—compiled by Ken Sehested
Language matters
- “El Shaddai” is one of several “names” given to God in Scripture. El Shaddai is a feminine noun, which can be translated “God of the breast,” conveying the quality of nourishing, satisfying and supplying needs. It is used seven times in Scripture (see Genesis 17:1).
The English translation of “El Shaddai” as “God Almighty” is misleading, because “almighty” suggests omnipotence, the capacity to overpower or destroy. Whereas “Shaddai” infers sufficiency and nourishment (i.e., “blessings of the breasts and of the womb”) and implies a certain fecundity.- Also in Hebrew, the divine presence(“Shekhinah”) of God is feminine.
- From the word “womb” (rehem) comes the verb “to have compassion” (raham), and the phrase “Yahweh’s compassionate (rahum) and gracious” repeatedly appears in the Hebrew scripture to describe the merciful and saving acts of God in history.
Biblical texts
- Deut 32:18; Ps 90:2; Prov 8:24-25; Isa 43:1,7,15; 44:2, 24; 45:9, 11; 51:13; 54:5 – The Creator God of Israel is also imaged as the shaper, maker and mother God who formed Israel in the womb and birthed Israel with labor pains.
- Deut 4:31; 2 Chr 30:9; Neh 9:17; Ps 78:38; 86:16; 103:8; 111:4; 112:4; 145:8; John 4:7 – images of God who demonstrates “womb–like compassion” for her child Israel.
- Exodus 33:19 and 34:6 – In Hebrew the words for “compassion” and “womb” derive from the same root. God of compassion use the Hebrew word “rehem” which can be translated “womb-love.
- Num 11:12 – “Was it I who conceived all this people, was it I who gave them birth that you should say to me, carry them in your bosom like a nurse with a baby at the breast?”
- Prov 7-9 –“Wisdom” (“Sophia”) who was present before the foundations of the world were created; and announces (Prov 1) Heaven’s judgment on “scoffers” and “fools.”
- John 7: 38 – From his breast shall flow the fountains of living water.
- Gen 1:2 – God as a nesting mother.
- Is 42:14 [Thus says the Lord], “For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor; I will gasp and pant.”
- Ex 19:4 & Deut 32 :1-12 – God as a mother eagle.
- Hos 13:8 – “I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs.”
- Ps 17:8, 36:7, 57:1, 61:4 – Refuge in “the shadow of [God’s] wings.”
- Job 38:28-29 – “Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?”
- Luke 15:8 – A woman tirelessly sweeping for her lost coin, for what is important to her.
- Luke 13: 34 (Matt 23:37) – “How often I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”
- Gen 2:7, Ps 104: 29; John 3:8 – “Ruah” presence gives life; feminine Hebrew word meaning breath, wind, inspiration or spirit.
- Gen 3:21 – God as a seamstress.
- Isaiah 66:13 – “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.”)
- Isa 4:4, Ps 51:7 – God as a washerwoman.
- Ps 22:9-11, Ps 71:6; Isa 66:9 – God as a midwife.
- Matt 13:33 – God as a woman baking bread.
A few post-biblical texts
- Clement of Alexander (c.150 – c. 215 CE) spoke of Christ as the breast of God supplying the milk of love.
- “Just as God is our Father, so God is also our Mother.” And also, “The mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and does, most courteously and most tenderly, with the blessed sacrament, which is the precious food of true life. . . .” —Julian of Norwich (1342–1416)
- “We are all meant to be mothers of God.” —Meister Eckhart, 13th century mystic
- “A mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.” —Emily Dickinson
- “In the divine economy it is not the feminine person who remains hidden and at home. She is God in the world, moving, stirring up, revealing, interceding. It is she who calls out, sanctifies, and animates the church. Hers is the water of the one baptism. The debt of sin is wiped away by her. She is the life-giver who raises men [sic] from the dead with the life of the coming age. Jesus himself left the earth so that she, the intercessor, might come.” — Jay G. Williams, “Yahweh, Women and the Trinity,” Theology Today 32 (1975) 240.
- “You, beloved daughters, serve as reminders / that life cannot be had on the cheap; / that every new future foreseen in joy / will endure all tearful failures; that strength / of hand and valiance of heart must be / coupled with wombish welcome to that / unnameable (and thus unmanageable) / Promise that death’s ascendance will / be crushed. / Such vision persists; such milk flows; / and by it we are kept from perishing.” —Ken Sehested, “On the flow of tears”
