(BA) Shaddai

...

29 July 2022

Shaddai, often appearing in the phrase El Shaddai, is a name in the Hebrew Bible for the diety. Whatever the origins of the term, in the Hebrew Bible it is treated as a name for Yahweh or God. This equation is made explicit in Genesis 17:1 and in Exodus 6:3. The name Shaddai is used most often in Job, about a half-dozen times in Genesis, and once or twice each in Exodus, Numbers, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Psalms, and Ruth.

There is an old tradition, going back to the Septuagint, of reading Shaddai as 'Almighty', but the meaning of the term is still uncertain, and a number of proposals have been made. See "Shaddai", by E. A. Knauf, in the 1999 second extensively revised edition of the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible.