[388]. The Arabian historians transfer the entire Biblical story of Samson (Arabic Shamsûn), to the time of the Mulûk al-ṭawâʾif; and in their narrative the hero fights against Rûm [i.e. the Greek Empire at Constantinople]; for the jawbone of an ass is substituted that of a camel. See Ibn al-Athîr al-Taʾrîch al-kâmil, Bûlâḳ edition, I. 146.
[389]. Schwartz, Ursprung der Mythologie, p. 144, where Sif and Loki of the Scandinavian mythology are also mentioned. The hairiness of the solar heroes has been translated into an ethnographical peculiarity in modern Greek popular legends. Bernhard Schmidt (Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, I. 206) says, ‘In Zante I encountered the idea that the entire power of the ancient Greeks lay in three hairs on the breast, and vanished if these were cut off, but returned when the hairs grew again.’
[390]. See Ewald, History of Israel, I. 345, note 1.
[391]. In Gen. XXVII. 11, the received punctuation is îsh sâʿîr.—Tr.
[392]. Compare Tiele, Vergel. Geschied. p. 447.
[393]. Schwartz, Ursprung der Mythologie, p. 146; see above, p. 34.
[394]. Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Menschheit, pp. 45–60.—Ursprung und Entwickelung der menschlichen Sprache und Vernunft, Bd. II. book 3.—Compare Lazarus, Leben der Seele, II. 80; ibid. p. 185 note.
[395]. For Silver the three North-Semitic languages, Assyrian, Aramaic, and Hebrew, have the same word, and in so far ‘form a strict union,’ as Schrader says, in opposition to the South-Semitic languages, which employ other words for the designation of this metal.' Keilinschriften und das A. T., p. 46.
[396]. Chârûṣ = gold has in recent times been frequently met with on Phenician territory, e.g. in the Inscription of Idalion published by Euting, II. 1, in the Inscription of Gebal (De Vogüé in the Journal asiat. 1875, I. 327), and in an unpublished Carthaginian Inscription (Derenbourg in Journal asiat. 1875, I. 336).
[397]. The consideration of the Hebrew cheres ‘Sun’ might suggest that both it and the old word for gold (chârûṣ), composed of possibly related sounds, both originated in the notion of shining.