El Shaddai

El Shaddai (Hebrew: אֵל שַׁדַּי, romanizedʾĒl Šadday; IPA: [el ʃadːaj]) 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, Arabic: الله الشديد, romanizedʾAllāh Al-Shadīd)

El means "God" in the Ugaritic and the Canaanite languages. The literal meaning of Shaddai, however, is the subject of debate.[1] Some scholars have argued that it came from Akkadian shadû ("mountain")[2] or from the Hebrew verb shaddad שדד meaning "Destroyer".[3] Shaddai may have also come from shad שד meaning mammary; shaddai is a typical Biblical Hebrew word (שדי). The plural (Shaddayim -- שדיים) is the typical Modern Hebrew word for human breasts in dual grammatical number.[4] The Deir Alla Inscription contains shaddayin as well as elohin rather than elohim. Scholars[5] translate this as "shadday-gods," taken to mean unspecified fertility, mountain or wilderness gods.

The form of the phrase "El Shaddai" fits the pattern of the divine names in the Ancient Near East, exactly as is the case with names like ʾĒl ʿOlām, ʾĒl ʿElyon and ʾĒl Bēṯ-ʾĒl.[6] As such, El Shaddai can convey several different semantic relations between the two words, among them:[7] 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.[6] Other deities are attested in various cultures. One is Ammonite Šd-Yrḥ.[8]

  1. ^ Steins 1974, p. 420.
  2. ^ Steins 1974, p. 421.
  3. ^ Dewrell, Heath D. (2024). "The Etymology of Šadday". Vetus Testamentum. 74 (2): 297–302. doi:10.1163/15685330-bja10132. ISSN 0042-4935.
  4. ^ "Hebrew Academy".
  5. ^ Stavrakopoulou, Francesca (2022-01-25). God: An Anatomy. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-525-52045-0.
  6. ^ a b Albright, William (December 1935). "The Names Shaddai and Abram". Journal of Biblical Literature. 54 (4): 180. doi:10.2307/3259784. JSTOR 3259784.
  7. ^ Biale, David (February 1982). "The God with Breasts: El Shaddai in the Bible". History of Religions. 21 (3): 244. doi:10.1086/462899. S2CID 162352850.
  8. ^ Aharoni, Y. (1950). "A New Ammonite Inscription". Israel Exploration Journal. 1 (4). Israel Exploration Society: 219–222. ISSN 0021-2059. JSTOR 27924450. Retrieved 2024-03-10.

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