One of my favorite names for God is El Shaddai. I just think it is a beautiful sounding name. When I looked into the meaning of the name in Hebrew, I found the true meaning has been lost on us but the theories are beautiful as well. Here are some thoughts I have been writing down.
El Shaddai - pronounced (El Shad-dah'-ee)
A proper name God occasionally used for Himself with patriarchs like Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.
We don't really know the meaning of this name.
There are many different thoughts.
Literally, it translates as God of the (uncultivated) Fields.
Most Bibles originally interpreted the name Shaddai as coming from the word Shadad.
Shadad means to deal violently with, to devastate, put to ruins; hence God Almighty.
However, there are several more theories based on contractions of the word.
For example, Sha means "who" and dai means "sufficient" or "enough"; the God who is sufficient.
Another example, Shad means "breast" dai means "enough"; people interpret this as the God with sufficiency and nourishment.
In modern Judaism, Shaddai is also thought to be an acronym for the phrase Shomer daltot Yisrael - "Guardian of the doors of Israel" - abbreviated as the letter Shin on most mezuzot.
