Hebrew word · H7777

שׁוּעָל

shu'al

Shual

As a common noun: fox or jackal (Judges 15:4; Song 2:15; Lamentations 5:18). As a proper name: the man named here, and also 'the land of Shual' (1 Samuel 13:17) and the related place Hazar-shual in the south (Joshua 15:28).

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament.

What it means

§ Shual = "jackal"

as Asherite, son of Zophah

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of 1 Chronicles 7:36

Range of meaning

As a common noun: fox or jackal (Judges 15:4; Song 2:15; Lamentations 5:18). As a proper name: the man named here, and also 'the land of Shual' (1 Samuel 13:17) and the related place Hazar-shual in the south (Joshua 15:28).

Against the English

English transliterates it as 'Shual', which hides the ordinary animal meaning a Hebrew hearer would have heard. Animal names were common personal names in Israel (Deborah 'bee', Jonah 'dove', Rachel 'ewe').

Used elsewhere in the period

The land of Shual lay near Ophrah, in the hill country where Benjamin and Ephraim meet. Nearby is the 'land of Shalishah' (1 Samuel 9:4), which echoes the name Shilshah in the next verse (1 Chronicles 7:37).

Where it appears

1 Samuel · 1

  1. 1 Samuel 13:17 שׁוּעָֽל׃ Shual

    And raiders went out of the Philistine camp in three divisions. One headed toward Ophrah in the land of Shual,

1 Chronicles · 1

  1. 1 Chronicles 7:36 וְשׁוּעָ֖ל and Shual

    The sons of Zophah: Suah, Harnepher, Shual, Beri, Imrah,

    Here: 'And' plus a name spelled the same as the ordinary Hebrew word for 'fox' or 'jackal.' The same word names 'the land of Shual' in the Benjamin–Ephraim hill country (1 Samuel 13:17).

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.