Note 48 — Chapter I
Reading edition
With reference to the assimilation of the conceptions of human fertilization and watering the soil and the widespread idea among the ancients of regarding the male as "he who irrigates," Canon van Hoonacker gave M. Louis Siret the following note:—
"In Assyrian the cuneiform sign for water is also used, inter alia, to express the idea of begetting (banú). Compare with this the references from Hebrew and Arabic writings. In Isaiah xlviii. 1, we read 'Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah'; and in Numbers xxiv. 7, 'Water shall flow from his buckets and his seed shall be in many waters'.
"The Hebrew verb (shangal) which denotes sexual intercourse has, in Arabic (sadjala), the meaning 'to spill water'. In the Koran, Sur. 36, v. 6, the word mâ'un (water) is used to designate semen" (L. Siret, "Questions de Chronologie et d'Ethnographie Ibériques," Tome I, 1913, p. 250).