16
¶ So Esau returned that day on his way
unto Seir. 17 And Jacob journeyed to
Succoth, and built him an house, and made booths for his cattle: therefore the
name of the place is called Succoth. 18
And Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of
Canaan, when he came from Padanaram; and pitched his tent before the city.
19 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. 20
And he erected there an altar, and called it Elelohe-Israel.
Jacob had no intention of following Esau to Seir.
Jacob takes a right turn into Canaan having come down from Syria, leaving Esau
to return to Seir in Edom. He was probably very relieved at having escaped what
he thought should be vengeful wrath on the part of Esau.
Succoth,
as you can see by the text with the words after the colon defining what went
before it, means booths. Booths are temporary stalls, shelter for
Jacob’s beasts. There he purchased land from Hamor’s family which we shall soon
find was a fateful act on the part of Shechem. Jacob builds an altar and names
the altar Elelohe-Israel, which
Strong said means, “the mighty God of Israel.” I suspect Jacob was very
thankful that He did not receive what he thought could be coming to him.
No comments:
Post a Comment