El Shaddai ( ''ʾĒl Šadday''; ) or just Shaddai is one of the names of the God of Israel. ''El Shaddai'' is conventionally translated into English as ''God Almighty'' (''Deus Omnipotens'' in Latin, الله عز وجل Allāh 'azzawajal in Arabic), but its original meaning is unclear. The translation of ''El'' as " God" or "Lord" in the Ugaritic/ Canaanite language is straightforward, as El was the supreme god of the

ancient Canaanite religion The Canaanite religion was the group of ancient Semitic religions practiced by the Canaanites living in the ancient Levant from at least the early Bronze Age through the first centuries AD. Canaanite religion was polytheistic and, in some case ...

. The literal meaning of ''Shaddai'', however, is the subject of debate. The form of the phrase ''El Shaddai'' fits the pattern of the divine names in the

Ancient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...

, exactly as is the case with names like El Olam",

El Elyon Elyon ( he, ''ʿElyōn'') is an epithet of the God of the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible. ' is usually rendered in English as "God Most High", and similarly in the Septuagint as ("God the highest"). The term also has mundane uses, such as " ...

" or El Betel". As such, ''El Shaddai'' can convey several different semantic relations between the two words, among them: the deity of a place called ''Shaddai'', a deity possessing the quality of ''shaddai'' and a deity who is also known by the name ''Shaddai''.

Occurrence

The name ''Shaddai'' appears 48 times in the Bible, seven times as "El Shaddai" (five times in

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...

, once in

Exodus Exodus or the Exodus may refer to: Religion * Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible * The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan Historical events * E ...

, and once in Ezekiel). The first occurrence of the name is in , "When

Abram Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Jews ...

was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, 'I am El Shaddai; walk before me, and be blameless,' Similarly, in God says to

Jacob Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. ...

, "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 to ''Shaddai'' was the name by which God was known to

Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...

Isaac Isaac; grc, Ἰσαάκ, Isaák; ar, إسحٰق/إسحاق, Isḥāq; am, ይስሐቅ is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was ...

, and

. Shaddai thus being associated in tradition with Abraham, the inclusion of the Abraham stories into the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' documentary hypothesis of the origins of the Hebrew Bible. In the vision of

Balaam Balaam (; , Standard ''Bīlʿam'' Tiberian ''Bīlʿām'') is a diviner in the Torah ( Pentateuch) whose story begins in Chapter 22 of the Book of Numbers (). Ancient references to Balaam consider him a non-Israelite, a prophet, and the son of ...

recorded in the

Book of Numbers The book of Numbers (from Greek Ἀριθμοί, ''Arithmoi''; he, בְּמִדְבַּר, ''Bəmīḏbar'', "In the desert f) is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah. The book has a long and ...

24:4 and 16, the vision comes from Shaddai, who is also referred to as El (God) and Elyon (Most High). In the fragmentary inscriptions at Deir Alla, though "Shaddai" is not, or not fully present, ''shaddayin'' appear (, the vowels are uncertain, as is the gemination of the "d"), perhaps lesser figurations of Shaddai. These have been tentatively identified with the š''edim'' () of

Deuteronomy Deuteronomy ( grc, Δευτερονόμιον, Deuteronómion, second law) is the fifth and last book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called (Hebrew: hbo, , Dəḇārīm, hewords Moses.html"_;"title="f_Moses">f_Moseslabel=none)_and_th ...

32:17 and Psalm 106:37–38, who are Canaanite deities. The name ''Shaddai'' (Hebrew: ) is often used in parallel to El later in the

Book of Job The Book of Job (; hbo, אִיּוֹב, ʾIyyōḇ), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and is the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Scholars a ...

. In the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

''Shaddai'' or ''El Shaddai'' was often translated just as "God" or "my God", and in at least one passage (Ezekiel 10:5) it is transliterated (""). In other places (such as Job 5:17) it is translated "Almighty" (""), and this word is used in other translations as well (such as the

King James Bible The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of ...

Etymology

The origin and meaning of "Shaddai" are obscure, and a variety of hypotheses have been put forward.

Shaddai related to wilderness or mountains

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 a

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...

from Israelian Hebrew, where the word had a "sh" sound, into Judean Hebrew and hence,

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of t ...

, where it would have been ''śaday'' with the sound '' śin''. In this theory, the word is related to the word ''śadé'' meaning "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 in Thamudic inscriptions (as lšdy''), in a personal name "Śaday`ammī" used in Egypt from the Late Bronze Age until

Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...

times, and even in the Punic name "bdšd" (Servant of Shadé or Shada).Article on Shadday by E.A. Knauf in Another theory is that Shaddai is a derivation of a Semitic stem that appears in the

Akkadian language Akkadian (, Akkadian: )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages''. Ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge) Pages 218-280 is an extinct East Semitic language t ...

''shadû'' ("mountain") and ''shaddā`û'' or ''shaddû''`a ("mountain-dweller"), one of the names of

Amurru Amurru may refer to: * Amurru kingdom, roughly current day western Syria and northern Lebanon * Amorite, ancient Syrian people * Amurru (god) Amurru, also known under the Sumerian name Martu, was a Mesopotamian god who served as the divine perso ...

. This theory was popularized by W. F. Albright but was somewhat weakened when it was noticed that the doubling of the medial ''d'' is first documented only in the

Neo-Assyrian period The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...

. 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 mythology (see El), and also evident in the

Syriac Christianity Syriac Christianity ( syr, ܡܫܝܚܝܘܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ / ''Mšiḥoyuṯo Suryoyto'' or ''Mšiḥāyūṯā Suryāytā'') is a distinctive branch of Eastern Christianity, whose formative theological writings and traditional liturgies are ex ...

writings of

Ephrem the Syrian Ephrem the Syrian ( syc, ܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, Mār ʾAp̄rêm Sūryāyā, ; grc-koi, Ἐφραὶμ ὁ Σῦρος, Efrém o Sýros; la, Ephraem Syrus; am, ቅዱስ ኤፍሬም ሶርያዊ; ), also known as Saint Ephrem, Saint ...

, who places the

Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden ( he, גַּן־עֵדֶן, ) or Garden of God (, and גַן־אֱלֹהִים ''gan- Elohim''), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2-3 and Ezekiel 28 ...

on an inaccessible mountaintop. The term "El Shaddai" may mean "god of the mountains", referring to the

Mesopotamian Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

divine mountain. Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. This could also refer to the Israelite camp's stay at biblical Mount Sinai where God gave

Moses Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu ( Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pr ...

the Ten Commandments. According to Stephen L. Harris, the term was "one of the patriarchal names for the Mesopotamian tribal god", presumably meaning of the tribe of Abram, although there seems to be no evidence for this outside the Bible. In Exodus 6:3, El Shaddai is identified explicitly with the God of Abraham and with

Yahweh Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he po ...

. The term "El Shaddai" appears chiefly in

Shaddai meaning destroyer

The root word "''shadad''" () 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 an epithet. The meaning may go back to an original sense which was "to be strong" as in the Arabic "''shadid''" () "strong", although normally the Arabic letter pronounced "sh" corresponds to the Hebrew letter sin, not to shin. The termination "''ai''", typically signifying the first person possessive plural, functions as a pluralis excellentiae like other titles for the Hebrew deity, Elohim ("gods") and

Adonai Judaism considers some names of God so holy that, once written, they should not be erased: YHWH, Adonai, El ("God"), Elohim ("God," a plural noun), Shaddai ("Almighty"), and Tzevaot (" fHosts"); some also include Ehyeh ("I Will Be").This is th ...

("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 word Monsieur changed from "my lord" to being an honorific title. 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, Is. 13:6 and Joel 1:15), but Knauf maintains that this is re-etymologization.

Shaddai as a toponym

It has been speculated that the tell in Syria called Tell eth-Thadeyn ("tell of the two breasts") was called Shaddai in the

Amorite language Amorite is an extinct early Semitic language, formerly spoken during the Bronze Age by the Amorite tribes prominent in ancient Near Eastern history. It is known from Ugaritic, classed by some as its westernmost dialect and the only known Amorit ...

. There was a Bronze-Age city in the region called Tuttul, which means "two breasts" in the

Sumerian language Sumerian is the language of ancient Sumer. It is one of the oldest attested languages, dating back to at least 3000 BC. It is accepted to be a local language isolate and to have been spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, in the area that is modern-day ...

. It has been conjectured that El Shaddai was therefore the "God of Shaddai" and that the inclusion of the Abrahamic stories into the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Documentary hypothesis).

Shaddai meaning breasts

The root "''shad''" (שד) means "breast". Biblical scholar David Biale notes that, of the six times that the name "El Shaddai" appears in the Book of Genesis, five are in connection with fertility blessings for the patriarchs. He argues that this original understanding of "Shaddai" as related to fertility was forgotten by the later authors of Isaiah, Joel, and Job, who understood it as related to root words for power or destruction (thus explaining their later translation as "all-powerful" or "almighty").

Shaddai in the later Jewish tradition

God that said "enough"

A popular interpretation of the name Shaddai is that it is composed of the Hebrew relative particle ''she-'' (Shin plus vowel segol followed by dagesh), or, as in this case, as ''sha-'' (Shin plus vowel patach followed by a dagesh). The noun containing the dagesh is the Hebrew word ''dai'' meaning "enough, sufficient, sufficiency". This is the same word used in the

Passover Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holiday that celebrates the Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt, which occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the first month of Aviv, or spring. ...

Haggadah, 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. The

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

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 and reads:

Reish Laqish said: What is the meaning of that which is written: "''I am the Almighty God" (El Shaddai)'' (Genesis 35:11)? It means: I am He who said to the world "enough! ai" instructing it to stop expanding. Similarly, Reish Laqish lsosaid: In the hour that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the sea, it started to expand – until the Holy One, blessed be He, reproached it. henit dried out as it was said: ''He reproaches the sea and makes it dry; and all the rivers makes desolate'' (Nahum 1:4).

This account has two parallel variants with some minute changes. One appears in Bereshit Rabbah 5:8, where Shaddai stops the world from expanding and in 46:3 where he limits the earth and heavens. What is common to all these instances is the cosmogonic context and the exposition provided by Resh Laqish, who explains the appellation as a compound form consisting of ''she–'' and ''day''. These passages have often been exposed in a sophisticated way as indicating the divine plan of drawing the borders between mind and matter, keeping the balance between his right and left hand or as an early manifestation of the

kabbalistic Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...

idea of ''

tzimtzum The ''tzimtzum'' or ''tsimtsum'' (Hebrew ' "contraction/constriction/condensation") is a term used in the Lurianic Kabbalah to explain Isaac Luria's doctrine that God began the process of creation by "contracting" his ''Ohr Ein Sof'' (infinite ...

''. It seems however, that they should rather be approached in their immediate context and in relation to another parallel narrative which comes in BT Sukkah 53 a–b and reads:

When
David David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
dug the Pits, the arose and threatened to submerge the world. David asked: «is there anyone who knows whether it is allowed to inscribe the ivinename upon a , and cast it into the that its waves would subside?" (…) He thereupon inscribed the name upon a , cast (Aram. שדי) it into the and it subsided sixteen thousand cubits.

This story has its variants: in Makkot 11a David sees the ''tehom'' rising and stops it by means of the name inscribed upon a stone while Bereshit Rabbah 23:7 conveys the tradition that this was the abuse of the tetragram which brought about the flood. If to approach these passages from the structural perspective, it is possible to discern two basic essences engaged in the opposition: the active, dividing agent and passive amorphous matter. Moreover, each of the recalled accounts has strong cosmological undertones, what suggests assuming the comparative perspective. Accordingly, Shaddai limiting the expansionist outburst of the world fits well the pattern of the so-called '' chaoskampf'' – an initial divine battle followed by the triumph of the young and vivacious deity, subjugating the hostile, usually aquatic monster and building the palace or creating the cosmos.The mythological traditions of the ancient Near East are full of parallels: Babylonian

Marduk Marduk (Cuneiform: dAMAR.UTU; Sumerian: ''amar utu.k'' "calf of the sun; solar calf"; ) was a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of ...

and Tiamat, Ugaritic

Baal Baal (), or Baal,; phn, , baʿl; hbo, , baʿal, ). ( ''baʿal'') was a title and honorific meaning "owner", "lord" in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied t ...

and Yam, Egyptian Ra and Apep, etc. In fact, this rabbinic reiteration should not be surprising at all, given the semantic capacity of this myth. Not only does the Hebrew Bible recall the cosmic battle numerous times, especially in Psalms (e.g., 77:16–17; 89:10) and Prophets (e.g. Isaiah 51:9–10; Ezekiel 32:13) but also plays with this ancient motif reiterating it to convey a specific meaning. Yahveh blowing the waters of the flood in Genesis 8:1 to make place for the new creation or dividing the Sea of Reeds in Exodus 14–15 to let the Hebrews walk to the other side and start a new national existence – all of these may be read as the retellings of the initial cosmogonic conflict. "El Shaddai" may also be understood as an allusion to the singularity of deity, "El", as opposed to "Elohim" (plural), being sufficient or enough for the early patriarchs of Judaism. To this was later added the Mosaic conception of the tetragrammaton YHWH, meaning a god who is sufficient in himself, that is, a self-determined eternal being qua being, for whom limited descriptive names cannot apply. This may have been the meaning the Hebrew phrase "ehyeh asher ehyeh" (which translates as "I will be that which I will be") and which is how God describes himself to Moses in Exodus 3:13–15. This phrase can be applied to the

tetragrammaton The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are ''yodh'', '' he'', '' waw'', and ...

YHWH, which can be understood as an anagram for the three states of being: past, present and future, conjoined with the conjunctive Hebrew letter vav. There is early support for this interpretation, in that the

translates "Shadday" in several places as "ὁ ἱκανός", the Sufficient One (for example, Ruth 1:20, 21).

Apotropaic usage of the name "Shaddai"

The name "Shaddai" often appears on the devices such as amulets or dedicatory plaques. More importantly, however, it is associated with the traditional Jewish customs which could be understood as apotropaic: male

circumcision Circumcision is a procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin is excised. Top ...

, mezuzah and

tefillin Tefillin (; Modern Hebrew language, Israeli Hebrew: / ; Ashkenazim, Ashkenazic pronunciation: ), or phylacteries, are a set of small black leather boxes with leather straps containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah. Te ...

. 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 midrash Tanhuma Tzav 14 (cf. a parallel passages in Tazri‘a 5 and Shemini 5) the ''brit 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". he letter''shin'' He put in the nose, ''dalet'' – on the hand, whereas ''yod'' on the
embrum Embrun may refer to: * Embrun, Hautes-Alpes, a town and former archbishopric in southeastern France ** Embrun Cathedral, the national monument and former cathedral there * Embrun, Ontario, a community in eastern Ontario, Canada ** Ottawa/Embrun Aer ...
Accordingly, He goes to ' (Ecclesiastes 12:5), there is an angel in the garden of Eden who picks up every son of which is circumcised and brings him . And those who are not circumcised? Although there are two letters of the name "Shaddai" present on them, ''shin'' from the nose and ''dalet'' from the hand, the ''yod'' (…) is . 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 the ''shema‘'' and sometimes also on the casing itself. The name is traditionally interpreted as being an acronym of ''shomer daltot Yisrael'' ("the guardian of the doors of Israel") or ''shomer dirot Yisrael'' ("the guardian of the dwellings of Israel"). However, this notarikon itself has its source most probably in Zohar Va’ethanan where it explains the meaning of the word Shaddai and connects it to mezuzah. 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 the ''tefillah shel rosh'' is knotted at the back of the head thus forming the letter ''dalet'' whereas the one that is passed through the ''tefillah shel yad'' forms a ''yod''-shaped knot. In addition to this, the box itself is inscribed with the letter ''shin'' on two of its sides.

Biblical translations

The

Job 5:17, 22:25 (παντοκράτωρ) and 15:25 (Κύριος παντοκράτωρ) (and other early translations) sometimes translate "Shaddai" as "(the) Almighty". It is often translated as "God", "my God", or "Lord". However, in the Greek of the Septuagint translation of Psalm 91:1, "Shaddai" is translated as "the God of heaven". "Almighty" is the translation of "Shaddai" followed by most modern English translations of the Hebrew scriptures, including the popular New International Version and Good News Bible. The translation team behind the New 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 the

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic ...

"shadu", or "God of the open wastes" from the Hebrew "sadeh" and the secondary meaning of the Akkadian word. The translation in the Concordant Old Testament is 'El Who-Suffices' (Genesis 17:1).

In Mandaeism

In Book 5, Chapter 2 of the '' Right Ginza'', part of Mandaean holy scripture of the '' Ginza Rabba'', El Shaddai is mentioned as ''ʿIl-Šidai''.

Use by Bunyan

God is referred to as "Shaddai" throughout the 1682 Christian allegorical book, ''

The Holy War ''The Holy War Made by King Shaddai Upon Diabolus, to Regain the Metropolis of the World, Or, The Losing and Taking Again of the Town of Mansoul'' is a 1682 novel by John Bunyan. This early modern English novel, written in the form of an alleg ...

'' by John Bunyan.

References

External links

* {{Names of God Book of Genesis Book of Exodus Book of Ezekiel Names of God in Judaism Deities in the Hebrew Bible Names of God in Christianity El (deity)