The name Shaddai is rare in the Torah. What does it signify?
The Lord appeared to Avram, and said to him, I am G-d Shaddai. … I will make you exceedingly, exceedingly many.
Isaac says to Jacob:
G-d Shaddai shall bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayst be a multitude of people;
And God said to [Jacob], I am G-d Shaddai: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;
Isn’t the pattern obvious? Each of the forefathers gets one connection to this aspect, Shaddai, wherein G-d promises to make them fruitful, a multitude. It is a promise toward a future.
Indeed, when Jacob is sending Benjamin away with his brothers, perhaps to his death, Jacob openly invokes the name “G-d Shaddai,” and it does not read like a rhetorical flourish. Instead, it might even be a reminder to G-d that there is a promise that was supposed to be fulfilled:
Take also your brother, and arise, go again to the man: and G-d Shaddai give you mercy before the man, that he may release to you your other brother, and Binyamin.
Faced with this crisis, does Jacob remind this aspect of G-d, Shaddai, that there is an outstanding divine promise for more children, indeed for an entire nation, that has yet to be fulfilled?!
Later on, Jacob does not forget this divine pledge. Jacob essentially adopts Ephraim and Menasseh specifically to help G-d fulfill his promise for more children!
And Ya῾aqov said to Yosef, G-d Shaddai appeared to me at Luz in the land of Kena῾an, and blessed me, and said to me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.
And then Jacob uses the word for the last time in Genesis, passing on the blessing he received from his own father, to Joseph.
… by the God of thy father, Who shall help thee; and by Shaddai, who shall bless thee, with blessings .. of the womb.
And then… the name is essentially “retired” in the text. When G-d introduces himself to Moses, he says,
and I appeared to Avraham, to Yiżĥaq, and to Ya῾aqov, by the name of G-d Shaddai.
And then G-d (and the people) never use this name again!
Perhaps this is because G-d had fulfilled the promise of Shaddai? The Children of Israel in Egypt were quite numerous, indeed. Avraham and Isaac and Jacob and even Joseph had all indeed fathered a multitude: G-d had delivered on the promise!
The name Shaddai does not appear again for a Jew in the text. Had it served its purpose?