Read with Me
Genesis 35:9-15 (HCSB)
God appeared to Jacob again after he returned from Paddan-aram, and He blessed him. God said to him:
Your name is Jacob;
you will no longer be named Jacob,
but your name will be Israel.
So He named him Israel. God also said to him:
I am God Almighty.
Be fruitful and multiply.
A nation, indeed an assembly of nations,
will come from you,
and kings will descend from you.
I will give to you the land
that I gave to Abraham and Isaac.
And I will give the land
to your future descendants.
Then God withdrew from him at the place where He had spoken to him.
Jacob set up a marker at the place where He had spoken to him—a stone marker. He poured a drink offering on it and anointed it with oil. Jacob named the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.
Listen with Me
God had called Jacob back to Bethel and away from Shechem and away from the danger posed by the surrounding peoples whom Jacob feared would want to avenge the slaughter of Shechem by Jacob’s sons (Genesis 35:1). Now that Jacob had arrived there, God spoke to him, restating His covenant and His promise, and also restating Jacob’s new name: Israel, “God fights” or “God strives”.
In response, Jacob reset the standing stone which had originally been his pillow in his first encounter with God (Genesis 28:11, 18) and which had fallen over in the intervening quarter of a century. He poured a drink offering over the stone and anointed it with oil again. And he reaffirmed that the name of the place would be called Bethel, “the House of God”.
The Hebrew term “El” was a generic term for God, and had as its root meaning “power”. But in this encounter, God identified himself not just as the God (“El”) of Abraham and Isaac, but as “El Shadai”, which is variously translated as “God Almighty” or “God of hosts”.
The underlying meaning of the name is that God is the one and only true God for whom all things are possible. He had kept his promises to Jacob the whole time he had been in Haran, and now He was making even grander promises to him regarding his future. He was proclaiming that Jacob would become the ancestor of not a single nation, but of several, and that he would become the ancestor of kings. As God had kept his previous promises, as El Shadai He would keep these as well.
The Patriarchs continued to know God as El Shadai until after he revealed his sacred name, Yahweh, to Moses centuries later (Exodus 6:3). Even so, the older title was designed to help them understand that God was not like the gods that were worshiped by the other nations, but that He was in a class all by Himself, as high above those man–made gods as the heavens are above the earth.
Pray with Me
Father, the sad truth is that we really do need to be reminded from time to time of who You are, what You have done for us, and what You require of us. For that reason, it is important for us to revisit in our minds the significant encounters we have had with You, to see the distance You have brought us, to rehear the promises You have made to us, and to re-experience the wonder of Your presence and power. That was what You were saying to the Ephesians who had lost their first love: Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. (Revelation 2:5a HCSB). Lord, help me to intentionally return to You each day, so that I can remember, so that the fire in my soul stays hot, and so that I can walk with You in power and purity each day. Amen.