Shadai
{
El Shaddai (Hebrew: אֵל שַׁדַּי, romanized: ʾĒl Šadday; IPA: [el ʃadːaj]) or just Shaddai is one of the names of God in Judaism. El Shaddai is conventionally translated into English as God Almighty. (Deus Omnipotens in Latin, Arabic: الله الشديد, romanized: ʾAllāh Ash-Shadīd)
El means "God" in the Ugaritic and the Canaanite languages. The literal meaning of Shaddai, however, is the subject of debate. Some scholars have argued that it came from Akkadian shadû ("mountain") or from the Hebrew verb shaddad שדד meaning "Destroyer". 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. The Deir Alla Inscription contains shaddayin as well as elohin rather than elohim. Scholars 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. 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. Other deities are attested in various cultures. One is Ammonite Šd-Yrḥ.
{
Similar Artists