You may be familiar with the beautiful song, “El Shaddai.”  Perhaps you’ve heard it sung by Amy Grant.  It begins with the two lines:

“El Shaddai, El Shaddai
El-Elyon Na Adonai”

I’ve tried to uncover just what those words mean.  Not being a scholar of ancient languages, I’ll have to take the words of others as an explanation.

It seems that “El Shaddai” appears first in Genesis 17:1.  “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty;’ walk before me faithfully and be blameless.”    The Hebrew word for El Shaddai has been translated as God Almighty.  Shaddai was the name by which God was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

“El-Elyon” is another Hebrew name for God, meaning God Most High.  God is supreme.  He deserves all our worship and praise.  No one can match El Elyon.  He alone is sovereign, most powerful and most merciful.

“Na Adonai” in the Old Testament is usually translated as simply Lord.  A more literal translation would be “please, Lord,” or “I/we beseech thee Lord.”

Putting these beautiful words together, we approach God in this song of praise.  Fittingly, the chorus ends with the line, “We will praise and lift you high, El Shaddai.”

Join me in listening to these beautiful words put to song, a song of pure praise to the Almighty.  This particular rendition features the voice of Michael Card.

Judy