El-Elohe-Israel

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

"The mighty God of Israel," who had just shown His infinite might in saving Jacob (whose name was by God changed to Israel, because by prayer he had might with this mighty God and had prevailed) from Esau his deadly foe. Jacob so called the altar he built on the spot before Shechem, already consecrated by Abram ( Genesis 12:7;  Genesis 33:19-20). By it he implied that Jehovah, who was Abram's God, is also his God, as He had shown by bringing him safe back to Canaan as his inheritance.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

El-Elohe-Israel . Upon the ‘parcel of ground’ which he had bought at Shechem, Jacob built an altar and called it El-elohe-Israel , ‘El, the god of Israel,’   Genesis 33:20 (E [Note: Elohist.] ). This appears a strange name for an altar , and it is just possible that we should emend the text, so as to read with the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] , ‘he called upon the God of Israel.’

People's Dictionary of the Bible

El-Elohe-Israel ( Ĕl'E-Lô'He-Ĭz-Ra-El ), God, The God Of Israel. The name bestowed by Jacob on the altar which he erected facing the city of Shechem.  Genesis 33:19-20.

Holman Bible Dictionary

 Genesis 33:20

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

el - ē̇ - lō´hē̇ - iz´rā̇ - el , el - el´ō̇ - he - iz´rā̇ - el ( אל אלהי ישׂראל , 'ēl 'ĕlōhē yı̄srā'ēl , translated "God, the God of Israel" in the American Revised Version, margin and the King James Version margin): Found only in  Genesis 33:20 as the name given to the altar erected at Shechem by Jacob, henceforth, known as Israel, on the parcel of ground purchased by him from the inhabitants of Shechem, his first encampment of length and importance since the return to Palestine from Paddan-aram and the eventful night at Peniel (  Genesis 32:30 ). This unusual combination of names has given occasion for much speculation and for various text emendations. Already the Septuagint sought to meet the difficulty by reading wa - yı̄ḳrā' 'el 'ĕlōhē yisrā'ēl , "and he called upon the God of Israel," instead of the wa - yiḳrā' lō'ēl of Massoretic Text, "and he called it El" etc. Wellhausen, followed by Dillmann, Driver and others, changes "altar" to "pillar," because the Hebrew verb, hiccı̄bh , is used with maccēbhāh , "pillar," in  Genesis 35:14 ,  Genesis 35:20 , so making this religious act a parallel to that at Bethel. But Delitzsch, New Commentary on Genesis , properly rejects this purely fanciful change, and understands the compound name as the altar's inscription. Dillmann well suggests that "altar" (or "pillar") be supplied, reading Thus: "called it the altar of El , the God of Israel." The peculiar phrase is best and most readily understood in its close connection with the struggle at Peniel, recorded in Gen 32. Being victorious in that struggle, Jacob received the new name "Israel"; and to his first altar in Palestine he gave that name of God which appeared in his own new name, further explaining it by the appositive phrase "Elohe-Israel." Thus, his altar was called, or dedicated to, "El, the God of Israel."

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(Hebrew El Elohey' Yisral', אֵל אלֵהֵי יַשְׂרָאֵל Mighty One, God Of Israel; Sept. Ὁ Θεὸς Ισραήλ ; Vulg. Fortissimus Deus Israel), the name bestowed by Jacob on the altar which he erected facing the city of Shechem, in the piece of cultivated land upon which he had pitched his tent, and which he afterwards purchased from the Bene-Hamor ( Genesis 33:20). This compound term designates God as the being who can do whatever seems good to him, and who, in the recent experience of Jacob, had peculiarly manifested his power in overcoming the deep-rooted enmity of Esau, and thereby averting the most alarming evil which Jacob had ever been called to encounter. (See Jacob).