El Shaddai (Hebrew:אֵל שַׁדַּי,romanized: ʾĒl Šadday;IPA:[elʃadːaj]) or justShaddai is one of thenames of God in Judaism.El Shaddai is conventionally translated into English asGod Almighty, asDeus Omnipotens in Latin, and inArabic:إله الشديد,romanized: ʾIlāh Ash-Shadīd.
"El" means "God" in theUgaritic and theCanaanite languages. The literal meaning of Shaddai, however, is the subject of debate.[1] Some scholars have argued that it came from Akkadianshadû ("mountain")[2] or from the Hebrew verbshaddad שדד meaning "Destroyer".[3] Shaddai may have also come fromshad שד meaning mammary;shaddai is a typical Biblical Hebrew word (שדי). The plural (Shaddayim -- שדיים) is the typicalModern Hebrew word forhuman breasts indual grammatical number.[4] TheDeir Alla Inscription containsshaddayin as well aselohin rather thanelohim. Scholars[5] translate this as "shadday-gods," taken to mean unspecified fertility, mountain orwilderness gods.
The form of the phrase "El Shaddai" fits the pattern of the divine names in theAncient Near East, exactly as is the case with names likeʾĒl ʿOlām,ʾĒl ʿElyon andʾĒlBēṯ-ʾĒl.[6] As such,El Shaddai can convey several different semantic relations between the two words, among them:[7] the deity of a place calledShaddai, a deity possessing the quality ofshaddai and a deity who is also known by the nameShaddai.[6] Other deities are attested in various cultures. One is Ammonite Šd-Yrḥ.[8]
Third in frequency among divine names,[9] the nameShaddai appears 48 times in theBible, seven times as "El Shaddai" (five times inGenesis, once inExodus, and once inEzekiel).[10]
The first occurrence of the name comes inGenesis 17:1, "WhenAbram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, 'I am El Shaddai; walk before me, and be blameless,'[11] Similarly, inGenesis 35:11 God says toJacob, "I am El Shaddai: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins." According toExodus 6:2–3Shaddai was the name by which God was known toAbraham,Isaac, andJacob.
In the vision ofBalaam recorded in theBook of Numbers 24:4 and 16, the vision comes from Shaddai, who is also referred to asEl ("God") andElyon ("Most High"). In the fragmentaryinscriptions at Deir Alla,shaddayin[12] appear (Hebrew:שדין; the vowels are uncertain, as is the gemination of the "d"), perhaps lesser figurations of Shaddai.[13] These have been tentatively identified with thešēdim "demons" (Hebrew:שדים) ofDeuteronomy 32:17 (parashah Haazinu) andPsalm 106: 37–38,[14] who areCanaanite deities.
The name "Shaddai" is often used in parallel to "El" later in theBook of Job, once thought to be one of the oldest books of the Bible, though now more commonly dated to a later period.[15][16]
TheSeptuagint often translatesShaddai orEl Shaddai just as "God" or "my God", and in at least one passage (Ezekiel 10:5) it is transliterated ("θεὸς σαδδαΐ"). In other places (such as Job 5:17) it appears as "Almighty" ("παντοκράτωρ"), and this word features in other translations as well, such as the 1611King James Version.
According to Ernst Knauf, "El Shaddai" means "God of the Wilderness" and originally would not have had a doubled "d". He argues that it is aloanword fromIsraelian Hebrew, where the word had a "sh" sound, into Judean Hebrew and hence,Biblical Hebrew, where it would have beenśaday with the soundśin.[17]: 750 In this theory, the word is related to the wordśadé "the (uncultivated) field", the area of hunting (as in the distinction between beasts of the field,חיות השדה, and cattle,בהמות). He points out that the name is found inThamudic inscriptions (asʾlšdy), in a personal nameŚaday ʾammī used in Egypt from theLate Bronze Age untilAchaemenid times, and even in thePunic language nameʿbdšd "Servant of Shadé or Shada".[17]: 750
Another theory is that Shaddai is a derivation of aSemitic root that appears in theAkkadian languageshadû ("mountain") andshaddāʾû orshaddûʾa "mountain-dweller", one of the names ofAmurru. This theory was popularized byW. F. Albright, but was somewhat weakened when it was noticed that the doubling of the mediald is first documented only in theNeo-Assyrian Empire.[citation needed] However, the doubling in Hebrew might possibly be secondary. According to this theory, God is seen as inhabiting a holy mountain, a concept not unknown in ancient West Asian religion, and also evident in theSyriac Christianity writings ofEphrem the Syrian, who places theGarden of Eden on an inaccessible mountaintop.[citation needed]
The term "El Shaddai" may mean "god of the mountains", referring to theMesopotamian divine mountain.[18] This could also refer to the Israelite camp's stay atbiblical Mount Sinai where God gaveMoses the Ten Commandments. According toStephen L. Harris, the term was "one of the patriarchal names for the Mesopotamian tribal god".[18] In Exodus 6:3, El Shaddai is identified explicitly with theGod of Abraham and withYahweh.[18] The term "El Shaddai" appears chiefly inGenesis, only with a fertility association.
The root word "shadad" (שדד) means to plunder, overpower, or make desolate. This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer", representing one of the aspects of God, and in this context it is essentially anepithet.[3] The meaning may go back to an original sense which was "to be strong" as in the Arabic "shadid" (شديد) "strong",[19] although normally the Arabic letter pronounced "sh" corresponds to the Hebrew lettersin, not toshin. The termination "ai", typically signifying the first person possessive plural, functions as apluralis excellentiae like other titles for the Hebrew deity,Elohim ("gods") andAdonai "my lords". The possessive quality of the termination had lost its sense and become the lexical form of both Shaddai and Adonai, similar to how the connotation of the French wordMonsieur changed from "my lord" to being an honorific title.[19] There are a couple of verses in the Bible where there seems to be word play with "Shadday" and this root meaning to destroy (the day of YHWH will come as destruction from Shadday,כשד משדי יבוא,Isaiah 13:6 andJoel 1:15), but Knauf maintains that this is re-etymologization.[17]: 751
It has been speculated that thetell in Syria calledTell eth-Thadeyn ("tell of the three breasts") was called Shaddai in theAmorite language. There was a Bronze-Age city in the region calledTuttul, which means "three breasts" in theSumerian language.[20]
The Hebrew noun (שד) šād, šādayim, šōd means breast, breasts (dual,) mother's breast.[21][22][23]
David Biale notes that five of the six times that the name El Shaddai appears in theBook of Genesis are in connection with fertility blessings for thePatriarchs, but ultimately argues for the meaning "almighty".[24]
The Afrasian to pre-proto-Semitic source meant "to extend (lengthwise.)" This led to soundalikes to the Hebrew in Ugaritic, Judaeo-, Syriac, and standard Aramaic, Harari, Jibbali, Soqotri, Mehri, and more.[22][25] whilešdh means a plain in Canaanite but a mountain in Sumerian.[26] The reconstructed common root in Semitic Etymological disctionary is "*ṯVdy- / *čVdy- (woman's breast.)"
A popular interpretation of the name Shaddai is that it is composed of the Hebrew relative particleshe- (Shin plus vowel segol followed bydagesh), or, as in this case, assha- (Shin plus vowel patach followed by a dagesh).[27] The noun containing the dagesh is the Hebrew worddai meaning "enough, sufficient, sufficiency".[28] This is the same word used in thePassoverHaggadah, Dayeinu, which means "It would have been enough for us." The song Dayeinu celebrates the various miracles God performed while liberating the Israelites from Egyptian servitude.[29] TheTalmud explains it this way, but says that "Shaddai" stands for"Mi she'Amar Dai L'olamo" (Hebrew:מי שאמר די לעולמו) – "He who said 'Enough' to His world." When he was forming the earth, he stopped the process at a certain point, withholding creation from reaching its full completion, and thus the name embodies God's power to stop creation. The passage appears in the tractate Hagigah 12a.[30]
There is early support for this interpretation, in that theSeptuagint translates "Shadday" in several places asὁ ἱκανός, the "Sufficient One" (for example, Ruth 1:20, 21).
However, Day's overview says a "rabbinic view understanding the name meaning 'who suffices' (Se + day) is clearly fanciful and has no support."[31]
The name "Shaddai" often appears on the devices such as amulets or dedicatory plaques.[32][33][34] More importantly, however, it is associated with the traditional Jewish customs which could be understood asapotropaic: malecircumcision,mezuzah, andtefillin. The connections of the first one with the name Shaddai are twofold: According to the biblical chronology it is El Shaddai who ordains the custom of circumcision in Genesis 17:1 and, as is apparent in midrashTanhuma Tzav 14 (cf. a parallel passages in Tazri‘a 5 and Shemini 5) thebrit milah itself is the inscription of the part of the name on the body:
The Holy One, blessed be He, has put His name on them so they would enter the garden of Eden. And what is the name and the seal that He had put on them? It is "Shaddai". [The letter]shin He put in the nose,dalet – on the hand, whereasyod on the {circumcised} [membrum]. Accordingly, {when} He goes to{His eternal home} (Ecclesiastes 12:5), there is an angel {appointed} in the garden of Eden who picks up every son of which is circumcised and brings him {there}. And those who are not circumcised? Although there are two letters of the name "Shaddai" present on them, {namely}shin from the nose anddalet from the hand, theyod (...) is {missing}. Therefore it hints at a demon (Heb.shed), which brings him down to Gehenna.
Analogous is the case with mezuzah – a piece of parchment with two passages from the Book of Deuteronomy, curled up in a small encasement and affixed to a doorframe. At least since the Geonic times, the name "Shaddai" is often written on the back of the parchment containing theshema‘ and sometimes also on the casing itself. The name is traditionally interpreted as being an acronym ofshomer daltot Yisrael ("the guardian of the doors of Israel") orshomer dirot Yisrael ("the guardian of the dwellings of Israel").[35] However, thisnotarikon itself has its source most probably inZohar Va’ethanan where it explains the meaning of the word Shaddai and connects it to mezuzah.[36]
The name "Shadday" can also be found on tefillin – a set of two black leather boxes strapped to head and arm during the prayers. The binding of particular knots of tefillin is supposed to resemble the shape of the letters: the leather strap of thetefillah shel rosh is knotted at the back of the head thus forming the letterdalet whereas the one that is passed through thetefillah shel yad forms ayod-shaped knot. In addition to this, the box itself is inscribed with the lettershin on two of its sides.[35]
TheSeptuagint[37] (and other early translations) sometimes translate "Shaddai" as "(the) Almighty". It is often translated as "God", "my God", or "Lord". However, in theGreek of the Septuagint translation ofPsalm 91:1, "Shaddai" is translated as "the God of heaven".[38]
"Almighty" is the translation of "Shaddai" followed by most modern English translations of the Hebrew scriptures, including the popularNew International Version[39] andGood News Bible.
The translation team behind theNew Jerusalem Bible (N.J.B.) however, maintains that the meaning is uncertain, and that translating "El Shaddai" as "Almighty God" is inaccurate. The N.J.B. leaves it untranslated as "Shaddai", and makes footnote suggestions that it should perhaps be understood as "God of the Mountain" from theAkkadian "shadu", or "God of the open wastes" from the Hebrew "sadeh" and the secondary meaning of the Akkadian word.[40]The translation in theConcordant Old Testament is 'El Who-Suffices' (Genesis 17:1).
In Book 5, Chapter 2 of theRight Ginza, part ofMandaean holy scripture of theGinza Rabba, El Shaddai is mentioned asʿIl-Šidai.[41]
[Job] is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, books in the Bible.
The dictionary definition ofשד at Wiktionary The dictionary definition ofEl Shaddai at Wiktionary
Quotations related toEl Shaddai at Wikiquote