The Torah says of El (a Biblical name of G-d and also the name of the Supreme God of the pre-Biblical pantheon): "אל מחללך" - "Eil meholelecha" (Devarim [Deut.] 32:18). Tehillim (Ps.) 90:2 also states of El: "תחולל ארץ ותבל" - "techolel eretz ve-tevel". The words מחלל (mecholel) and תחולל (techoleil), both in verb form and in the twin contexts of parallelism with the word ילד (yelad/yulad = used both for begetting and birthing a child), refer to the travail of giving birth. Thus, the Torah states that El had travailed in giving birth to Israel and Tehillim also refers to El as having travailed in giving birth to the earth and the world. Only a mother can travail in giving birth. So, quite apart from any feminine connotations of the epithet Shadday, it is clear that the Tanach teaches that there is a motherly aspect to El.
In addition, the implications of the creative process as birth are important. If the world and Israel are both born from the Divine, then there is a degree of mother-child continuity that compliments the kind of continuity already discussed relative to the Divine Breath. One need not see the world or people as created from nothing or contrast creation with any special Divine "sonship".
