Shual: a district in the hill country near Ophrah, named as the destination of one company of Philistine raiders.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This is the same word Hebrew uses for a fox or jackal (שׁוּעָל), turned into the name of a place. Naming land after an animal was ordinary practice in ancient Israel: nearby, the town Shaalbim keeps an older, fuller form of that very same animal word.
The verse names "the land of Shual" as the destination of one company in a Philistine raiding party that split off from Michmash toward Ophrah. No other Bible verse mentions this place, and archaeologists have not identified its exact site with confidence; what the text tells us is only roughly where to look, somewhere along that road in the hill country north of Michmash.
1Sa 13:17
2
Shual: a man of the tribe of Asher, listed among the sons of Zophah in a family record.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This is the same word for a fox or jackal (שׁוּעָל) used instead as a man's name, the same pattern found elsewhere in the Bible, where everyday animal words became personal names: Caleb was built from the word for a dog, and Rachel from the word for a ewe.
Shual appears once, in the tribe of Asher's family record, listed among the sons of Zophah alongside four brothers. The verse says nothing more about him beyond his place in that list.
BDB and HALOT both note that the underlying noun for a fox or jackal supplied a number of Israelite place and personal names, including the Danite town Shaalbim, which preserves an older, fuller form of the same animal word. The district called Shual in 1 Samuel 13:17 is otherwise unattested in the Bible and has not been located with archaeological confidence; commentators place it somewhere along the road between Michmash and Ophrah, in the same general region as Shaalbim. Naming a child after an everyday animal was ordinary Israelite practice, illustrated by names such as Caleb, from the word for a dog, and Rachel, from the word for a ewe; the Shual of 1 Chronicles 7:36 fits this pattern and receives no further comment in the text beyond his place among the sons of Zophah in the Asherite genealogy.
In-depth research
This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.
Sources
BDB, s.v. שׁוּעָלlexicon
HALOT, s.v. שׁוּעָלlexicon
P. K. McCarter Jr., I Samuel (Anchor Bible 8; Doubleday, 1980), 228, 235-238commentary
R. W. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC 10; Word, 1983), on 13:17commentary
J. J. Stamm, Hebräische Frauennamen (1980)monograph
R. Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic Israelite Anthroponymy and Prosopography (Peeters, 1988)monograph