Page:Mythology Among the Hebrews.djvu/132

92 his view of nature the nomad begins with the sky at night. The sky by itself is the dark, nightly, or clouded heaven; the sunshine on the sky is an accessory. Hence it comes that in Arabic the word Sky (samâ) is very often used even for 'Rain;' and the notions of rain and sky are so closely interwoven that even the traces of rain on the earth are called sky. In the language of the Bongo people there is only one word for sky and rain, hetōrro. On Semitic ground the Assyrian divine name Rammanu or Raman, must be mentioned here. If this name has any etymological connexion with the root râm 'to be high,' as Hesychius and some modern scholars say, though others derive it from raʿam thunder, Raʿamân 'the Thunderer,' then we find here again the primitive mythological idea that the intrinsically High is the dark stormy sky, or, personified, the God of Storms. So also in the old Hebrew myth the 'High' is the nightly or rainy sky. The best known myth that the Hebrews told of their Abh-râm is the story of the intended sacrifice of his only son Yiṣchâḳ, commonly called Isaac. But what is Yiṣchâḳ? Literally translated, the word denotes 'he laughs,' or 'the Laughing.' In the Semitic languages, especially in proper names and epithets, the use of the aorist (even in the second person, e.g. in the Arabic name Tazîd) is very frequent where we should employ a participle. So here. Now who is the 'He laughs,' the 'Smiling one'? No other but He who sits in heaven