[497]. There still remain some names whose etymological explanation is difficult, as Reʾûbhên and Shimʿôn. Yissâsekhâr (Issachar) translated literally might be ‘the Day-labourer,’ certainly a fitting designation for the Sun, expressing how he does his day’s work, like a day-labourer. Yet I cannot look upon that as a mythical description, because it would be an unpardonable anachronism to suppose that that primeval age when myths were created would speak of day-labourers, especially after the fashion in which the idea is expressed by the word Yissâ-sekhâr, ‘he takes up his wages.’
[498]. Which according to al-Damîrî, Ḥayât al-ḥaywân, Bûlâḳ 1274, II. 219, is used only of the rising sun; we can say ṭalaʿat al-ġazâlâ ‘the gazelle rises,’ but not ġarabat ‘he sets.’ Abû Saʿîd al-Rustamî the poet (in Behâ al-Dîn al-ʿÂmilî, Keshkûl, p. 164. 13) carries out the mythological figure still further, using the verb naṭaḥa ‘to butt,’ said of horned beasts. Describing a fine building, he says tanâṭaḥa ḳarna-sh-shamsi min sharafâtihi, that ‘as to splendour it butts in rivalry with the sun’—as if the palace and the sun were knocking their horns together.
[499]. Babyl. Tract. Yômâ, fol. 29. a: ‘As the hind’s horns branch out to every side, so also the light of dawn spreads out to all sides.’
[500]. Journal asiatique, 1861, II. 437.
[501]. Caussin de Perceval, Essai sur l’histoire des Arabes avant l’Islamisme, I. 260.
[502]. Given in the Appendix to this work.
[503]. Lenormant, La Magie chez les Chaldéens, Paris 1874, p. 140. In the decadence of magic, however, the horns, which are connected with magic, are used even outside the cycle of solar gods; e.g. ‘On voit Bin la tête surmontée de la tiare royale armée de cornes de taureau, les épaules munies de quatre grandes ailes, etc.,’ ibid. p. 50. Here the horns are for butting, not to symbolise rays. However, in this particular case of Bin the mythical meaning is not very clear. As he is sometimes called ‘the southern sun over ʿElâm,’ ibid. p. 121, the horns in the passage quoted may have something to do with his solar character.
[504]. Deorum Concilium, 10.
[505]. See Herodotus, II. 42, IV. 181.
[506]. We will not claim any importance for the fact that in Sanchuniathon’s account of the sacrifice of Isaac the name Jeûd is given instead of Isaac; consequently if Jeûd be identical with the Hebrew Jehûdâ, the fact that Jeûd is here equivalent to Isaac would prove the solar character of Jehûdâ.