Page:Mythology Among the Hebrews.djvu/114

74 with ‘ayn, with the meaning 'cloud.' But it is probable that this name Ḳuzaḥ is derived from the signification 'mingere,' which belongs to the corresponding verb (used specially of beasts), and that it is due to a mythological conception of the Rain. This circumstance tempts us to connect the Hebrew word bûl 'rain, rainy month' with the Arabic bâla, yabûlu 'mingere.' If so, the combination of this word with the name of the God Ba‘al, which certainly does occur in Himyaric in the form Bûl, must have been made later, from a misunderstanding of the mythological relations. The theological power of Ḳuzaḥ among the ancient Arabs is evident as well from its being explained by Moslem interpreters as the name of a devil or angel, as also from the fact that geographical appellations which are in force in the ritual of the old religion are connected with it. These elements of the worship of the night and the cloudy and stormy sky must have priority before those of the solar worship which are found subsisting beside them. F. Spiegel states this succession to be a law in the history of religion. 'It is not the sun,' he says, 'that first attracted the attention of the savage by its light. . . On the other hand, the night-sky, whose lights form a contrast to the darkness of the earth, is much more calculated to attract the gaze of the savage to itself. And among the heavenly lights it is the moon that first absorbs the sight, as well from, its size as from its readily discernible changes; and after it a group of particularly brilliant stars. . . We find moon-worship among almost utterly savage tribes in Africa and America; and it is noteworthy that there the moon is always treated as a man, the sun as a woman; not till