His service.

In perfect correspondence with the Jehovistic law is the
Jehovistic narrative of the Pentateuch, as, in particular, the
story of the patriarchs in J and E very clearly shows. At every
place where they take up their abode or make a passing stay, the
fathers of the nation, according to this authority, erect altars,
set up memorial stones, plant trees, dig wells. This does not take
place at indifferent and casual localities, but at Shechem and
Bethel in Ephraim, at Hebron and Beersheba in Judah, at Mizpah,
Mahanaim, and Penuel in Gilead; nowhere but at famous and
immemorially holy places of worship. It is on this that the
interest of such notifications depends; they are no mere
antiquarian facts, but full of the most living significance for the
present of the narrator. The altar built by Abraham at Shechem is
the altar on which sacrifice still continues to be made, and bears
"even unto this day" the name which the patriarch gave it. On the
spot where at Hebron he first entertained Jehovah, there down to
the present day the table has continued to be spread; even as
Isaac himself did, so do his sons still swear Amosos viii.14; Hos.
iv.15) by the sacred well of Beersheba, which he digged, and
sacrifice there upon the altar which he built, under the tamarisk
which he planted. The stone which Jacob consecrated at Bethel the
generation of the living continues to anoint, paying the tithes
which of old he vowed to the house of God there. This also is the
reason why the sacred localities are so well known to the
narrator, and are punctually and accurately recorded
notwithstanding the four hundred years of the Egyptian sojourn,
which otherwise would have made their identification a matter of
some little difficulty. The altar which Abraham built at Bethel