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| great story about this statue of "Saul" click here |
Genesis 36:37 names him as an Edomite king, Sha'ul of Rechovot, who succeeded Samlah of Masreykah, and was himself followed by Ba'al-Chanan ben Achbor.
Genesis 46:10 names him as a son of Shim'on (Simeon), distinguished from his other brothers – Yemu-El (ימואל), Yamin (ימין), Ohad (אהד), Yachin (יכין) and Tsochar (צחר) - by the fact that he was the son of a woman of the Beney Kena'an.
1 Chronicles 6:9: names a Sha'ul as the last in the line of descent of Levi through Gershom (some English translations have 1 Chronicles 6:24).
But none of these are the famous King Saul, from the tribe of Bin-Yamin, who first appears in 1 Samuel 9:2, and will shortly thereafter become the first king of Yisra-El.
Sha'ul (שאול) comes from the root Sha'al (שאל) = "to ask" and is in the Pu'al (passive) form; thus, aetiologically, Sha'ul was appointed king by Shemu-El (Samuel), despite Shemu-El's opposition to there being a king at all, because the people persistently "asked" for him. It is a very convenient passive root, but Yehudit names do not come from passive roots, they come from active roots; and anyway it is clear that Sha'ul was not originally a Yehudit name. Then what was it?
She'ol (שאול) is the Kena'ani (Canaanite) Hades, the underworld of shades where the dead dwell, and Sha'ul (שאול) is the god of the Underworld, also known as Mot (מות). Cf Isaiah 5:14; 14:9; 38:10; Job 10:21; 26:6; Psalm 6:6 and many other references to its valleys and gates.
To be crowned King Sha'ul means to be crowned King of the Underworld, the God of Winter who, in the Tanist tradition, rules the world until the return of the Fisher-King, and takes over when the Messianic Anointed One, the Fisher-King, is ritually killed. Thus Sha'ul precedes Yedid-Yah (David), "the beloved of the moon goddess", and the two fight it out to the death of Sha'ul; thus the descendants of Sha'ul (Mephi-Boshet in particular, and the sons of Michal, David's wife but also Sha'ul's daughter) repeatedly stage coups against him to try to seize his throne, and all die, in different circumstances, on what Frazer called "The Golden Bough" (see 2 Samuel 18 for Av-Shalom, 2 Samuel 21 for Mephi-Boshet and his brothers).
That the first known Sha'ul should be an Edomite should not surprise; David himself was of Beney Mo-Av origin on his father's side.
That he should have come from Rechovot should also not surprise; Rechovot was the temple of Rachav (Rahab), the sea-goddess who also ruled Circe-like in the underworld, wife of She'ol.
Just as a last thought, Ezra 10:29 has a She'al (שאל) which is taken to mean "prayer", in the sense of something being "asked" of the deity; and 1 Chronicles 3:17, Ezra 3:2 and Nehemiah 12:1 all have a She'altiy-El (שאלתיאל), while Haggai 1:12 et al has Shalti-El (שלתיאל): "I have petitioned El"; presumably a name in the tradition of Chanah's (Hannah's) song (1 Samuel 1 and 2), a woman calling on the god to make her fertile: which is odd, because the god does not have that power; only the goddess does.
Copyright © 2019 David Prashker
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The Argaman Press
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