Note 409 — Chapter VI · THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MONARCHY

The name of Saul corresponds with the Babylonian Savul, a title of the Sun-god, though it might also be explained as a Hebrew word meaning ‘asked for.’ But one of the Edomite kings was also named Saul, and he is stated to have come from ‘Rehoboth (Assyrian Rêbit) by the river’ Euphrates (Gen. xxxvi. 37). This points to a Babylonian origin of the name. Kish, Saul’s father, has also the same name as the Edomite god Qos (in Assyrian Qaus), of which the Canaanitish Kishon is a derivative. As Saul’s successors in Edom were Baal-hanan and Hadad, while Hadad was a contemporary of Solomon, and El-hanan is said in 2 Sam. xxi. 19 to have been the slayer of Goliath, I have proposed (The Modern Review, v. 17, 1884) to see in the Saul and Baal-hanan of Edom the Saul and David of Israel. Saul is said to have fought against Edom (1 Sam. xiv. 47), and Doeg the Edomite was his henchman. But the proposal is excluded by two facts. The kings of Edom recorded in Gen. xxxvi. 31-39 reigned ‘before there was any king over the children of Israel,’ and Saul the son of Kish did not come from the Euphrates.