El Shaddai from Hashem by Natalie Kendel

El Shaddai means: The All-Sufficient God (Sha - who, and Dai - enough). But this name has a long history of mistranslation...

Shad means “breast”. But white, English translators rendered “El Shaddai” as "God Almighty", because they reasoned that Shaddai must come from the root verb “Shadad”, which means “to overpower” or “to destroy”.
This made sense to them, since one of their male, white-rooted defining views of God was one who is destructive, overpowering, powerful, and violent. This is a good example of how cultural and personal bias heavily influences our interpretation decisions.

However, Shaddai's root word is surprising. It is actually the word for breasts - shadaim. A dramatically different image. The Old Testament God, who is often termed according to male imagery, is here using female language and motherly language. El Shaddai is not the name of a God who is violent, but one who, like a nursing woman, is nourishing and sufficient for a helpless infant's needs.

It is God himself who first uses this name for himself when he refers to multiplying Abraham's offspring. El Shaddai is used almost exclusively in context of the three Patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Genesis 17:2) Consider this: the patriarchs thought of God through motherly, female imagery. God intentionally forwarded that image. We must ask ourselves: What did God wish to communicate by choosing this name? And how much has misogyny twisted the biblical narrative to erase or minimise this and other female and matriarchal imagery from the narrative?

Tracklist

6.	El Shaddai	5:38

Lyrics

God promised Abraham descendants
that would be like the number of the stars
But the old man could think of a few problems
with that plan,
in fact he thought of ninety-nine

But the God who set the course
was God of the impossible

El Shaddai,
the one who is sufficient
El Shaddai,
the one who is enough
Like a mother who will feed
the child held to her breast
You nurture and supply
El Shaddai

Later, white scholars chose to render
“El Shaddai” from the root word of “shadad”:
meaning 'to destroy or overpower',
thinking: "Surely this must be the way of God!"

But from “shad” it really stemmed;
not from violence: from a mother’s breast

El Shaddai,
the one who is sufficient
El Shaddai,
the one who is enough
Like a mother who will feed
the child held to her breast
You nurture and supply
El Shaddai

Let us ponder the name which God had chosen
to be known by to the early patriarchs
Not an image of male force or of violence
but a mother nursing tenderly her child
So the Lord he would hold and he’d supply

El Shaddai,
the one who is sufficient
El Shaddai,
the one who is enough
Like a mother who will feed
the child held to her breast
You nurture and supply
El Shaddai

El Shaddai,
the one who is sufficient
El Shaddai,
the one who is enough
Like a mother who will feed
the child held to her breast
You nurture and supply
El Shaddai

You nurture and supply
El Shaddai

Credits

from Hashem, released December 20, 2025

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