Lectures on the religion of the Semites. First series : the fundamental institutions / by W. Robertson Smith.
- Date:
- 1889
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Lectures on the religion of the Semites. First series : the fundamental institutions / by W. Robertson Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![ORIGINAL SENSE r,ECT. nr. It has been generally assumed that Baal's land, in the sense in which it is opposed to irrigated fields, means land watered by the rains of heaven, the waters of the sky as the Arabs call them; and when the Arabs speak at one time of what the Ba'l waters and at another of what the sky waters it is natural to assume that the two phrases mean the same thing,^ and to infer that the Baal is the sky or the god of the sky (Baal-sharaaini) who plays so great a part in later Semitic religion and is identified by Philo Byblius with the sun. But, strictly regarded, this view, which is natural in our climate, appears to be inconsistent with the conditions of vegetable growth in the Semitic lands, where the rainfall is precarious or confined to certain seasons. The surface moisture from the water of heaven is at most suflficient to raise one quick-growing crop, and the face of the earth is bare and lifeless for the greater part of the year, save where there is irrigation or a flow of water underground. The contrast between lands fertilised by rain and lands that need irrigation is a contrast of climate, whereas the peculiarity of Baal-land is one of soil or bottom, in a climate where most ground needs irrigation. And in fact the best Arab authorities expressly say that the bal is not fertiUsed by rain but by subterranean waters.^ 1 See Wellhausen, Moh. in Med. p. 420 (where however irrigated land is contrasted not simply with land fed by rains but with land fed by rains or flowing water); Heidenthum, p. 170. In my Prophets of Israel, p. 172, I have fallen into the same trap, which indeed was set by the less accurate of the later Arabic authorities : see the next note. 2 See the passages collected in De Goeje's Glossary to Baladhori and in the Lisan al-'Arab. When the Arabian empire extended to very various climates confusion naturally arose, and the true meaning of 6a7 was disputed out of mere ic^noranoe (see al-Azhari's criticism of al-Cotabi m the Lisa7o), or changed to suit changed conditions, as in Spain (De Sacy's Ghrest. Ar i. 225) The true Arabic name for land watered by rain alone, because it hes too high or too far for ii-rigation, is'idhy; such soil was little worth, as appears from the synonym bakhs. As regards the Jew.sh usage (Mishmc Sue iii. 3, Terum. x. 11, Shtbi. ii. 9, or ^])2n mtJ', B.B. lu. 1;](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21924120_0112.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
