Shaddai is the name, or a signifying epithet, of a West Semitic deity whose name was attached by the Hebrews to that of El as one of the names of God. It has been conjectured that El Shaddai was therefore the "god of Shaddai". According to Exodus 6:2–3, 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.