“Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty?” (Job 11:7).
My maternal grandfather was marked by reverence for God. I often heard him refer to the Deity by the words, “Him with whom we have to do” (Heb 4:13, KJV). Although the phrase seemed awkward to my ear, it certainly communicated my grandfather’s point: our dealings were with God, so it was to our advantage to always be on good terms with Him! Thus it will be helpful to ask: Who is this God who so captivated the love and loyalty of Job? The name most often used in this book is not the generic Elohim, nor the covenant-keeping Jehovah. It is the name El Shaddai. God’s names are like doorways that invite us to enter into intimacy with Him. So what does this one mean? It occurs seven times in the Bible with El (“God Almighty”) and 41 times alone as “the Almighty.” It is used six times in Genesis (17:1; 28:3; 35:11; 43:14; 48:3; 49:25), once in Exodus (6:3), twice in Numbers (24:4, 16), twice in Ruth (1:20-21), twice in the Psalms (68:14; 91:1), once in Isaiah (13:6), twice in Ezekiel (1:24; 10:5), and once in Joel (1:15), but 31 times in Job! It could be rendered “God All-Sufficient.” The Septuagint translates it in several places as the “Sufficient One” (e.g., Ruth 1:20, 21). It could be derived from shadad, “to be strong,” or from shad, “the breasts.” “The Almighty [Shaddai] who will bless you with blessings…of the breasts [shad]” (Gen 49:25), emphasizing God’s tender-heartedness and nurturing. The psalmist wrote, “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty [El Shaddai]” (Ps 91:1). In the end, Job discovers that the deep darkness through which he would pass actually turned out to be the abiding shadow of El Shaddai Himself!