Quotes About El Shaddai

Abram watched the royal representatives from the cities: Nippur, Sippar, Borsippa, Lagash, Uruk, Ur, Eridu, Nineveh. They had come from all corners of the earth to participate in this massive orgy of idolatry. What could El Shaddai possibly have in mind that could bring justice upon this festering boil of villainy and spiritual rebellion? The thought passed through Abram's mind that maybe God had given up.

Abram thought of a play on words. He said to Mikael, "It is no longer Babylon the great, the eternal city, but Babel, because there El Shaddai confused the language of all the earth. And from there El Shaddai dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

El Shaddai, carries with it a possible derivation of "God of the mountain," a common understanding of deities in the ancient Near East as revealed in power on mountains (Mount Sinai and Mount Zion are God's locations of self-disclosure).[9] Finally, Yahweh is the "eternally self-existent one" who is the unique covenantal name of Israel's deity in opposition to the nations.[10]

When Yahweh told Moses he revealed himself to the forefathers as El Shaddai, but not as Yahweh, he was saying that they only knew him in a limited sense that was not as full as he was about to reveal. The Mosaic revelation of Yahweh on Sinai would be a dramatic world changing self-disclosure of God's unique character through his Law, a new revelation of God. This is what would separate them from the nations as a holy people of God's own choosing.