Shaddai in Ps. 68

This is a short post to round up the series on Shaddai. Shaddai in Psalm 68 is translated in the Septuagint as the "Heavenly One."

When the Heavenly One sets apart kings over it
they will be snow covered in Selmon. Ps. 68:14 NETS

Finally, in Ezekial 10:5 Shaddai is simply transliterated as Σαδδαι. To sum up the different ways that Shaddai is translated in the Septuagint, we find, Pantocrator, theos, hikanos, Epouranios, Saddai, and in at least one case it is simply omitted. There is no definitive translation or easily established meaning for Shaddai. It is masculine in gender and I do not see that it is helpful to translate it as Breasted One. Neither do I see that as heresy. I will talk about this is a future post.

If we were to suggest an anatomically female name for God, we would wonder if there was a corresponding anatomically male name. Although the names of God have grammatical masculine gender (it is slightly more complicated than that) they don't refer to biologically or anatomically male characteristics.

The name "Lord of Hosts" is often referred to as a masculine name for God, the warrior God. However, it is worth noting that in Ps. 68:11, the "hosts" are women. Hosts is not an exclusively male term. So, rather than label the "Lord of Hosts" masculine and "Shaddai" feminine, I personally don't have a theory of gender for God's name. It doesn't seem necessary in deciding how to translate these names.

My sense is that names for God evolved somewhat independently in the different languages and that there has never been concordance or a one-to-one correspondance for translating the names of God from one language to another.

I hope to post on the name Adonai next and will also discuss feminine metaphors for God in a different post. These are both request posts.

I realize that there are some people who don't want to read about gender. This is a difficult thing. First, I have just looked at the flicks of the bibliobloggers lunch. There are lots of guy bibliobloggers. There are few enough of us who lack facial hair and don't talk about flatulence at lunch. I mean, how predictable is that. Get a bunch of guys in a room without a woman and what do they talk about! Get a woman alone on a blog and what does she talk about! We are so predictable.

Of course, some of you know that most of my work and writing has nothing to do with gender. I can talk of other things. However, at this time, it seems best for me to respond to the two requests I have on the table, Adonai, and the image of God as mother.

In any case, I have learned a lot about the Septuagint and about Shaddai, myself. I hope you have enjoyed it. John Hobbins has a great post on translating Gen. 1. There are also some good posts on Word Alone, He is Sufficient and This Lamp on translation.

Shaddai in Modern Translations

Here are a few modern translations of Psalm 91:1,

You who sit down in the High God's presence,
spend the night in Shaddai's shadow, Message

Those who live in the shelter of the Most High
will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. NLT

He who lives in the safe place of the Most High
will be in the shadow of the All-powerful. New Life Version

The one who lives under the protection of the Most High
dwells in the shadow of the Almighty. HCSB

Whoever goes to the LORD for safety,
whoever remains under the protection of the Almighty TEV

You who live in the secret place of Elyon,
spend your nights in the shelter of Shaddai, NJB

And here a couple of the recent Jewish translations. Although I would not normally have access to these translations in electronic form, I was able to find this verse in a post on Psalm 91 on Iyov's blog.

He who dwells in the Most High's shelter,
in the shadow of Shaddai lies at night -- Alter

O you who dwell in the shelter of Most High
and abide in the protection of Shaddai -- NJPS

These translations illustrate well several of the elements of a literary approach to translation. The one element I have been focusing on in this series is the translation of a name of God - Shaddai, should it be translated, in this case not necessarily possible; transliterated, or replaced with its traditional translational equivalent, Almighty? On this point I would like to quote Iyov's comment,

The Israeli scholar Yair Hoffman, noting its eloquent expression of God's unflagging providential protection, has interestingly characterized the poem as an "amulet psalm" with the idea that its recitation might help a person attain or perhaps simply feel God's guarding power.

Some translators might wish to retain a traditional translational equivalent for Shaddai in consideration of the role of the Psalm in a particular faith community.

Other literary elements that seem rather obvious, but are nonetheless of varying difficulty to accomodate in translation, are: word order, alliteration, rhythm and meter, the use of figurative vs non-figurative language in translation, and as John raises here, the use of grammatical gender in metaphor.

Ultimately a translator has to account for the overall construction of the couplet in such a way that the second half relates to the first half in a way that imitates the original.

In this connection, I would like to mention a post by Ros Clarke who has translated Psalm 80.

Shaddai - reflections

The study of Shaddai has completely taken me by surprise. I had thought when I began that Shaddai meant Almighty. In fact, this is the meaning and translation that I have found most frequently on the internet and in other resources. However, now I see that "Almighty" comes from Lord of Hosts.

I have also found that the traditional lexical etymology attributed it to shadad, destruction or overwhelming power. It is in reaction to this that many have pointed out that it could just as well be from shad, breast. I have no insight into the etymology of Shaddai, none whatsoever. I am fascinated, however, by the indelible influence of the traditional translation "Almighty". This is neither a transliteration, nor a translation, but comes from Pantocrator, the original LXX translation of "Lord of Hosts" or "Lord of Armies".

There should be a name for a translational equivalence such as "Almighty" for Shaddai. Possibly we could call this a "traditional corresponding term" or simply a "traditional translational equivalent." The truth is that we don't want to devalue these terms. "The Almighty" has become the name of God for many people. I don't want to imply that this is not valid, it is a traditional equivalent. It may have become the name of God for many people, but it is not a literal translation.

So the other path that some follow is that of looking for a contrasting etymology. As some have insisted on finding a masculine and "power full" etymology in Shaddai, others have looked for the nurturing God, the God of the womb. These people have argued vociferously for "breast" as the origin of the name Shaddai.

We need to understand this "seeking for the feminine" etymology within the context of an equally fictitiously constructed masculine etymology.

For me, God is neither masculine nor feminine, nor do I scour the Bible trying to find matching feminine and masculine images for God. For me, God is imaged in the Good Shepherd of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, He is to us as the shepherd is to sheep and gender is irrelevant. He is creator to creature, and maker to made, "Sufficient" to Naomi and Job alike.

Shaddai - Sufficient

Update: Mark comments,

Shaddai is also translated with hikanos in Job 21.15; 31.2; and 40.2.
A great tool for doing exactly what you hope to do in lining up the Hebrew with the LXX is the way Tov's Parallel Aligned Hebrew and LXX is implemented in BibleWorks7. I've posted about it a couple times here and here.

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I finally found it. Apologies. I had no idea of this translation. In the Septuagint, in Ruth 1:20, Shaddai is translated as "sufficient" or "enough" - hikanos.

21 καὶ εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτάς μὴ δὴ καλεῖτέ με Νωεμιν καλέσατέ με Πικράν ὅτιἐπικράνθη ἐν ἐμοὶ ὁ ἱκανὸς σφόδρα

She said to them, Call me no longer Noemin, call me Bitter, for the Sufficient One was greatly embittered against me. NETS

She said to them, "Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. ESV

“Don’t call me ‘Naomi’! Call me ‘Mara’ because the Sovereign One has treated me very harshly. NET.

But she said, "Don't call me Naomi; call me Bitter. The Strong One has dealt me a bitter blow. Message

This took me by surprise. I didn't realize how many different ways Shaddai had been translated in the LXX and everywhere else. There is more to come.

What amazes me is the different slant put on this name, from "sufficient" to "sovereign" to "strong one". For the first time, I really wish I had some searching software. I would like to quickly line up all the cases of Shaddai in the Hebrew with their translation in the Septuagint. I am almost, but not quite, finished doing this one by one.

NETS - New English Translation of the Septuagint is available here in electronic form.
NET - New English Translation.
Other translations from Biblegateway.com

Shaddai - Heavenly

I can't find the meaning "Heavenly" for Shaddai mentioned anywhere but it is how Shaddai was translated in the Psalms of the Septuagint. Shaddai occurs only twice in the Psalms, once in Ps. 68:14 and once in Ps. 91:1. This verse forms such a lovely couplet in which we see varying types of alliteration and metaphor, that I can't resist writing about it.

So, today Ps. 91:1 to keep company with ElShaddai, John, Bob and others. Here it is in the various versions.

יֹשֵׁב בְּסֵתֶר עֶלְיוֹן
בְּצֵל שַׁדַּי יִתְלוֹנָן

yoshev beseter elyon
betzel shaddai yitlonan

ὁ κατοικῶν ἐν βοηθείᾳ τοῦ ὑψίστου
ἐν σκέπῃ τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ αὐλισθήσεται

Qui habitat in adjutorio Altissimi,
in protectione Dei cæli commorabitur. Vulgate (Old Latin)

Qui habitat in abscondito Excelsi
in umbraculo Domini commorabitur Jerome Iuxta Hebraica

Qui habitat in abscondito Altissimi
Et in umbra Omnipotentis commoratur Pagnini

Wer unter dem Schirm des Höchsten sitzt
und unter dem Schatten des Allmächtigen bleibt, Luther

Wer im Schutz des Höchsten wohnt,
bleibt im Schatten des Allmächtigen Elberfelder

Du, der im Versteck des Höchsten sitzt,
im Schatten des Gewaltigen darf nachten, Buber Rosenzweig

Celui qui se tient dans la demeure du Souverain,
se loge à l'ombre du Tout-Puissant. David Martin

Celui qui demeure sous l'abri du Très Haut
Repose à l'ombre du Tout Puissant. Segond

He that dwellith in the help of the hiyeste God;
schal dwelle in the proteccioun of God of heuene. Wycliff

Who so dwelleth vnder ye defence of the most hyest,
& abydeth vnder ye shadowe of ye allmightie Coverdale

Whosoeuer sitteth vnder the couer of the most highest:
he shal abide vnder the shadowe of the almightie. Bishops

Who so dwelleth in the secrete of the most High,
shall abide in the shadowe of the Almightie. Geneva

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. KJV

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High,
who abides in the shadow of the Almighty, RSV

He that dwelleth in the aid of the most High,
shall abide under the protection of the God of Jacob. Douay-Rheims

Here Shaddai is the "God of heaven" in the LXX and Old Latin. In Ps. 68, Shaddai is Heavenly. The translation "Almighty" and its equivalents does not seem to have been standardized until the 16th century. The Buber-Rosenzweig has Gewaltig, a word rather difficult to translate. However, it does have an association with height and mountains. The Douay Rheims translation of the "God of Jacob" is a bit of a surprise. One gets the notion the translator didn't know what to do with it but has identified Shaddai well.

Luther's is the earliest to show alliteration, and in English, the RSV . However, the KJV is significantly more euphonic than the previous English translations. The French translation also became alliterative with Louis Segond. I find the Elberfelder translation to be a slight improvement on Luther's alliteration and shows the reverse word order in the second line. One surprise is that the KJ was the first to use the masculine generic pronoun "he".

Psalm 68: Almighty

It is always nice these days to find something to say that hasn't been already been said in greater detail in wikipedia. I note that the origin of the word Almighty does not fare too well there.

There is all kinds of silliness out there to connect the word Almighty with Shaddai. However, it was not the translation for Shaddai at all.

But first, let's line up the words that are a translation for each other. Pantocrator was a name for God in the Septuagint. Pantocrator translates into Latin as Omnipotens, into German as Allmächtige and into English as Almighty. Almighty appeared already as a name of God in Wycliff's translation and predates it by some time.

But, here is the catch. Pantocrator was not primarily the translation for Shaddai, but for the Lord of Hosts, or Lord Sabaoth. This is the name that Robert Alter refers to as the Lord of battalions or Lord of Armies, YHWH tseva'ot. So Pantocrator was the all-powerful God, the Lord of Hosts.

The meaning of Pantocrator, all powerful, has no connection to the name Shaddai. Not that Shaddai was not all powerful, but this is not an accurate translation of the name. Shaddai was Shaddai.

Throughout the LXX Pantocrator translates the Lord of Hosts. In Genesis, Shaddai is translated simply as theos. However, in Job, Shaddai was also translated as Pantocrator. So it appears that once the name Pantocrator had already been established in other books of the LXX for Lord Sabaoth, it was then used for Shaddai in Job.

Now it makes sense. Pantocrator, all powerful, the Lord of Hosts.

However, in the Vulgate, another twist, most references to both Shaddai and Lord of Hosts were translated as Omnipotens, all powerful. And finally, in the English, Lord Sabaoth was translated Lord of Hosts and only Shaddai was translated Almighty. This is the short story of how Shaddai came to be Almighty in English.

But, just to make this more confusing, in Isaiah 9:6, the Mighty God, is a translation of a completely different word, El Gibbor - God the mighty (hero).

I will have to write about how Shaddai was translated in Psalm 68 next time. Sometimes there are just too many twists and turns.

I almost forgot to mention that Pantocrator was a title for Zeus, and also associated with Apollo, the sun god. So we see Jesus Pantocrator portrayed as a sun god in some early Christian and even later Byzantine art. Pantocrator was not a name that was invented to translate Lord of Hosts, it already existed as a title for a god in Greek.

I realize that as Christians we might be very attached to the name Almighty for God, but in a translation, I find Shaddai and Lord of Hosts or Armies more in character with the Hebrew.

Psalm 68: Shaddai cont.

I thought I gave Shaddai rather short shrift last time so I am going to continue with this topic. There are three derivations of Shaddai that I did not mention. In this comment on my previous post, ElShaddai Edwards addresses two of them.

It is easy to see how there are massive cultural and linguistic overlays and assumptions to dig through in finding relevant meanings in translating El Shaddai.

For example, the "mountain" translation tradition is connected to the Akkadian (i.e. Mesopotamian, from whence Abram originally came) word sadu. Evidently "mountain" was a common Semitic word for gods residing on a cosmic mountain that was the center of the earth.

Abram then travels south and encounters "El", the father god of the Canaanites. Put El and a local variant of sadu together and you have the Father God of the Mountain.

A different linguistic path is that "el" is used as a "god of" modifier of whatever attribute followed. So "El Shaddai" would mean "God of Shaddai", perhaps the local god of the ancient city of Shaddai located on the banks of the Euphrates river in northern Syria, perhaps near Haran, where Abram lived after leaving Ur with his father, Terah.

The third association which I did not mention is "He is sufficient." Here is the entry from Jewish Encyclopedia.com

The word Shaddai (), which occurs along with El, is also used independently as a name of God,chiefly in the Book of Job. It is commonly rendered "the Almighty" (in LXX., sometimes παντοκράτωρ).

The Hebrew root "shadad," from which it has been supposed to be derived, means, however, "to overpower," "to treat with violence," "to lay waste." This would give Shaddai the meaning "devastator," or "destroyer," which can hardly be right. It is possible, however, that the original significance was that of "overmastering" or "overpowering strength," and that this meaning persists in the divine name.

Another interesting suggestion is that it may be connected with the Assyrian "shadu" (mountain), an epithet sometimes attached to the names of Assyrian deities.

It is conjectured also that the pointing of may be due to an improbable rabbinical explanation of the word as ("He who is sufficient"), and that the word originally may have been without the doubling of the middle letter. According to Ex. vi. 2, 3, this is the name by which God was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

I can't provide more than that. However, I can explore in further depth how Shaddai came to be translated into English as Almighty when there is no linguistic rationale for that whatsoever. So, next time, where did the name "Almighty" come from? Not from Shaddai!

Psalm 68: Breasts and Mountains

This cannot be the first time that someone has remarked that mountains resemble breasts and are a symbol of fertility.

In seeking the meaning or connotation for El Shaddai I have come up with no answers but plenty of poetic allusions. Here are the three major connotations of El Shaddai - breasts and by association mountains, and destruction. These do not represent the known etymological roots of the word, but rather euphonic and associative connections.

In Genesis, El Shaddai is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. In Genesis 49:25, Shaddai, - שַׁדַּי the Almighty, is the one who blesses with the blessings of the heavens and the deep and the breasts שָׁדַיִם (the shadayim) and the womb.

Shaddai not only blesses the patriarchs with children but he takes children away from Naomi. Shaddai is the God of Job, who gave him life and children, the God who will not afflict. (Job 37:23.) In Isaiah 13:6 and Joel 1:15, destruction, שֹׁד (shod) comes from שַּׁדַּי Shaddai.

El Shaddai is mentioned only 6 times outside of Genesis and Job. One of these times is in Psalm 68:14.

When the Almighty scattereth kings
therein, it snoweth in Zalmon.
A mountain of God is the mountain of Bashan;
a mountain of peaks is the mountain of Bashan.
Why look ye askance, ye mountains of peaks,
at the mountain which God hath desired for His abode?
Yea, the LORD will dwell therein for ever.

In Psalm 68, Shaddai can be associated with fertility and the blessing of children and homes in verse 6, with the mountains of the subsequent few verses, and also with the destruction of enemy kings.

It is perhaps best to simply remark that Shaddai is an archaic and poetic name for God. Perhaps it is a name remembered uniquely by the composer of this psalm, whether woman or man, one versed in the ancient poetic traditions. One of the most interesting things that I noticed about this psalm is that so many of God's names appear in it.

Shaddai represents to me the mixing of traditions, contemporary with ancient, and feminine with masculine. However, I do not find any exclusively female association with the name Shaddai. After all, the promise of the blessings of breast and womb were made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob - through their wives, of course. Bearing children was front and centre in the ancient Hebrew culture; it was the immortality that was promised to the patriarchs.

However, Shaddai does not seem to be mainstream by the time of the Psalms, a little counter cultural. This could possibly be explained by supposing that women had retained some of the ancient poetic traditions which had not become part of the temple worship.

I don't think one can attempt to find the original derivation of the name Shaddai, but as the Almighty He gives the blessing of life and immortality, He dwells in the mountains and has the power of destruction. He is sufficient.

Robert Alter transliterates Shaddai and simply remarks,

El Shaddai. The first term as in El Elyon, means God. Scholarship has been unable to determine the origins or precise meaning of the second term - tenuous associations have been proposed with a Semitic word meaning "mountain" and with fertility. What is clear (compare Exodus 6:3) is that the biblical writers considered it an archaic name of God. The Five Books of Moses page 81

Reading "Shaddai" rather than "Almighty" reminds of the distance between us and the culture which first knew God.

Other recent posts on the psalms are by Bob and Stefan.