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 In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

" or "Lord" in the

Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologist ...

/ Canaanite language is straightforward, as El was the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion. 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 * Ex ...

, 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 Jew ...

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. J ...

, "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 th ...

, 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 o ...

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 c ...

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 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. 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 ...

''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).

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 t ...

from

Israelian Hebrew Israelian Hebrew (or IH) is a northern dialect of biblical Hebrew (BH) proposed as an explanation for various irregular linguistic features of the Masoretic Text (MT) of the Hebrew Bible. It competes with the alternative explanation that such fe ...

, where the word had a "sh" sound, into Judean Hebrew and hence, Biblical Hebrew, 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 Thamudic is a name that refers to ancient Arabic Thamudic tribe language found by nineteenth-century scholars for large numbers of inscriptions in Ancient North Arabian (ANA) alphabets which have not yet been properly studied. These texts are foun ...

inscriptions (as lšdy''), in a personal name "Śaday`ammī" used in Egypt from the

Late Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

until

Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...

times, and even in the

Punic The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of t ...

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 th ...

''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 writings of Ephrem the Syrian, who places the Garden of Eden on an inaccessible mountaintop. The term "El Shaddai" may mean "god of the mountains", referring to the Mesopotamian 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 Mount Sinai (, ''Har Sīnay'') is the mountain at which the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by God, according to the Book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible. In the Book of Deuteronomy, these events are described as having transpired at Mount ...

where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. According to

Stephen L. Harris Stephen L. Harris (February 5, 1937 - April 14, 2019) was Professor of Humanities and Religious Studies at California State University, Sacramento. He served there ten years as department chair and was named a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. He received h ...

, 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 ''God of Abraham'' (Yiddish: גאָט פֿון אַבֿרהם, pronounced ''Got fun Avrohom'', ''Got fin Avruhom'') is a Jewish prayer in Yiddish, recited by women and girls in many Jewish communities at the conclusion of the Sabbath, marking it ...

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 poss ...

. 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 In a religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, s ...

, not to shin. The termination "''ai''", typically signifying the first person possessive plural, functions as a

pluralis excellentiae The ''pluralis excellentiae'' is the name given by early grammarians of Hebrew, such as Wilhelm Gesenius, to a perceived anomaly in the grammatical number and syntax in Hebrew. In some cases it bears some similarity to the ' or "royal plural". How ...

like other titles for the Hebrew deity, Elohim ("gods") and Adonai ("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. There was a Bronze-Age city in the region called

Tuttul The Bronze Age town of Tuttul is identified with the archaeological site of Tell Bi'a in Raqqa Governorate, northern Syria. Tell Bi'a is located near the modern city of Raqqa and the confluence of the rivers Balikh and Euphrates. History During ...

, which means "two breasts" in the Sumerian language. 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 David Biale is an American historian specializing in Jewish history. Biale earned a degree in history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1971, and remained at the institution to complete a master's degree in modern European history ...

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 The dagesh () is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud (vowel points). It takes the form of a dot placed inside a Hebrew letter and has the effect of modi ...

), 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 The Haggadah ( he, הַגָּדָה, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to each J ...

, 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.
hen Hen commonly refers to a female animal: a female chicken, other gallinaceous bird, any type of bird in general, or a lobster. It is also a slang term for a woman. Hen or Hens may also refer to: Places Norway *Hen, Buskerud, a village in Ringer ...
it 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 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'' (infinit ...

''. 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 Chaos ( grc, χάος, kháos) is the mythological void state preceding the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in Greek creation myths. In Christian theology, the same term is used to refer to the gap or the abyss created by the separation ...

'' – 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 and

Tiamat In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( akk, or , grc, Θαλάττη, Thaláttē) is a primordial goddess of the sea, mating with Abzû, the god of the groundwater, to produce younger gods. She is the symbol of the chaos of primordial crea ...

, 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 the Exodus narrative, Yam Suph ( he, יַם-סוּף, ''Yam-Sūp̄'', Reed Sea) or Reed Sea, sometimes translated as Sea of Reeds, is the body of water which the Israelites crossed following their exodus from Egypt. The same phrase appears in o ...

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 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 ...

, 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 Apotropaic magic (from Greek "to ward off") or protective magic is a type of magic intended to turn away harm or evil influences, as in deflecting misfortune or averting the evil eye. Apotropaic observances may also be practiced out of superst ...

: 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 A ''mezuzah'' ( he, מְזוּזָה "doorpost"; plural: ''mezuzot'') is a piece of parchment, known as a '' klaf'', contained in a decorative case and inscribed with specific Hebrew verses from the Torah ( and ). These verses consist of the ...

and

tefillin Tefillin (; Israeli Hebrew: / ; 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. Tefillin are worn by adult Jews durin ...

. 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 Midrash Tanhuma ( he, מִדְרָשׁ תַּנְחוּמָא) is the name given to three different collections of Pentateuch aggadot; two are extant, while the third is known only through citations. These midrashim, although bearing the name of ...

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 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 Notarikon ( he, נוטריקון ''Noṭriqōn'') is a Talmudic and Kabbalistic method of deriving a word, by using each of its initial (Hebrew: ) or final letters () to stand for another, to form a sentence or idea out of the words. Another var ...

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 Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...

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 Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

of the Septuagint translation of

Psalm The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived f ...

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 Good News Bible (GNB), also called the Good News Translation (GNT) in the United States, is an English translation of the Bible by the American Bible Society. It was first published as the New Testament under the name ''Good News for Modern Man'' ...

. 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 "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 The Concordant Version is an English translation of the Bible compiled by the Concordant Publishing Concern (CPC), which was founded by Adolph Ernst Knoch in 1909. The principal works of the CPC are the Concordant Literal New Testament with Ke ...

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 The Ginza Rabba ( myz, ࡂࡉࡍࡆࡀ ࡓࡁࡀ, translit=Ginzā Rbā, lit=Great Treasury), Ginza Rba, or Sidra Rabba ( myz, ࡎࡉࡃࡓࡀ ࡓࡁࡀ, translit=Sidrā Rbā, lit=Great Book), and formerly the Codex Nasaraeus, is the longest ...

'', 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 John Bunyan (; baptised 30 November 162831 August 1688) was an English writer and Puritan preacher best remembered as the author of the Christian allegory ''The Pilgrim's Progress,'' which also became an influential literary model. In addition ...

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