"Shaddai": God the many-breasted!!!

Disclaimer: I am not a theologian, nor am I a Biblical Studies or Hebrew scholar - these are just the humble musings of a rank amateur. But they blessed me, and so I share them.


In the Old Testament of the Christian bible, there are many different names used to describe god. One such is 'Shaddai', usually translated the 'Almighty', such as in Psalm 91:1 (NIB): He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty (Shaddai).

This word is actually derived from 'shad', the Hebrew word for breast. My learned friend Michael Carden, author of "Sodomy: A History of a Christian Biblical Myth", says that he likes to think of 'Shaddai' as maybe god the many-breasted or god the bountiful.

I can't help but wonder if this name doesn't reflect an earlier concept of the Mother Goddess. I started looking through all the OT uses of 'Shaddai'. Gen 17:1, 28:3, 35:11, 48:3 and 49:25 - they all use this name for god in association with blessings of fruitfulness and fecundity. 49:25 is absolutely gorgeous, get this:

. . .because of the Almighty ('shaddai'), who blesses you
with blessings of the heaven above
blessings of the deep that lies below
blessings of the breast and womb.

Cool, huh?

Gen 43:14 is Jacob asking that 'Shaddai' grant Judah mercy in bringing his brothers back from Egypt.
(That’s all the Genesis references).

Numbers 24:4 and 16 are Balaam pronouncing a blessing on Israel instead of a curse, as he was employed to do.
Ruth 1:20, 21 is Naomi’s complaint against Shaddai (grounded in the loss of her husband and sons, which meant her loss of nurturance, and all provision of her needs).
Psalm 91:1 of course is Shaddai as refuge, fortress, shelter etc.

All these references so far seem to me to present a strongly feminine aspect of god – the nurturing, sheltering, merciful, fruitful aspect (and thus linked to sex – it’s interesting to me that the breast is both source of life-giving milk for the infant, but also an erogenous zone. We’ve so dis-eroticised motherhood in our culture, we don’t seem to be able to hold the two concepts together).

There are 31 references in Job to 'Shaddai'. It’s my understanding that Job is one of the most ancient biblical texts, so perhaps more in touch with that earlier concept of God.

So then, the only Exodus reference led me thus:

Ex 6:3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as El-Shaddai, but by my name the Lord (YHWH) I did not make myself known to them.

Refer Ex 3:15 God also said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, The Lord (YHWH), the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you’. This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation'.

I don't think it's too much of a stretch (though others would doubtless disagree with me!) to ask if this doesn’t mark the ascendance of the patriarchal masculinist god (associated, interestingly enough, with Moses the law-giver) at the expense of the nurturing, merciful womanist god.

And I think it's very interesting that if 'Shaddai' was always associated with the breast, that the English translators have chosen to translate the word as “Almighty”, thus completely masking all its associations with the female.

The later uses of shaddai all reinforce the masculinist associations:
Ps 68:4 The almighty scattered kings . . .
Ezek 1:24, 10:5 . . . roar of rushing waters like the voice of the almighty
Is 13:6 and Joel 1:15 (which are practically identical)
For the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from Shaddai.
That’s all the uses of Shaddai in the OT.

On a personal level, this has been really important to me as I’ve tried to make sense of my years in the Potter’s House (the Pentecostal sect that my husband and I pastored in). I’ve had a sort of revelation lately that I was serving the gracious, merciful, loving god, but the god who kept attacking me and trying to suppress me was a different deity, a strongly anti-woman, masculinist, judgemental, legalistic god. So maybe I was serving 'Shaddai', whilst Potters House was serving 'YHWH', which would explain why I kept getting attacked and (spiritually) beaten up!! And it might be helpful to keep in mind when we talk about christians, that they also might be either following 'Shaddai' (and these are the ones who embrace GLBTTIQ folks and honour their spirituality) or 'YHWH' (and these are the ones who continue to see us as an 'abomination' (Lev 18:22 etc.).