El Shaddai

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SYNOPSIS:
Abram had 4 God-encounters in 11 years

Abram was spoken to by Elohim

For much of Abram’s life, God was known to him only as Elohim (the Creator God) or Jehovah Elohim (Lord God). The first time that we are told that God spoke to Abram was in Genesis 12:1-3 when God instructed him to leave his community in Haran and go to Canaan. He was 75 years old at that time. 

The second time that Elohim spoke to Abram was during this journey. While he was traversing through Canaan in Genesis 12:7, God spoke to him, saying He was going to give all of this land to his descendants.

Because of a famine in the land, Abram and Lot went on into Egypt instead of staying in Canaan. When they returned to Canaan, Lot separated his herds and family from Abram and moved to the plains. Then Elohim spoke to Abram a third time, telling him to look around and, again, promising everything he saw to his descendants. (Genesis 13:14-15)

Abram learned of El Elyon

After this, Lot was taken captive and Abram went to rescue him (see Genesis 14). This was when Abram met Melchizedek, the king of Salem, and learned a new name for God, El Elyon (Most High God). 

Abram was spoken to by Adonai

At an unspecified amount of time after this, Abram addressed God as Adonai (Lord, Master). This was when God began the Abrahamic covenant with Abram. 

Abram experienced God up-close and personal four separate times in a short period of years. Although we don’t have an exact timeline, these four God-encounters happened between the time Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran and before the time he was 86 years old at the birth of Ishmael.

EL SHADDAI
Abram meets El Shadai

Now let’s fast-forward to Abram’s 99th year when God again appeared to him.

And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God [El Shaddai]; walk before me, and be thou perfect. Genesis 17:1

This was the first time that God introduced Himself as El Shaddai or God Almighty. The Hebrew name, El Shaddai appears 48 times in the Old Testament, with Genesis 17:1 being the first time it is seen. Whenever you read God Almighty, or Almighty God, you are reading about El Shaddai. El is a shortened version of Elohim, the all-sufficient One, while Shaddai is linked to the concepts of His nurturing care, abundance and being more than enough. 

Jesus is El Shaddai

Jesus is also identified as El Shaddai, or the Almighty, in the book of Revelation 1:8. Recalling that this was translated from the Greek language, the word for Almighty is Pantokrator, meaning ‘the all-ruling, God as absolute and universal sovereign: the Almighty, the Omnipotent.’*

The title, El Shaddai, highlights God’s unparalleled might and His ability to fulfill His promises, offering strength and sustenance. He nourishes through bitterness and adversity, and He bestows fruitfulness through pruning. It is through trials and discipline that He shapes us for greater spiritual productivity. None of these sounds very comfortable, as we will soon see.

ALL SUFFICIENT
El Shaddai is All-Sufficient

El Shaddai is God Almighty, the All-Sufficient God who is powerful enough and capable enough for any situation. He often demonstrated His power by overcoming human limitations with supernatural provision, defying natural laws:

• He enabled Abraham and Sarah to have a child in their old age, despite Sarah’s barrenness.

• He provided the ram for the sacrifice when he prevented Abraham from killing his son, Isaac, on the altar at Mount Moriah.

• He supernaturally parted the Red Sea so that the Israelites could cross on dry ground.

• When the Israelites were wandering in the desert and perishing for lack of food and water, El Shaddai provided manna from heaven and water from a rock.

El Shaddai empowered Jesus

El Shaddai was the divine power-source that enabled the miracles of Jesus: he calmed storms, he was able to cure diseases, cast out demons, and raise the dead. He showed himself to be the Almighty God in human flesh. 

El Shaddai promised Abraham that all families of the earth would be blessed through him. Jesus was the fulfillment of that promise. His lineage came through Abraham, so He was acting as the Kinsman-Redeemer. Then, through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus demonstrated that he is the all-sufficient God who is able to do “exceedingly above all” that is asked.

El Shaddai enriched the patriarchs

El Shaddai has demonstrated supernatural enrichment of His people down through the ages, both naturally and supernaturally to enable us to accomplish amazing things in His name.

Historically, El Shaddai promised to multiply the descendants of the patriarchs. 

• He promised Ishmael that he would be the father of a great nation (Genesis 17:20).

 • He told Jacob that his descendants would be as the dust of the earth. (Genesis 28:14)

El Shaddai enriched the ministry of Jesus

Jesus took the meager offering of loaves and fishes and, through the power of God, increased them to feed thousands of people. Their ‘not enough’ was made into ‘more than enough’ by the enriching of El Shaddai.

El Shaddai empowered the disciples to carry on the ministry, expanding from local to regional to worldwide following the Resurrection. He provided the nourishment and life-giving Spirit needed to grow the early church and sustain the ministry during intense challenges.

El Shaddai enriches us today

Even today, the more-than-enough sufficiency of El Shaddai provides energy, resources and the capacity to be productive even when we feel weak or inadequate.

He multiplies our efforts, our ministries, and our spiritual impact. Think of radio, television, newspapers and magazines, the internet, youtube, book publication, music and all of the myriads of ways that we have to be able to reach out to multitudes.

Just as El Shaddai made Abraham fruitful in his old age, He brings about spiritual fruitfulness in our lives today.

Just as a nursing mother supplies all of her child’s needs, El Shaddai holds the ability to nourish and provide for His people and satisfy every situation. The name, Shaddai, is actually rooted in the Hebrew word for breast: shad, symbolizing God’s intimate, bountiful care for physical, emotional and spiritual needs.

We all know that in the beginning, God commanded humans to ‘be fruitful and multiply.’ El Shaddai is associated with blessing and enabling His people to fulfill this command.

Fruit in the midst of adversity

El Shaddai can produce fruit in our lives even amidst bitterness and adversity. The story of Naomi in the book of Ruth illustrates how God used difficulties to bring about growth.

Recall that through this adversity, Naomi’s daughter-in-law, Ruth, became the wife of Boaz and the mother of Obed, who was the father of Jesse, who was the father of King David in the messianic line of Jesus. (Ruth 4:17)

DISCIPLINE
El Shaddai disciplines

There are many places in the Bible that express the idea that God will discipline those whom He loves. El Shaddai is the identity of the aspect of God that uses discipline, not out of wrath, but for those He accepts as His children, proving that they are His. It is one of his training tools to guide believers away from destruction and toward virtue in order to cultivate perseverance, maturity and righteousness.

When God revealed Himself as El Shaddai to Abram, in Genesis 17:1, He commanded Abram to ‘walk before me and be blameless.’ This seems like an overwhelming requirement. How can anyone be blameless, even Abram? Looking at the great patriarch, Abram’s, life, even he made some pretty sizable blunders. 

Abram’s shortcomings

• Twice, Abram gave his wife, Sarai, up to foreign rulers, claiming that she was his sister, as he was afraid of being killed because of her great beauty.

• When Abram first came to Canaan, the promised land, instead of staying there, he left for Egypt because of a famine, not consulting with God first.

• His lack of trust in God’s promise for a son led him to take his wife’s servant, Hagar, for a concubine, leading to the birth of Ishmael, contrary to the divine promise of a son through Sarah. This has led to many clashes in the Middle East, some that we are experiencing even today.

• Despite knowing God’s power, Abraham laughed in disbelief when he was told that he would have a son in his old age.

In spite of his shortcomings, Abraham is always seen as a man of great faith. God used his mistakes to gently demonstrate his divine grace and faithfulness. Twice, He rescued Sarai from foreign kings and, although Abram could have stayed in Egypt, God somehow led him back into the promised land where he then had his encounter with Melchizedek, introducing him to El Elyon.

Walking blameless in the time of Jesus

In the time of Jesus, God’s command to Abram to ‘walk before me and be blameless’ was understood as a call to integrity and obedience, with El Shaddai providing the strength necessary for mortals to live according to God’s standard.

Jesus demonstrated this power over sin, nature, and sickness, effectively fulfilling the role of El Shaddai in the flesh. If El Shaddai was viewed as a disciplinarian, then it was as the firm, loving hand of a nurturing Father, ensuring that His children would grow, bear fruit, and remain under His protection.

PRUNING
El Shaddai prunes

El Shaddai prunes His people by allowing trials and hardships and the removal of comforts to foster deeper faith, maturity, and spiritual fruitfulness. Rather than being punishment, this pruning is a loving, necessary process to cleanse and shape believers. 

• In Abraham’s case, God removed the possibility of Abraham relying on his own strength or natural means to have a son. When he was 99 years old and Sarah was barren, Abraham was forced to rely solely on God’s power. It pruned away self-sufficiency and refined his faith, resulting in him being called the father of many nations.

• Joseph was stripped of his coat of many colors, betrayed by his brothers, and falsely imprisoned. These experiences stripped away his youthful arrogance, pruning him into a person fit to rule Egypt and save his family.

• Moses was moved from his position of power in the house of Pharaoh to the position of a lowly shepherd in the desert. This long season of isolation pruned away his impetuousness and self-confidence, preparing him to lead Israel with humility.

• In the book of Ruth, Naomi experienced a season of pruning through the loss of her husband and sons, leading her to rename herself Mara, meaning bitter. El Shaddai used this period of emptiness and wandering to later bring her back to Bethlehem where she was restored and her daughter-in-law, Ruth, became an ancestor in the lineage of King David.

• Job was also pruned. In his case, it was through the abrupt loss of his wealth, his children and his health. While painful, this intense trial pruned away Job’s misconceptions about God and his own righteousness, resulting in a deeper, more personal knowledge of God.

Jesus explained the spiritual aspect of pruning

By identifying himself as the true vine, Jesus was saying that he is the source of all spiritual fruit-bearing and sustenance, directly mirroring this nurturing, life-giving aspect of El Shaddai.

Just as a vine is pruned to remove dead or unproductive wood, El Shaddai removes comfortable, yet distracting, things from life, things such as relationships, habits, old mindsets and others to make believers more like Jesus and more fruitful.

To wrap things up

El Elyon and El Shaddai sometimes appear together to paint a fuller picture of God, most notably in Psalm 91:1

This shows that the supreme God (Elyon) is also the accessible, all-powerful provider (Shaddai) for His people.

El Shaddai in us

Every name that we learn for God encompasses all of Himself because you cannot divide God into pieces, but each name also emphasizes some specific aspects of His character. 

Compare it to the way a child might describe his or her parents. Your child only knows you as the all-powerful mom or dad, so each description is understood to contain that entirety of you.

However, each description may only address a part of you, such as the part that is fun, or the part that goes to work, or the part that hugs, or the part that buys groceries, or the part that is mean and won’t let him/her stay up late or have more screen time.

When Elohim said that He created mankind after His likeness in Genesis 1:26, no one really knew what that meant. It was only through His gentle revealing of aspects of Himself over the centuries that we now have a more rounded picture, but as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

References:
The Holy Bible: King James Version
*Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance

©2026 Chandra Hronchek