
When we endure a trial that should have crushed us, we say, “God sustained us.”
We may have worked faithfully, but God gave strength for the work. We may have planned wisely, but God governed the outcome. We may have spoken carefully, but God prepared the hearts of those who heard us. We may have walked many miles, but God preserved our steps.
First Corinthians 3:6 records Paul saying, “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.” Paul did not deny the labor of planting or watering. Both were necessary. Yet neither man could create life. The increase belonged to God.
Paul continues in First Corinthians 3:7, “So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.” Human servants matter, but they are not the source of spiritual life or ultimate fruitfulness.
This truth protects us from pride when we succeed and despair when results do not appear immediately.
If we believe that everything depends entirely upon us, then success will make us arrogant and failure will destroy us. But when we understand that God is sovereign, we can work diligently while submitting every outcome to Him.
Jacob’s altar acknowledges this surrender.
He had tried throughout much of his life to control outcomes. He negotiated for Esau’s birthright. He disguised himself to secure Isaac’s blessing. He worked elaborate arrangements with Laban regarding the flocks. He divided his household before meeting Esau. Jacob was a planner, a strategist, and often a manipulator.
Yet his life repeatedly taught him that he could not control everything.
He could not control Laban’s deception.
He could not control Leah’s placement in the wedding tent.
He could not control the rivalry between his wives.
He could not control Laban’s repeated changes to his wages.
He could not control what Laban would do when he fled.
He could not control whether Esau would attack or embrace him.
He could not control the man with whom he wrestled at Peniel.
God allowed Jacob to reach the limits of his own control so that Jacob might learn to trust the One who controls all things.
This is one of the deepest lessons of faith. We are responsible, but we are not sovereign.
We are called to obey, but we cannot command the future.
We are called to plan wisely, but we cannot guarantee success.
We are called to speak truth, but we cannot force another person to believe.
We are called to raise our children faithfully, but we cannot control every choice they will make.
We are called to work diligently, but we cannot control every decision made by employers, customers, leaders, or institutions.
We are called to seek peace, but we cannot control how another person responds.
Romans 12:18 recognizes this limitation when it says, “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” We are responsible for what lies within us. We are responsible to repent, forgive, speak honestly, act humbly, and seek reconciliation. Yet the final outcome also involves the heart and choices of the other person.
Jacob had done what he could before meeting Esau. He prayed. He humbled himself. He offered restitution. He approached respectfully. But he could not make Esau run toward him.
God alone had authority over the moment.
Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.” If God can direct the heart of a king, He can soften the heart of an estranged brother.
Jacob had departed years earlier because Esau wanted him dead. He now returned to find Esau waiting with open arms.
Genesis 33:4 says, “And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept.”
Jacob expected a sword but received an embrace.
He expected vengeance but received welcome.
He expected rejection but received tears.
He expected the past to destroy him, but God brought peace.
This does not mean that Jacob’s fear had no basis. Esau had truly threatened his life. The past was real. Yet the grace of God was greater than the threat of the past.
God had been working during the years when Jacob could see nothing.
While Jacob served in Padanaram, God was still Lord over Esau.
While Jacob raised his family, God was able to work in the heart of his brother.
While Jacob remembered Esau’s anger, God knew what Esau’s response would eventually be.
Jacob returned looking at Esau through the memory of Genesis 27. God brought him into the reality of Genesis 33.
We often do the same thing. We look at tomorrow through the pain of yesterday. We assume that because something happened once, it must happen again. We carry old words, old wounds, and old fears into new situations and treat them as certain prophecies.
Yet God is not limited by our memories.
The person who was once hostile may change.
The relationship that appeared permanently broken may experience healing.
The door that once closed may open later.
The season that seemed endless may eventually come to an end.
The fear that controlled us for years may one day turn around and walk away.
We cannot guarantee these outcomes. Scripture does not promise that every human relationship will be restored in this life. But Jacob’s story proves that no situation is beyond God’s authority.
The proper response when grace brings us through is worship.
Jacob erected an altar.
He did not merely feel grateful. He gave his gratitude a visible expression. Worship became the way he interpreted his return.
Without worship, we may receive the blessings of God while slowly convincing ourselves that we achieved them alone. Memory fades. Pride grows. Grace begins to look like personal superiority.
Deuteronomy 8 warns Israel about this exact danger. Moses told the people that when they had eaten, become full, built good houses, multiplied their flocks, and increased their silver and gold, their hearts might become lifted up.
Deuteronomy 8:14 warns them not to forget the Lord who brought them out of Egypt. Deuteronomy 8:17 describes the temptation to say, “My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.”
The answer appears in Deuteronomy 8:18: “But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth.”
God does not merely give the final blessing. He gives the power, health, opportunity, wisdom, breath, strength, and time used to pursue it.
Every accomplishment must therefore be brought back to Him.
A degree should become an altar of thanksgiving.
A completed project should become an altar of praise.
A business success should become an altar of stewardship.
A restored marriage should become an altar of humility.
A healed relationship should become an altar of grace.
A surviving family should become an altar of testimony.
A ministry milestone should become an altar declaring, “God gave the increase.”
This does not require building a physical structure of stone. It means consciously laying every achievement before God and refusing to treat it as evidence of our own greatness.
Revelation 4:10 describes the elders falling before God and casting their crowns before His throne. The crowns represent real honor and reward, yet they are laid before the One from whom all honor comes.
That is the posture of eternal worship. Whatever crown we receive belongs at the feet of God.
Jacob’s altar did not say, “Israel is great.”
It said, “God is the God of Israel.”
This distinction matters greatly. Jacob’s new name could have become a source of pride. He had been told that he had power with God and with men and had prevailed. Yet the name Israel was not meant to glorify Jacob. It testified to the God who had humbled, wounded, blessed, and renamed him.
Jacob walked away from Peniel with both a new name and a limp.
The name reminded him of grace.
The limp reminded him of dependence.
Together, they prevented him from boasting as though he had overcome God by his own strength.
Second Corinthians 12:7–9 reveals that Paul also carried a weakness that kept him from being exalted above measure. Paul pleaded for the thorn in his flesh to depart, but Christ answered, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Paul then declared that he would glory in his infirmities so that the power of Christ might rest upon him.
God often permits some mark of weakness to remain beside our greatest accomplishments so that we will remember who carried us.
Jacob had wealth, but he also had a limp.
He had a large family, but he remembered leaving alone.
He owned a field, but he once slept upon a stone.
He stood safely in Canaan, but he remembered fleeing in fear.
He had peace with Esau, but he knew that he had not changed Esau’s heart.
The altar gathered all these memories and directed them toward God.
The name EleloheIsrael also reveals a deepening personal relationship. Jacob had often referred to the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac. In Genesis 31:5, Jacob told Rachel and Leah, “The God of my father hath been with me.” In Genesis 32:9, he prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac.”
Those titles were true and important, but at Shechem Jacob declared that this God was the God of Israel.
Faith cannot remain merely inherited.
A person may grow up hearing about the God of his parents, grandparents, pastor, or church. He may know biblical stories and religious language. Yet there must come a point when he personally trusts, worships, and belongs to the Lord.
God has no grandchildren in the covenant of salvation. Each person must come to Him through faith.
John 1:12 says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.” Salvation is not inherited merely through family connection. It is received through faith in Jesus Christ.
Jacob had heard Isaac speak of God. He had grown up in the family of Abraham. Yet now, after years of personal preservation, correction, mercy, and encounter, he raised an altar to the God of Israel.
He had experienced God for himself.
This does not mean that personal experience replaces Scripture or determines truth. The God Jacob worshiped was the same God who had revealed Himself and spoken covenant promises. But the promises of God had now been proven faithful within Jacob’s own life.
Many believers reach moments when truths they once knew intellectually become deeply personal.
They knew that God provides, but then they experienced provision.
They knew that God comforts, but then He sustained them through grief.
They knew that God forgives, but then the weight of personal guilt drove them to the cross.
They knew that God guides, but then He directed them through confusion.
They knew that God controls the future, but then a feared event unfolded under His providence rather than their expectations.
The doctrine did not change. The believer’s grasp of it deepened.
Jacob could now say more than, “My father told me God is faithful.” His own life had become evidence of that faithfulness.
The altar also looked forward to the worship of Israel as a nation. Jacob’s descendants would carry his new name. They would become the children of Israel. The God of Israel would lead them from Egypt, through the Red Sea, through the wilderness, and into the land of promise.
Again and again, Israel would be called to remember that its accomplishments came from God.
When Israel entered Canaan, Moses warned them in Deuteronomy 9:4 not to say that the Lord had given them the land because of their own righteousness. Their victories would not be proof of moral superiority. They would be acts of divine faithfulness and judgment.
Joshua 24:13 records God reminding Israel, “And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not.” Their inheritance came through grace.
The same principle reaches its fullest meaning in the gospel.
We contribute nothing to the accomplishment of our salvation.
Jesus Christ lived the righteousness we failed to live.
He bore the judgment we deserved.
He died the death required for sin.
He rose from the grave in victory.
He ascended to the Father.
He intercedes for His people.
Ephesians 2:8–9 declares that salvation is by grace through faith, “not of works, lest any man should boast.”
There will be no altar in heaven dedicated to human achievement.
There will be no redeemed sinner declaring that he saved himself.
Revelation 5:9 records the worship of heaven directed toward Christ: “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.”
The praise belongs to the Lamb.
Jacob’s safe return to Canaan gives us a small picture of the believer’s greater homecoming. Jacob traveled through danger, fear, conflict, and weakness before arriving in the land. The Christian also travels as a pilgrim through a fallen world, depending entirely upon the grace of God.
First Peter 1:5 says that believers are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” We do not preserve ourselves by our own strength. God keeps His people.
Jude 24 praises the One who is able to keep believers from falling and present them faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.
When the believer finally stands in the presence of God, there will be no boasting in personal strength. Every redeemed person will know that grace brought him home.
The hymn of the heart will be the same confession Jacob made at Shechem: God has done this.
God called me.
God saved me.
God preserved me.
God corrected me.
God restored me.
God carried me.
God brought me home.
Jacob’s altar therefore challenges us to examine what we do with our accomplishments.
Do we use them to draw attention toward ourselves?
Do we allow success to make us believe that we control life?
Do we speak as though our intelligence, determination, and strength are the final explanation for what we have achieved?
Or do we submit everything to God?
James 4:13–15 warns against speaking arrogantly about future plans. James describes people saying that they will go into a city, remain there for a year, buy, sell, and gain profit. He reminds them that they do not know what tomorrow will bring and that their life is like a vapor.
The proper confession is, “If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.”
This does not forbid planning. It forbids planning as though God were irrelevant.
Jacob’s life proved that tomorrow belongs to God.
Twenty-one years earlier, he did not know whether he would live to see Canaan again. He did not know whether Esau would ever forgive him. He did not know that he would become the father of a great household. He did not know that God would give him a new name.
Yet God knew every step.
Psalm 139:16 declares that all our days are written in God’s book before any of them come to pass. He is never surprised by the road before us.
We do not control everything, but we know the One who does.
That truth should not make us passive. Jacob still traveled, worked, negotiated, protected his household, and purchased land. Trusting God’s sovereignty does not mean refusing responsibility. It means fulfilling our responsibility without pretending to possess God’s authority.
We work, but God gives increase.
We plan, but God directs.
We speak, but God opens hearts.
We plant, but God gives life.
We travel, but God preserves.
We build, but unless the Lord builds the house, Psalm 127:1 says that we labor in vain.
Jacob’s response to grace was to build an altar.
Our response should be the same.
We should take the story of our lives, including the victories, failures, wounds, reconciliations, accomplishments, and unexpected mercies, and place it all before God.
We should say, “Nothing good in my life exists independently of Your grace.”
We should say, “Every ability I possess came from You.”
We should say, “Every door opened beneath Your providence.”
We should say, “Every trial I survived was endured through strength You supplied.”
We should say, “Every person whose heart softened was touched by a power beyond my control.”
We should say, “Every accomplishment belongs at Your feet.”
Jacob had returned to the land he feared he might never see again. The brother he expected to hate him had welcomed him with warm, open arms. The death he feared had not occurred. The prayer he prayed had been answered. The promise spoken at Bethel had been fulfilled.
So Jacob worshiped.
He erected an altar and called it EleloheIsrael.
God, the God of Israel.
The name declared that Jacob’s life had an Owner.
His family had an Owner.
His wealth had an Owner.
His future had an Owner.
His new identity had an Owner.
Israel belonged to God.
The same must be true of us. Our names, accomplishments, ministries, families, careers, possessions, education, influence, and future belong to the Lord.
We control none of them absolutely.
God controls all things perfectly.
Therefore, when grace brings us through what we feared, we should not merely move on to the next ambition. We should stop and worship. We should remember where we began, how little we controlled, how faithfully God acted, and how graciously He brought us through.
We should build an altar of praise in our hearts and declare:
The Lord brought me out.
The Lord carried me through.
The Lord changed what I could not change.
The Lord controlled what I could not control.
The Lord opened the arms I expected to be raised against me.
The Lord brought me back to the place I thought I might never see again.
Not unto me, but unto His name belongs the glory.
EleloheIsrael.
God, the God of Israel.
And through Jesus Christ, He is also the God of every redeemed sinner who submits his life, accomplishments, and praise entirely to Him.
If you would like to explore Genesis in a sustained, verse-by-verse way with space to reflect, journal, and trace how these foundational truths unfold through Scripture the Verse by Verse book expands these reflections into a unified reading experience. The book gathers these meditations into a structured journey through Genesis, designed to help readers linger in the text and engage God’s Word more deeply over time.
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