El Shaddai - the many breasted one

[Ejdjndbdjd]

I heard a sermon recently claiming that the word shad in hebrew means breast (true) and that el-shaddai can be literally translated as the many breasted one...

please someone explain this to me...?

 

[GorrionGris]

Well don't know really. El-Shaddai is usually translated by "The Almighty", or even "The Most High" maybe because hills look like human breasts to ancient hebrews

 

[S Walch]

But Shaddai doesn't come from the word shad - it comes from Shadad which means "to deal violently with, despoil, devastate, ruin, destroy, spoil" - Shadad being the primitive root word.

And technically, El-Shaddai is "God Almighty," not just "The Almighty"

El = God (Singular)
Shaddai = Almighty, most powerful

Interestingly, Shad, whilst meaning breast or bosom, comes from the word Shuwd (pronounced "shood") which means "to ruin, destroy, spoil, devastate".

Maybe because breasts are temptations and therefore can "ruin" a man?

Or perhaps more to the "spoil" variety

 

[sunlover1]

Many breasted..

To be our all in all, nourishment?

 

[ShammahBenJudah]

In the year 250 B.C., a group of Jewish scholars translated the Scriptures into Greek. This version of the Bible is called the Septaugint. These scholars translated the Hebrew Shaddai into the Greek word ikanos which means "all-sufficient". They did this based on the derivation of shaddai from the word shad. Contextually it indicates sufficiency. But if you look back through history at the pagan idols, you will find many of them bearing multiple breasts...it seems that El Shaddai is the source of that concept.