El Shaddai ( ʾĒl Šadday; ) or just Shaddai is one of the names of the God of Israel. El Shaddai is conventionally translated into English as God Almighty (Deus Omnipotens in Latin, الله عز وجل Allāh 'azzawajal in Arabic), but its original meaning is unclear. The translation of El as "God" or "Lord" in the Ugaritic/Canaanite language is straightforward, as El was the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion. The literal meaning of Shaddai, however, is the subject of debate. The form of the phrase El Shaddai fits the pattern of the divine names in the Ancient Near East, exactly as is the case with names like El Olam", El Elyon" or El Betel". As such, El Shaddai can convey several different semantic relations between the two words, among them: the deity of a place called Shaddai, a deity possessing the quality of shaddai and a deity who is also known by the name Shaddai. Occurrence The name Shaddai appears 48 times in the Bible, seven times as "El Shaddai" (five times in Genesis, once in Exodus, and once in Ezekiel). The first occurrence of the name is in , "When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, 'I am El Shaddai; walk before me, and be blameless,' Similarly, in God says to Jacob, "I am El Shaddai: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins". According to Shaddai was the name by which God was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Shaddai thus being associated in tradition with Abraham, the inclusion of the Abraham stories into the Hebrew Bible may have brought the northern name with them, according to the documentary hypothesis of the origins of the Hebrew Bible. In the vision of Balaam recorded in the Book of Numbers 24:4 and 16, the vision comes from Shaddai, who is also referred to as El (God) and Elyon (Most High). In the fragmentary inscriptions at Deir Alla, though "Shaddai" is not, or not fully present, shaddayin appear (, the vowels are uncertain, as is the gemination of the "d"), perhaps lesser figurations of Shaddai. These have been tentatively identified with the šedim () of Deuteronomy 32:17 and Psalm 106:37–38, who are Canaanite deities. The name Shaddai (Hebrew: ) is often used in parallel to El