The Astronomy of the Bible / An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References of Holy Scripture

It seems natural to conclude that these constellations, the most striking, or at all events the most universally recognized, would be those mentioned in the Bible.

The passages in which the Hebrew word Kīmah, is used are the following—

In our Revised Version, Kīmah is rendered "Pleiades" in all three instances, and of course the translators of the Authorized Version meant the same group by the "seven stars" in their free rendering of the passage from Amos. The word kīmah signifies "a heap," or "a cluster," and would seem to be related to the Assyrian word kimtu, "family," from a root meaning to "tie," or "bind"; a family being a number of persons bound together by the very closest tie of relationship. If this be so we can have no doubt that our translators have rightly rendered the word. There is one cluster in the sky, and one alone, which appeals to the unaided sight as being distinctly and unmistakably a family of stars—the Pleiades.

The names ‘Ash, or ‘Ayish, Kĕsīl, and Kīmah are peculiar to the Hebrews, and are not, so far as we have any evidence at present, allied to names in use for any constellation amongst the Babylonians and Assyrians; they have, as yet, not been found on any cuneiform inscription. Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa, living in the eighth century b.c., two centuries before the Jews were carried into exile to Babylon, evidently knew well what the terms signified, and the writer of the Book of Job was no less aware of their signification. But the "Seventy," who translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, were not at all clear as to the identification of these names of constellations; though they made their translation only two or three centuries after the Jews returned to Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah, when oral tradition should have still supplied the meaning of such astronomical terms. Had these names been then known in Babylon, they could not have been unknown to the learned men of Alexandria in the second century before our era, since at that time there was a very direct scientific influence of the one city upon the other. This Hebrew astronomy was so far from being due to Babylonian influence and teaching, that, though known centuries before the exile, after the exile we find the knowledge of its technical terms was lost. On the other hand, kīma was the term used in all Syriac literature to denominate the Pleiades, and we accordingly find in the Peschitta, the ancient Syriac version of the Bible, made about the second century a.d., the term kīma retained throughout, but kesil and ‘ayish were reduced to their supposed Syriac equivalents.

Whatever uncertainty was felt as to the meaning of kīmah by the early translators, it is not now seriously disputed that the Pleiades is the group of stars in question.

The word kīmah means, as we have seen, "cluster" or "heap," so also the word Pleiades, which we use to-day, is probably derived from the Greek Pleiones, "many." Several Greek poets—Athenæus, Hesiod, Pindar, and Simonides—wrote the word Peleiades, i. e. "rock pigeons," considered as flying from the Hunter Orion; others made them the seven doves who carried ambrosia to the infant Zeus. D'Arcy Thompson says, "The Pleiad is in many languages associated with bird-names, . . . and I am inclined to take the bird on the bull's back in coins of Eretria, Dicæa, and Thurii for the associated constellation of the Pleiad"[217:1]—the Pleiades being situated on the shoulder of Taurus the Bull.

The Hyades were situated on the head of the Bull, and in the Euphrates region these two little groups of stars were termed together, Mas-tab-ba-gal-gal-la, the Great Twins of the ecliptic, as Castor and Pollux were the Twins of the zodiac. In one tablet ’Îmina bi, "the sevenfold one," and Gut-dûa, "the Bull-in-front," are mentioned side by side, thus agreeing well with their interpretation of "Pleiades and Hyades." The Semitic name for the Pleiades was also Têmennu; and these groups of stars, worshipped as gods by the Babylonians, may possibly have been the Gad and Meni, "that troop," and "that number," referred to by the prophet Isaiah (lxv. 11).

On many Babylonian cylinder seals there are engraved seven small discs, in addition to other astronomical symbols. These seven small stellar discs are almost invariably arranged in the form :::' or :::· much as we should now-a-days plot the cluster of the Pleiades when mapping on a small scale the constellations round the Bull. It is evident that these seven little stellar discs do not mean the "seven planets," for in many cases the astronomical symbols which accompany them include both those of the sun and moon. It is most probable that they signify the Pleiades, or perhaps alternatively the Hyades.

Possibly, reference is made to the worship of the Pleiades when the king of Assyria, in the seventh century b.c., brought men from Babylon and other regions to inhabit the depopulated cities of Samaria, "and the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth." The Rabbis are said to have rendered this by the "booths of the Maidens," or the "tents of the Daughters,"—the Pleiades being the maidens in question.

Generally they are the Seven Sisters. Hesiod calls them the Seven Virgins, and the Virgin Stars. The names given to the individual stars are those of the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione; thus Milton terms them the Seven Atlantic Sisters.

As we have seen (p. 189), the device associated expressly with Joseph is the Bull, and Jacob's blessing to his son has been sometimes rendered—

That is, "the Seven Sisters," the Pleiades, are on the shoulder of Taurus.

Aratus wrote of the number of the Pleiades—

Euripides speaks of these "seven paths," and Eratosthenes calls them "the seven-starred Pleiad," although he describes one as "All-Invisible." There is a surprisingly universal tradition that they "were seven who now are six." We find it not only in ancient Greece and Italy, but also among the black fellows of Australia, the Malays of Borneo, and the negroes of the Gold Coast. There must be some reason to account for this widespread tradition. Some of the stars are known to be slightly variable, and one of the fainter stars in the cluster may have shone more brightly in olden time;—the gaseous spectrum of Pleione renders it credible that this star may once have had great brilliancy. Alcyone, now the brightest star in the cluster, was not mentioned by Ptolemy among the four brightest Pleiads of his day. The six now visible to ordinary sight are Alcyone, Electra, Atlas, Maia, Merope and Taygeta. Celoeno is the next in brightness, and the present candidate for the seventh place. By good sight, several more may be made out: thus Maestlin, the tutor of Kepler, mapped eleven before the invention of the telescope, and in our own day Carrington and Denning have counted fourteen with the naked eye.

In clear mountain atmosphere more than seven would be seen by any keen-sighted observer. Usually six stars may be made out with the naked eye in both the Pleiades and the Hyades, or, if more than six, then several more; though with both groups the number of "seven" has always been associated.

In the New Testament we find the "Seven Stars" also mentioned. In the first chapter of the Revelation, the Apostle St. John says that he "saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man, . . . and He had in His right hand seven stars." Later in the same chapter it is explained that "the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches; and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches." The seven stars in a single compact cluster thus stand for the Church in its many diversities and its essential unity.

This beautiful little constellation has become associated with a foolish fable. When it was first found that not only did the planets move round the sun in orbits, but that the sun itself also was travelling rapidly through space, a German astronomer, Mädler, hazarded the suggestion that the centre of the sun's motion lay in the Pleiades. It was soon evident that there was no sufficient ground for this suggestion, and that many clearly established facts were inconsistent with it. Nevertheless the idea caught hold of the popular mind, and it has acquired an amazing vogue. Non-astronomical writers have asserted that Alcyone, the brightest Pleiad, is the centre of the entire universe; some have even been sufficiently irreverent to declare that it is the seat of heaven, the throne of God. A popular London divine, having noticed a bright ring round Alcyone on a photograph of the group, took that halo, which every photographer would at once recognize as a mere photographic defect, as a confirmation of this baseless fancy. Foolishness of this kind has nothing to support it in science or religion; it is an offence against both. We have no reason to regard the Pleiades as the centre of the universe, or as containing the attracting mass which draws our sun forward in its vast mysterious orbit.

R. H. Allen, in his survey of the literature of the Pleiades, mentions that "Drach surmised that their midnight culmination in the time of Moses, ten days after the autumnal equinox, may have fixed the Day of Atonement on the 10th of Tishri."[221:1] This is worth quoting as a sample of the unhappy astronomical guesses of commentators. Drach overlooked that his suggestion necessitated the assumption that in the time of Moses astronomers had already learned, first, to determine the actual equinox; next, to observe the culmination of stars on the meridian rather than their risings and settings; and, third and more important, to determine midnight by some artificial measurement of time. None of these can have been primitive operations; we have no knowledge that any of the three were in use in the time of Moses; certainly they were not suitable for a people on the march, like the Israelites in the wilderness. Above all, Drach ignored in this suggestion the fact that the Jewish calendar was a lunar-solar one, and hence that the tenth day of the seventh month could not bear any fixed relation either to the autumnal equinox, or to the midnight culmination of the Pleiades; any more than our Easter Sunday is fixed to the spring equinox on March 22.

The Pleiades were often associated with the late autumn, as Aratus writes—

This is what is technically known as the "acronical rising" of the Pleiades, their rising at sunset; in contrast to their "heliacal rising," their rising just before daybreak, which ushered in the spring time. This acronical rising has led to the association of the group with the rainy season, and with floods. Thus Statius called the cluster "Pliadum nivosum sidus," and Valerius Flaccus distinctly used the word "Pliada" for the showers. Josephus says that during the siege of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes in 170 b.c., the besieged wanted for water until relieved "by a large shower of rain which fell at the setting of the Pleiades." R. H. Allen, in his Star-Names and their Meanings, states that the Pleiades "are intimately connected with traditions of the flood found among so many and widely separated nations, and especially in the Deluge-myth of Chaldæa," but he does not cite authorities or instances.

The Talmud gives a curious legend connecting the Pleiades with the Flood:—

It would seem from this that the Rabbis connected the number of visible stars with the number of the family in the Ark—with the "few, that is, eight souls . . . saved by water," of whom St. Peter speaks. Six Pleiades only are usually seen by the naked eye; traditionally seven were seen; but the Rabbis assumed that two, not one, were lost.

Perhaps we may trace a reference to this supposed association of Kīmah with the Flood in the passage from Amos already quoted:—

Many ancient nations have set apart days in the late autumn in honour of the dead, no doubt because the year was then considered as dead. This season being marked by the acronical rising of the Pleiades, that group has become associated with such observances. There is, however, no reference to any custom of this kind in Scripture.

What is the meaning of the inquiry addressed to Job by the Almighty?

What was the meaning which it possessed in the thought of the writer of the book? What was the meaning which we should now put on such an inquiry, looking at the constellations from the standpoint which the researches of modern astronomy have given us?

The first meaning of the text would appear to be connected with the apparent movement of the sun amongst the stars in the course of the year. We cannot see the stars by daylight, or see directly where the sun is situated with respect to them; but, in very early times, men learnt to associate the seasons of the year with the stars which were last seen in the morning, above the place where the sun was about to rise; in the technical term once in use, with the heliacal risings of stars. When the constellations were first designed, the Pleiades rose heliacally at the beginning of April, and were the sign of the return of spring. Thus Aratus, in his constellation poem writes—

They heralded, therefore, the revival of nature from her winter sleep, the time of which the kingly poet sang so alluringly—

The constellation which thus heralded the return of this genial season was poetically taken as representing the power and influence of spring. Their "sweet influences" were those that had rolled away the gravestone of snow and ice which had lain upon the winter tomb of nature. Theirs was the power that brought the flowers up from under the turf; earth's constellations of a million varied stars to shine upwards in answer to the constellations of heaven above. Their influences filled copse and wood with the songs of happy birds. Theirs stirred anew the sap in the veins of the trees, and drew forth their reawakened strength in bud and blossom. Theirs was the bleating of the new-born lambs; theirs the murmur of the reviving bees.

Upon this view, then, the question to Job was, in effect, "What control hast thou over the powers of nature? Canst thou hold back the sun from shining in spring-time—from quickening flower, and herb, and tree with its gracious warmth? This is God's work, year by year over a thousand lands, on a million hills, in a million valleys. What canst thou do to hinder it?"

The question was a striking one; one which must have appealed to the patriarch, evidently a keen observer and lover of nature; and it was entirely in line with the other inquiries addressed to him in the same chapter.

The Revised Version renders the question—

reading the Hebrew word Ma‘anaddoth, instead of Ma’adannoth, following in this all the most ancient versions. On this view, Job is, in effect, asked, "Canst thou gather together the stars in the family of the Pleiades and keep them in their places?"

The expression of a chain or band is one suggested by the appearance of the group to the eye, but it is no less appropriate in the knowledge which photography and great telescopes have given us. To quote from Miss Clerke's description of the nebula discovered round the brighter stars of the Pleiades—Alcyone, Asterope, Celœno, Electra, Maia, Merope and Taygeta:—

Later photographs have shown that not only are the several stars of the Pleiades linked together by nebulous filaments, but the whole cluster is embedded in a nebulous net that spreads its meshes far out into space. Not only is the group thus tied or bound together by nebulous clouds, it has other tokens of forming but a single family. The movements of the several stars have been carefully measured, and for the most part the entire cluster is drifting in the same direction; a few stars do not share in the common motion, and are probably apparent members, seen in perspective projected on the group, but in reality much nearer to us. The members of the group also show a family likeness in constitution. When the spectroscope is turned upon it, the chief stars are seen to closely resemble each other; the principal lines in their spectra being those of hydrogen, and these are seen as broad and diffused bands, so that the spectrum we see resembles that of the brightest star of the heavens, Sirius.

There can be little doubt but that the leaders of the group are actually greater, brighter suns than Sirius itself. We do not know the exact distance of the Pleiades, they are so far off that we can scarcely do more than make a guess at it; but it is probable that they are so far distant that our sun at like distance would prove much too faint to be seen at all by the naked eye. The Pleiades then would seem to be a most glorious star-system, not yet come to its full growth. From the standpoint of modern science we may interpret the "chain" or "the sweet influences" of the Pleiades as consisting in the enfolding wisps of nebulosity which still, as it were, knit together those vast young suns; or, and in all probability more truly, as that mysterious force of gravitation which holds the mighty system together, and in obedience to which the group has taken its present shape. The question, if asked us to-day, would be, in effect, "Canst thou bind together by nebulous chains scores of suns, far more glorious than thine own, and scattered over many millions of millions of miles of space; or canst thou loosen the attraction which those suns exercise upon each other, and move them hither and thither at thy will?"

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VII

ORION

Kĕsīl, the word rendered by our translators "Orion," occurs in an astronomical sense four times in the Scriptures; twice in the Book of Job, once in the prophecy of Amos, and once, in the plural, in the prophecy of Isaiah. In the three first cases the word is used in conjunction with Kīmah, "the Pleiades," as shown in the preceding chapter. The fourth instance is rendered in the Authorized Version—

The Hebrew word Kĕsīl signifies "a fool," and that in the general sense of the term as used in Scripture; not merely a silly, untaught, feckless person, but a godless and an impious one. Thus, in the Book of Proverbs, Divine Wisdom is represented as appealing—

What constellation was known to the ancient Hebrews as "the fool"? The Seventy who rendered the Old Testament into Greek confess themselves at fault. Once, in Amos, both Kīmah and Kĕsīl are left untranslated. Instead of "Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion," we have the paraphrase, "That maketh and transformeth all things." Once, in Job, it is rendered "Hesperus," the evening star; and in the other two instances it is given as "Orion." The tradition of the real meaning of the word as an astronomical term had been lost, or at least much confused before the Septuagint Version was undertaken. The Jews had not, so far as there is any present evidence, learned the term in Babylon, for the word has not yet been found as a star-name on any cuneiform inscription. It was well known before the Exile, for Amos and Isaiah both use it, and the fact that the author of Job also uses it, indicates that he did not gain his knowledge of the constellation during the Babylonian captivity.

The majority of translators and commentators have, however, agreed in believing that the brightest and most splendid constellation in the sky is intended—the one which we know as Orion. This constellation is one of the very few in which the natural grouping of the stars seems to suggest the figure that has been connected with it. Four bright stars, in a great trapezium, are taken to mark the two shoulders and the two legs of a gigantic warrior; a row of three bright stars, midway between the four first named, suggest his gemmed belt; another row of stars straight down from the centre star of the belt, presents his sword; a compact cluster of three stars marks his head. A gigantic warrior, armed for the battle, seems thus to be outlined in the heavens. As Longfellow describes him—

In accord with the form naturally suggested by the grouping of the stars, the Syrians have called the constellation Gabbārā; and the Arabs, Al Jabbār; and the Jews, Gibbōr. The brightest star of the constellation, the one in the left knee, now generally known as Rigel, is still occasionally called Algebar, a corruption of Al Jabbār, though one of the fainter stars near it now bears that name. The meaning in each case is "the giant," "the mighty one," "the great warrior," and no doubt from the first formation of the constellations, this, the most brilliant of all, was understood to set forth a warrior armed for the battle. There were gibbōrim before the Flood; we are told that after "the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men (gibbōrim) which were of old, men of renown."

But according to Jewish tradition, this constellation was appropriated to himself by a particular mighty man. We are told in Gen. x. that—

and it is alleged that he, or his courtiers, in order to flatter him, gave his name to this constellation, just as thousands of years later the University of Leipzic proposed to call the belt stars of Orion, Stellæ Napoleonis, "the Constellation of Napoleon."[234:1]

There was at one time surprise felt, that, deeply as the name of Nimrod had impressed itself upon Eastern tradition, his name, as such, was "nowhere found in the extensive literature which has come down to us" from Babylon. It is now considered that the word, Nimrod, is simply a Hebrew variant of Merodach, "the well-known head of the Babylonian pantheon." He was probably "the first king of Babylonia or the first really great ruler of the country." It is significant, as Mr. T. G. Pinches points out, in his Old Testament in the Light of the Records from Assyria and Babylonia, that just as in Genesis it is stated that "the beginning of his (Nimrod's) kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh," so Merodach is stated, in the cuneiform records, to have built Babel and Erech and Niffer, which last is probably Calneh. The Hebrew scribes would seem to have altered the name of Merodach in two particulars: they dropped the last syllable, thus suggesting that the name was derived from Marad, "the rebellious one"; and they prefixed the syllable "Ni," just as "Nisroch" was written for "Assur." "From a linguistic point of view, therefore, the identification of Nimrod as a changed form of Merodach is fully justified."

The attitude of Orion in the sky is a striking one. The warrior is represented as holding a club in the right hand, and a skin or shield in the left. His left foot is raised high as if he were climbing a steep ascent, he seems to be endeavouring to force his way up into the zodiac, and—as Longfellow expresses it—to be beating the forehead of the Bull. His right leg is not shown below the knee, for immediately beneath him is the little constellation of the Hare, by the early Arabs sometimes called, Al Kursiyy al Jabbār, "the Chair of the Giant," from its position. Behind Orion are the two Dogs, each constellation distinguished by a very brilliant star; the Greater Dog, by Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens; the Lesser Dog, by Procyon, i.e. the "Dog's Forerunner." Not far above Orion, on the shoulder of the Bull, is the little cluster of the Pleiades.

There are—as we have seen—only three passages where Kīmah, literally "the cluster" or "company,"—the group we know as the Pleiades,—is mentioned in Scripture; and in each case it is associated with Kĕsīl, "the fool,"—Orion. Several Greek poets give us the same association, likening the stars to "rock-pigeons, flying from the Hunter Orion." And Hesiod in his Works and Days writes—

There is a suggestion of intense irony in this position of Orion amongst the other constellations. He is trampling on the Hare—most timid of creatures; he is climbing up into the zodiac to chase the little company of the Pleiades—be they seven doves or seven maidens—and he is thwarted even in this unheroic attempt by the determined attitude of the guardian Bull.

A similar irony is seen in the Hebrew name for the constellation. The "mighty Hunter," the great hero whom the Babylonians had deified and made their supreme god, the Hebrews regarded as the "fool," the "impious rebel." Since Orion is Nimrod, that is Merodach, there is small wonder that Kĕsīl was not recognized as his name in Babylonia.[238:1]

The attitude of Orion—attempting to force his way upward into the zodiac—and the identification of Merodach with him, gives emphasis to Isaiah's reproach, many centuries later, against the king of Babylon, the successor of Merodach—

In the sight of the Hebrew prophets and poets, Merodach, in taking to himself this group of stars, published his shame and folly. He had ascended into heaven, but his glittering belt was only his fetter; he was bound and gibbeted in the sky like a captive, a rebel, and who could loose his bands?

In the thirteenth chapter of Isaiah we have the plural of kĕsīl—kĕsīlim. It is usually understood that we have here Orion, as the most splendid constellation in the sky, put for the constellations in general. But if we remember that kĕsīl stands for "Nimrod" or "Merodach," the first proud tyrant mentioned by name in Scripture, the particular significance of the allusion becomes evident—

The strictly astronomical relations of Orion and the Pleiades seem to be hinted at in Amos and in Job—

In this passage the parallelism seems to be between the seven stars, the Pleiades, with sunrise, and Orion with sunset. Now at the time and place when the constellations were mapped out, the Pleiades were the immediate heralds of sunrise, shortly after the spring equinox, at the season which would correspond to the early part of April in our present calendar. The rising of Orion at sunset—his acronical rising—was early in December, about the time when the coldest season of the year begins. The astronomical meaning of the "bands of Orion" would therefore be the rigour in which the earth is held during the cold of winter.

It is possible that the two great stars which follow Orion, Sirius and Procyon, known to the ancients generally and to us to-day as "the Dogs," were by the Babylonians known as "the Bow-star" and "the Lance-star"; the weapons, that is to say, of Orion or Merodach. Jensen identifies Sirius with the Bow-star, but considers that the Lance-star was Antares; Hommel, however, identifies the Lance-star with Procyon. In the fifth tablet of the Babylonian Creation epic as translated by Dr. L. W. King, there is an interesting account of the placing of the Bow-star in the heavens. After Merodach had killed Tiamat—

Dr. Cheyne even considers that he has found a reference to these two stars in Job xxxviii. 36—

But this interpretation does not appear to have been generally accepted. The same high authority suggests that the astronomical allusions in Amos may have been inserted by a post-exilic editor, thus accounting for the occurrence of the same astronomical terms as are found in Job, which he assigns to the exilic or post-exilic period. This seems a dangerous expedient, as it might with equal reason be used in many other directions. Further, it entirely fails to explain the real difficulty that kīmah and kĕsīl have not been found as Babylonian constellation names, and that their astronomical signification had been lost by the time that the "Seventy" undertook their labours.

Quite apart from the fact that the Babylonians could not give the name of "Fool" to the representation in the sky of their supreme deity, the Hebrews and the Babylonians regarded the constellation in different ways. Several Assyriologists consider that the constellations, Orion and Cetus, represent the struggle between Merodach and Tiamat, and this conjecture is probably correct, so far as Babylonian ideas of the constellations are concerned, for Tiamat is expressly identified on a Babylonian tablet with a constellation near the ecliptic.[241:1] But this means that the myth originated in the star figures, and was the Babylonian interpretation of them. In this case, Cetus—that is Tiamat—must have been considered as a goddess, and as directly and immediately the ancestress of all the gods. Orion—Merodach—must have been likewise a god, the great-great-grandson of Tiamat, whom he destroys.

The Hebrew conception was altogether different. Neither Merodach, nor Tiamat, nor the constellations of Orion and Cetus, nor the actual stars of which they are composed, are anything but creatures. Jehovah has made Orion, as well as the "Seven Stars," as "His hand hath formed the crooked serpent." By the mouth of Isaiah He says, "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord, do all these things." The Babylonian view was of two divinities pitted against each other, and the evil divinity was the original and the originator of the good. In the Hebrew view, even the powers of evil are created things; they are not self-existent.

And the Hebrews took a different view from the Babylonians of the story told by these constellations. The Hebrews always coupled Orion with the Pleiades; the Babylonians coupled Orion with Cetus—that is, Merodach with Tiamat.

The view that has come down to us through the Greeks agrees much better with the association of the constellations as held amongst the Hebrews, rather than amongst the Babylonians. The Hunter Orion, according to the Greeks, chased the Pleiades—the little company of Seven Virgins, or Seven Doves—and he was confronted by the Bull. In their view, too, the Sea-monster was not warring against Orion, but against the chained woman, Andromeda.

FOOTNOTES: