#shaddayin

[mostlydeadlanguages]

In your personal opinion, what do you think the Shaddai in El Shaddai means? I know that there are different opinions on the meaning, so I was curious as to what your thoughts were on the subject.

Oooh, great question.  I’m going to respond by asking: what do you mean by “means”?  That is, are you looking for the original etymological origin of the term, or are you asking what it connoted to the biblical authors?  The Bible is full of false etymologies, so those two questions do not necessarily have the same answer.

To the question of etymology, honestly, I don’t think that there’s an answer that is Clearly Correct.  There are a number of options proposed, and I will tentatively follow the explanation in the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (which is one of my favorite reference books, btw).  (Sidebar: I was SO EXCITED when I found a copy in a used bookstore, given that Amazon now has it running for hundreds of dollars.  Not that I would suggest you search for the widely available illicit PDF of it...)

Anyway!  The DDD suggests that it connects to the Akkadian šadû (mountains) and the West Semitic sadeh (field/wilderness) to refer to the god(s) of the mountain wilderness.  While it mostly appears in the singular in the Bible, it appears in the plural in the Deir Alla inscription, and I would guess that it originally referred to the “gods of the wild places.”  It’s present in some of the Bible’s more archaic texts, as well as onomastic evidence, so it’s quite ancient.

The term was revived in popularity as a title of YHWH in later biblical texts like Job.  (In fact, the Job usages may be due to its “exotic setting,” to indicate that its authors thought of Shaddai as an originally foreign term for God.)  Early Greek translations of the term vary, but one common translation is “παντοκρατωρ,” “Almighty One,” so Second Temple era authors may have understood it as a term of power and omnipotence.  This might be due to the false etymological connection to the verb ŠDD, which meant “to destroy violently.”

(Sadly, the proposed origin of “breasts” is probably incorrect, although it may be referenced in Genesis 49, which invokes blessings first from Shaddai and then from the breasts (shaddayim) and womb.)

[mostlydeadlanguages]

Balaam’s Prophecy (Deir ‘Alla Combination 1)

Today’s prophetic text is both important and delightful.  It was originally written on plaster in red and black ink, twenty miles northwest of modern Amman, Jordan.  An earthquake shattered the plaster onto the floor, and reconstruction has been a painstaking process; some parts are still disputed or missing.

This text is most famous for its author: the visionary Balaam.  Balaam also appears in the Bible as a renowned prophet who had an encounter with a talking donkey.  In this case, though, his prophecy describes a world turned upside down, in which predators are attacked by their prey and the cosmos ceases functioning.  Its description of the sun becoming “darkness without radiance, a ghost without your living beauty” may reflect the experience of a famous solar eclipse in 763 BCE. 

In this translation, I’ve rendered the red-ink words in bold text.

A warning recorded by Balaam, son of Beor. He was a man who had visions from the gods, and the gods came to him at night,

They revealed to him a true divine decree. [1]  They said to Balaam, son of Beor, as follows: “His delegate drew near to despair: fire drew near to his house.” [2]

So Balaam got up the next day, and [… …] and he wept and wept.

His kin came to him and said, “Balaam, son of Beor, why are you fasting and weeping?”

He told them, “Sit down, and I’ll announce what the Shaddayin have done. [3] Come and see the deeds of the gods. The gods all gathered together, and the Shaddayin assembled a crowd. They said to the Sun-Goddess,        ’Smash the doors to the sky!        In your embrace, let there be darkness without radiance,                a ghost without your living beauty.        Spawn terror within the darkness,                and let your glow forever cease.’

For the swallow taunts the eagle,        and the baby vultures, the ostrich; the stork [taunts] the hawk’s children,        and the owl, the heron’s chicks. The turtle scatters the dove, 
        and the sparrow, [… f]alcon,
         and […] the rod.

In places where sheep should heed the staff, 
        rabbits eat the grass.
 The bat gets dr[unk] on beer,
         […]s are drinking wine,
 and the hyenas obey instructions;
         the jackal's pups […].

Crowds (?) have shifted: 
        the do-nothing mocks the wise, 
and the destitute woman mixes myrrh,
         and the priestess is […],
 and she spreads open for perversion in […] 
        […] to lift the guard's loincloth.
 Plan deliberately, and deliberate a plan!

[…]
and the deaf will hear from a distance
 […] tear to pieces […] 
[…] the […] and the fool witnessed        the disturbances of younglings and litter [4] […] 
[…] to the leopard a piglet.
 The daugh[ter of …] drives away […] 
[…] tooth, feathers, and eye.

[1] A “divine decree,” or a “decree from El/God.”  The idea may be that El, the father-god, originated the message, but he passed it on for lesser deities to deliver.

[2] This couplet is both obscure and very broken, so my translation is extremely tentative.  (I loosely follow Lipinski’s reconstruction here.)

[3] The /Shaddayin are clearly a plurality of divine beings, but their exact nature is unclear.  The word may be related to the Akkadian šēdu, “demon,” the Aramaic šdy, “to bring rain,” and/or to the Hebrew “Shadday,” a divine name that may connect to mountains and/or breasts.

[4] “Younglings and litter” (ŠGR WʿŠTR) perfectly parallels a phrase in Deuteronomy, שְׁגַר־אֲלָפֶ֙יךָ֙ וְעַשְׁתְּרֹ֣ת צֹאנֶ֔ךָ (“younglings of cattle and litters of sheep”).  However, Shaggar was a Mesopotamian and Ugaritic moon-god, and ʿAshtar (Ishtar) was of course a celestial goddess.  (The Deuteronomy passage may result from the deities’ association with fertility, if over time their names became generic terms for abundant offspring.)  Given the zoological tone of this text, I’ve translated it in that mundane form, but a more mythological mention of Shaggar and Ishtar is also possible, especially given the earlier mention of the sun-god Shamash.