God as El Shaddai.
It will at once come to mind that this is the name used for God by John Bunyan in his 'Holy War,' but it is an unfamiliar one, and one that needs explanation. It is translated in Scripture by the term "the Almighty," but that properly represents the Hebrew El Gibbor. Cheyne says, "Wherever it occurs (Joel 1:15; Ezekiel 1:24; Ezekiel 10:5), it appears to express the more severe and awful side of the Divine nature. Though used as a mere synonym for El, or Elohim, it must at least be clear that force, and specially force as exhibited in a dangerous aspect in some natural phenomena, is the original meaning of the word, a meaning suitable enough to the earliest stage of biblical religion (see Exodus 6:3)." Gesenius thinks that, originally, before it was adopted into biblical religion, Shaddai meant, "God the Sender of storms." The connection of this physical figure with the term "Almighty" is very plain, for the Controller of the heavenly forces can surely do everything: the greater implies the less, and the great of which we know is so great that the mastery of it assures to us that there must be ability to master what we do not know.
I. THE TERM "MOST MIGHTY" AS APPLIED TO EARTHLY KINGS. It is quite the usual form in which the worth-ship of subjects is presented, and it was especially used of the monarchs of vast Eastern kingdoms, who ruled by an absolute authority. It was not, however, a mere high-sounding title; it gathered up the very various sides of kingly greatness, and put them into a single term. We may illustrate how it found expression for
It may also have embraced administration of august character.
II. THE TERM "ALL-MIGHTY" AS APPLIED TO THE KING OF KINGS. The term "almighty" rises above "most mighty," and can be truly applied to God alone. The above divisions may be taken, in which great earthly kings are said to be "most mighty," and, as applied to God, they may help us to realize the senses in which he is "all-mighty." And occasion may be made for urging the reverence which is due to him; the awe he claims, which should make "all the earth keep silence before him." It may be well also to meet the difficulty, that God cannot do absolutely everything, by showing that he can do everything which is not, under the conditions of human thought, absurd in the statement, such as make two straight lines enclose a space, or two and two count five.—R.T.