So, in Arabic, _hrm_, an unused root, meant, _"was high," "made great," "exalted_;" and _Hîrm_ means an _ox_, the symbol of the Sun in Taurus, at the Vernal Equinox.
KHURUM, therefore, improperly called _Hiram_, is KHUR-OM, the same as _Her-ra_, _Her-mes_, and _Her-acles_, the "_Heracles Tyrius Invictus_," the personification of Light and the Son, the Mediator, Redeemer, and Saviour. From the Egyptian word _Ra_ came the Coptic _Oūro_, and the Hebrew _Aūr_, Light. _Har-oeri_, is _Hor_ or _Har_, the chief or _master_. _Hor_ is also heat; and _hora_, season or hour; and hence in several African dialects, as names of the Sun, _Airo, Ayero, eer, uiro, ghurrah_, and the like. The royal name rendered _Pharaoh_, was PHRA, that is, _Pai-ra_, the Sun.
The legend of the contest between _Hor-ra_ and _Set_, or _Set-nu-bi_, the same as _Bar_ or _Bal_, is older than that of the strife between _Osiris_ and _Typhon_; as old, at least, as the nineteenth dynasty. It is called in the Book of the Dead, "The day of the battle between Horus and Set." The later myth connects itself with Phoenicia and Syria. The body of OSIRIS went ashore at _Gebal_ or _Byblos_, sixty miles above Tsūr. You will not fail to notice that in the name of each murderer of Khūrūm, that of the Evil God Bal is found.
Har-oeri was the god of TIME, as well as of Life. The Egyptian legend was that the King of Byblos cut down the tamarisk-tree containing the body of OSIRIS, and made of it a column for his palace. Isis, employed in the palace, obtained possession of the column, took the body out of it, and carried it away. Apuleius describes her as "a beautiful female, over whose divine neck her long thick hair hung in graceful ringlets;" and in the procession female attendants, with ivory combs, seemed to dress and ornament the royal hair of the goddess. The palm-tree, and the lamp in the shape of a boat, appeared in the procession. If the symbol we are speaking of is not a mere modern invention, it is to these things it alludes.
The identity of the legends is also confirmed by this hieroglyphic picture, copied from an ancient Egyptian monument, which may also enlighten you as to the Lion's grip and the Master's gavel.
[Hebrew: אב], in the ancient Phoenician character, [Symbols], and in the Samaritan, [Symbols], A B, (the two letters representing the numbers 1, 2, or Unity and Duality, means _Father_, and is a primitive noun, common to all the Semitic languages.)