Literary Devices – Bereshit 17/0

Literary Devices – Bereshit 17

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Character Titles

God

• Elokim – This is the name used for Hashem throughout most of the chapter.
• Hashem – The narrator refers to Hashem by His proper name Hashem in verse 1.
• El Shaddai – Hashem identifies Himself as “אֵל שַׁדַּי ” in 17:1. See the concordance and R. Yosef Ibn Kaspi that in almost every context in which this name for Hashem appears in Sefer Bereshit, it is associated with a divine blessing of offspring and land.¹

¹ Interestingly, the one verse in Bereshit in which the name is not explicitly associated with this promise is 43:14, in which Yaakov agrees to send Binyamin to Egypt despite his fear of losing him and expresses his hope that Binyamin and his brother will return. Perhaps the use of this name for Hashem expresses Yaakov’s hope that all of his descendants survive.