Mythology among the Hebrews and Its Historical Development

To the mythical conception discussed in the text, which regards the Sun as an Eye, must be added another parallel view, that of the Sun as a Well. Language and myth here show remarkable uniformity, which helps the identification. Many languages have the same name for Well and Eye, as if they followed the mathematical law that when two things are each equal to a third, they are equal to each other. So it is in Semitic (ʿayin, ʿayn, etc.); in Persian tsheshm and tsheshmeh; in Chinese ian, which word denotes both well and eye. The thirty-four wells near Bunarbashi, which was formerly believed to be the site of the Homeric Ilion, are called by the people, using a round number, ‘the forty eyes.’ For the Sun is not only a seeing eye, but also a flowing well. It is possible that the weeping eye, which is actually a flowing well (see Jer. VIII. 23 [IX. 1] we-ʿênay meḳôr dimʿâ ‘would that my eyes were a fountain of tears’), may serve to mediate between the two senses. Heinrich Heine, in his ‘Nordsee-cyclus’ (‘Nachts in der Kajüte’) says:

The Sun being a Well, the light of his rays is the moisture that flows from the well. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead the Sun is called râ pu num âtef nuteru ‘the Sun, the primitive water, the father of the gods.’[758] Lucretius (De Rerum Natura, V. 282) calls the Sun

‘who fructifies the heaven with ever-new brilliancy.’ The same view prevails also on Semitic ground. In Hebrew and Arabic the root nâhar denotes equally ‘to flow’ and ‘to shine.’ Nâhâr (Heb.), nahar (Ar.), is ‘a river,’ nahâr (Ar.) ‘the brightness of the sun by day.’ In ʿAbd-al-Raḥmân al-Asadî’s poem in defence of the tribe of Asad against a satire of Ibn Mayyâdâ of the tribe of Murr, the setting of the Sun is called inṣibâbuhâ[759] ‘his pouring himself out,’ his condition when he has poured forth all his rays:

The poet Ṭarafâ, to express the idea that the Sun lends or spends his rays, uses the verb to ‘give to drink’ (saḳat-hu iyât ush-shamsi, Muʿallaḳâ, v. 9.), and the same idiom is used of the light of the stars. The word kaukab, which in Semitic generally denotes star, also signifies a well-spring, e.g. ‘and may no well-spring (kaukab) irrigate the pasture’ (Aġânî, XI. 126. 15). Compare a passage in the introduction to the Commentary on the Ḳorân called al-Kashshâf by Zamachsharî (de Sacy, Anthologie gramm. ar. p. 120. 8, text), where the two significations of the word occur close together. To this place belongs also a sentence delivered by Rabbi Ami in the Babylonian Talmûd, Taʿanîth, fol. 7 b. He explains the words al-kappayîm kissâôr in Job XXXVI. 32, thus: ‘On account of the sin of their hands he (God) holds back the rain,’ as by ‘light’ rain must be meant (ên ôr ellâ mâṭâr), and gives the same interpretation of the word ôr ‘light’ in another passage, Job XXXVII. 11, ‘he also loads the cloud with moisture, spreads abroad the cloud of his rain’ (yâphîṣ ʿanan ôrô). But of what fluid the rays of the heavenly bodies are composed is not fixed and determined by the myth. In the Vendidad, XXI. 26, 32, 34, ‘the Sun, moon, and stars are rich in Milk.’ No less frequent is the idea that the heavenly bodies make water.[760] This latter view of the Sun’s rays as a liquid is remarkably reflected in the Hungarian language; and I will therefore note some facts relating to the subject, which will be interesting to the investigators of Comparative Mythology.

It is especially noteworthy that in old Hungarian the word hugy, which in the modern language means only ‘urine,’ was employed for ‘star.’ In the Legend of St. Francis, an ancient document of the Hungarian language, the Latin stellarum cursus is translated hugoknak folyása 'the flowing of the hugyok.' To the same root belong probably some proper names also, collected by Rev. Aron Szilády (Magyar Nyelvőr, I. 223), e.g. Hugdi, Hugod, Hugus (which should be read Hugydi, Hugyad, Hugyos), which must surely signify ‘shining,’ fényes. The same view of light as a fluid is also preserved in the later language, in which with sugár ‘ray’ the verb ömlik ‘to pour itself out’ is employed, as in many other languages.