www.4HisKingdom.one Unwrapping El Shaddai

El Shaddai, El Shaddai, El-Elyon na Adonai, You're still the same, By the power of the Name. El Shaddai, El Shaddai, Erkamka na Adonai, We will praise and lift You high, El Shaddai

Through Your love and through the ram, You saved the son of ; Through the power of Your hand, Turned the sea into dry land. To the outcast on her knees, You were the God who really sees, And by Your might, You set Your children free.

Through the years You've made it clear, That the time of Christ was near, Though the people couldn't see What Messiah ought to be. Though Your word contained the plan, They just could not understand Your most awesome work was done Through the frailty of Your Son.

El Shaddai — ‘God Almighty’ El-Elyon na Adonai — ‘God most High, O, Lord’ Erkamka na Adonai — ‘We will love You’, or more accurately ‘I love You, O Lord’

YHWH (Yahweh) is the real and personal name of God. This is the name God revealed to and Israel on Mount Sinai and this is the name by which God himself said people should remember him: ‘This is my name forever; the name by which I am to be remembered generation to generation’ (Exodus 3:14-15 - NIV).

The word El is used in the most general way as a designation of a deity, whether of the true God or of the false gods, even of the idols used in pagan worship. The word El is found throughout the except in the .

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El Shaddai is one of the many names by which the God of the Old Testament was known.

The divine name Shaddai appears 48 times in the Hebrew Scriptures; 7 times as El Shaddai and 41 times as Shaddai. It appears in several books: 9 times in the 2 times in the book of Ruth: Ruth 1:20-21 4 times in the prophets: Isaiah 13:6, Joel 1:15, Ezekiel 1:24, 10:5 2 times in the book of Psalms: Psalms 68:14, 91:1 31 times in the book of Job

El Shaddai appears primarily in the patriarchal narratives of Genesis (17:1; 28:3; 35:11; 43:14; 48:3) and also Exodus 6:3 and Ezekiel 10:5. The reference to El Shaddai in Ezekiel is the only place where Shaddai appears with the word El outside the Torah. Besides the 6 occurrences in the Torah mentioned above, the name Shaddai appears also in Jacob’s patriarchal blessing (Genesis 49:25) and in the oracles of Balaam (Numbers 24:4, 16).

Promises and Blessings • El Shaddai appeared to Abraham and promised him that he would “be the father of a multitude of nations” (Genesis 17:4). • It was Shaddai who blessed Sarah and promised that she would conceive a son in her old age (Genesis 17:16). • Shaddai also promised Abraham that he would bless Ishmael (Genesis 17:20). • When blessed Jacob, he blessed him with the promise that he would become the father of many: “El Shaddai bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples” (Genesis 28:3). • El Shaddai himself exhorted Jacob to be fruitful and multiply: “I am El Shaddai: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall spring from you” (Genesis 35:11). • Shaddai also appears in Jacob’s blessings of his children (Genesis 49:25) and Balaam’s blessing of Israel (Numbers 24:6,16).

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• The same motif of blessing is associated with Shaddai in the book of Job. Eliphaz the Temanite told Job that it was Shaddai who blessed the wicked and filled their houses with good things (Job 22:17-18). Job himself recognised that Shaddai was the one who had blessed him with wealth, health, and children (Job 29:5). Naomi complained that Shaddai had taken away the blessings he had given to her in the past (Ruth 1:20-21).

After God revealed His true name to Moses, El Shaddai was seldom used by the people of Israel. When Moses addressed the people in Egypt, he came speaking to them in the name of Yahweh, therefore proclaiming Yahweh was the true God who had appeared to their fathers as El Shaddai. El Shaddai was the God of promise; Yahweh was the God who was about to fulfil the promises made to the ancestors.

Thus, the patriarchs experienced El Shaddai as a God who blessed them and promised them a hope and a future. Although the people of Israel experienced their God as one who appeared to them in the mountains, they did not worship the mountains as some people did. The psalmist asked:

“I lift up my eyes to the hills– from where will my help come?” (Psalm 121:1). Their faith was in the God who created the mountains.

:(אֲדֹנַי :Adonai (Hebrew The word ‘Adonai’ is a title applied to God. It’s translated ‘Lord’ or ‘My Lord’ whereas ‘LORD’ refers to ‘YHWH’. In the post-exilic period, most Jews refused to speak the divine name in public. So, the Masoretes1 wrote the vowels of Adonai with the consonants for the divine name YHWH which in translation became ‘Jehovah’. :([nā] נָּא :Na (Hebrew The Hebrew word nā is a particle of entreaty or exhortation. This means when it’s used in the text, it carries the idea of ‘please’, ‘I pray’ or ‘now’. An example is found in Genesis 12:13 where Abraham speaking to Sarah said: ‘Please say …’ (Genesis 12:13 NKJV/NASB/

1 From the Hebrew Masoreth, meaning ‘tradition’. They assembled, codified, and supplied with diacritical marks the ancient texts to enable correct pronunciation.

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HCSB). A further example is Psalm 118:25, where the psalmist prays to the Lord: ‘Save now, I pray, O LORD’ (Psalm 118:25 NKJV).

The expression ‘save now’ or ‘save please’ in Hebrew is hôshî‘ânā The same expression used in Jerusalem when Jesus was הוֹשַׁענָא welcomed: ‘Hosanna’ (Mark 11:9), or as the Complete Jewish Bible translates: ‘Please! Deliver us’.

Erkamka This word comes from Psalm 18:1 which in Hebrew reads: ;The transliteration into English reads ֶא ְר ָח ְמ ֖ך יְהָ֣וה ִחזְ ִ ֽקי ’erḥāmeḵā yhwh ḥizqî’ which is translated as ‘I love You, O LORD, my strength’ (Psalm 18:1 NIV/ESV).

ׇ (rāḥam) meaning ‘toר ַחם The Hebrew word used for love here is have mercy’ or ‘to be compassionate’. It’s possible that when the song was written by Michael Card that he used the transliteration of the word in Strong’s Concordance which transliterates rāḥam as ‘rakham’. So the word ‘erḥāmeḵā’ would be translated ‘erkamka’, by dropping the ‘h’ of ‘rakham’ and by not using the half-vowel “e.”

However, the word Erkamka does pose a slight problem in that the verb ‘erḥāmeḵā’ is first person, so the correct translation is ‘I love You’ not ‘we will love You’. Nevertheless, what a great song written by Michael Card which can be found on his album ‘Joy in the Journey’. The only reason for going to such lengths is that so few Christians know what the words mean. But whether it’s ‘I love You’ or ‘We will love You’ matters little, but that we do love God and have surrendered our lives to His Son Yeshua Ha Mashiach.

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