The Altar, The Well and Jacob's sanctification at Shechem | HIMI

Jesus changed Jacob's heart

Jacob deceived his father and stole his brother's blessing. He left Canaan fleeing his brother Esau with nothing but a staff. He returned back after twenty years of hard labour in Padan-aram a changed man. He returned with wives, children, flocks and the blessing of God upon everything he touched. The road home was not easy. Twenty years God dealt with Jacob's deceitful nature. For Rachel Laban gave him Leah deceitfully and changed his wages ten times.He wrestled with God at Peniel and walked away limping, and he faced the terrifying prospect of meeting a brother who had once sworn to kill him. But God had kept him, multiplied him and brought him back to the land of promise.

Jacob walked the same route his grandfather Abraham had walked to Shechem. Jesus also walked the same route from Judea to Sychar (Shechem in Samaria) "And he must needs go through Samaria" John 4:4 The patriarchs Abraham and Jacob prefigured Christ. Jews and Samaritans hurted each other. Jews would crossed the River Jordan avoiding Samaria but Jesus used Abraham and Jacob's route to Samaria! Upon arriving in Shechem Jacob bought land(Jacob's plot), built an alter and called on Jehovah(Pre-incarnate Christ). He called the alter El-Elohe-Israel. This was not the God of religion or tradition — this was Jacob's own God, the personal, intimate, experiential God whom Jacob had met face to face at Peniel. The altar declared this God is mine and I am His!

"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. 20And he erected there an altar, and called it EleloheIsrael." — Genesis 33:19-20 (KJV)

"And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem." "Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" — Genesis 35:4 (KJV) John 4:29 (KJV)

Jacob buries the foreign gods at Shechem

Burying the gods — Sanctification at Shechem

At Shechem Jacob and his family sanctified themselves. Jacob commanded his household to put away all their foreign gods. Genesis 35:4 "And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem." They surrendered their idols, their earrings — ornaments associated with idol worship in the ancient world — and Jacob buried them all under the terebinth tree at Shechem. Buried. Not stored away for later. Not moderated. Buried permanently beneath the earth — put away forever.

This is a picture of true sanctification — not compromise with the world but the complete and final burial of it. The foreign gods represent everything that competes with Christ for the throne of the human heart. The earrings represent the adornments of a life lived for the world's approval. Jacob buried them all at Shechem and built an altar to the personal intimate God of Israel. Shechem — the place where Abraham first heard the promise of the seed (Christ)— became the place where Jacob's household was purified and consecrated to God entirely. It also the place the Samaritan woman who represents humanity buried her old life in exchange for the living water. The geography of Scripture is never accidental. God keeps bringing His people back to the same places to do deeper work!

The Well — Christ The Living Water

Jacob also dug a well in his plot at Shechem John 4:6 "Now Jacob's well was there.Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour." The well sustained Jacob and his flock in the wilderness. He dud it the same way Isaac his father dug wells.Thus he flourished because of the well. Jacob dug deeper than the surface to reach the earth's rich hidden supply a symbol symbol of Christ — our inexhaustible, ever-flowing supplier of living water!

That well is the place where Jesus — the seed of the woman, the fulfilment of everything Abraham Isaac and Jacob pointed to — would sit down weary from His journey and encounter the Samaritan woman who represents the thirst of all humanity. Jacob's well was a symbol. It sustained physical life for generations prophesying the reality was coming — Christ the living water who satisfies the deepest thirst of every human soul. John 4:14 "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.". Jacob dug the well but Jesus is the living water. The symbol pointed to the reality. The reality came!

"But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." — John 4:14 (KJV)

His Image Ministries International

✨ The Altar, The Well and Jacob's sanctification at Shechem

Jesus changed Jacob's heart

Burying the gods — Sanctification at Shechem

The Well — Christ The Living Water

🙏 Prayer

Join Us — Weekly Bible Study on Zoom

Have Questions or a Praise Report?

✨ The Altar, The Well and Jacob's sanctification at Shechem

Jesus changed Jacob's heart

Burying the gods — Sanctification at Shechem

The Well — Christ The Living Water

🙏 Prayer

Join Us — Weekly Bible Study on Zoom

Have Questions or a Praise Report?

✅ Question Received!