El Shaddai
Submitted by J on 2002-11-2 05:34:11, Saturday
In reply to Re: For the older ones among us submitted by Dakota on 2002-11-1 15:03:16, Friday
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Thought you might be interested in some info on Amy Grant’s El Shaddai - the line that you said brings you to tears has the same affect on me, it’s a very special and profound song. The verse that line comes from uses three allusions from the Old Testament: The first line… Through Your love and through the ram You saved the son of Abraham …comes from Genesis 22:9-13: When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. The second and fourth lines… Through the power of Your hand You turned the sea into dry land… And by Your might You set Your children free …come from Exodus 14:21-23, 27, 30: Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea… Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing from it, and the LORD swept them into the sea…. That day the LORD saved Israel from the hand of the Egyptians… And the third line… To the outcast on her knees You were the God who really sees …comes from a conflation of Hagar’s encounters with God in the desert, Genesis 21:14-19 when she and Ishmael are sent away as ‘outcasts’ by Abraham and Genesis 16:13 from an earlier encounter when Hagar ran away from her abusive mistress, Sarai: Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there nearby, the boy began to sob. God heard the boy crying, and the angel of the God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation. Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” The three allusions tie in to the second verse… Through the years You made it clear That the time of Christ was near Though the people couldn’t see What Messiah ought to be Though Your word contained the plan They just could not understand Your most awesome work was done Through the frailty of Your Son …which talks about Jesus and how the Old Testament always points toward Him and that it contained ‘the plan’ of what the Messiah would be – Jesus as the sacrificial substitute (line 1), Jesus as the deliverer (lines 2 and 4) and Jesus as God incarnate who embraces the outcast, who lived among us and truly saw us (line 3). ***** Lines 1 and 3 of the chorus are in Hebrew: אל שדי אל שדי אל עליון נא אדני אל שדי אל שדי ארחמך נא אדני El Shaddai, El Shaddai, El Elyon na Adonai El Shaddai, El Shaddai, erchamka na Adonai El Shaddai, ‘God Almighty’, first appears in the Abraham narrative in Genesis 17:1, as does El Elyon, ‘God Most High’ in Genesis 14:18-20, 22. na Adonai means ‘O Lord’ and ‘erchamka’ means ‘I love you’ and comes from Psalm 18:1. In Christ, J Come away, O human child, to the waters of the wild, with a fairy hand in hand, for the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. |
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