ASTRONOMY 30
to a primitive people. Thus, the earth figures as an indefinitely extended circular disk, Ij'ing between the realm of light above and the abyss of darkness be- neath. The word firmament urn, by which the Hebrew rakia (J?'p"l) is translated in the Vulgate, expressed the notion of a solid, transparent vault, di\'iding the "upper waters" from the seas, springs, and rivers far below. Through the agency of the flood-gates, however, the waters sustained by the firmament were, in due measure, distributed over the earth. The first visibility after sunset of the crescent moon determined the beginning of each month; and this was the only appeal to the skies made for the purposes of the Jewish ritual. Eclipses of the sun and moon are perhaps vaguely referred to among the signs of doom enumerated by the Prophets Joel and Amos, who may easily have enhanced their imagery from personal experience, since modern calculations show solar totalities to have been visible in Palestine in the years 831, 824, and 76.3 B. c, and the moon reddened by immersion in the earth's shadow is not an uncommon sight in any part of the world. But the passages in question cannot be literally asso- ciated with mere passing phenomena. The prophets aimed at something higher than intimidation. An express warning against ignoble panic was indeed uttered by Jeremias in the \\'ords: "Be not afraid of the signs of heaven, which the heathens fear" (x, 2). The stellar vault, conceived to be situated above the firmament, is compared by Isaias to a tent stretched out by the Most High. The "host of heaven", a frecjuently recurring Scriptural expres- sion, has both a general and a specific meaning. It designates, in some passages, the entire array of stars; in others it particularly applies to the sun, moon, planets, and certain selected stars, the wor- ship of which was introduced from Babylonia under the later kings of Israel. \'enus and Saturn are the only planets expressly mentioned in the Old Tes- tament. Isaias (xiv, 12) apostrophizes the Babylon- ian Empire under the unmistakable type of He- lal (Lucifer in the Vulgate), ".son of the morning"; and Saturn is no less certainly represented by the star Kaiwan, adored by the reprobate Israelites in the desert (Amos, v, 26). The same word (inter- preted to mean "steadfast") frequently designates, in the Babylonian inscriptions, the slowest-moving planet; while Sakkuth, the divinity associated with the star by the prophet, is an alternative appellation for Ni7iib, who, as a Babylonian planet-god, was merged with Saturn. The ancient Syrians and Arabs, too, called Saturn Kaiwari, the corresponding term in the Zoroastrian Bundahish being Kcvan. The other planets are individualized in the Bible only by implication. The worship of gods con- nected with them is denoimced, but without any manifest intention of referring to the heavenly bodies. Thus, Gad and Meni (Isaias, Ixv, 11) are, no doubt, the "greater and the lesser Fortune" typified throughout the East by Jupiter and Venus; Xeba, the tutelary deity of Borsippa (Isaias, xlvi, 1), shone in the sky as Mercury, and Xergal, transplanted from Assyria to Kutha (IV Kngs, xvii, 30), as Mars.
The uranography of the Jews is fraught with perplexity. Some half-dozen star-groups are named in the Scriptures, but authorities differ widely as to their identity. In a striking passage the Prophet Amos (v, 8) glorifies the Creator as " Him that made Kimah and Kesil" , rendered in the Vulgate as Arcturus and Orion. Now Kimah certainly does rot mean Arcturus. The word, which occurs twice in the Book of Job (ix, 9; xxxviii, 31), is treated in the Septuagint version as equivalent to Pleiades. This, also, is the meaning given to it in the Talmud and throughout Syrian literature; it is supported by etymological evidences, the Hebrew term being ob-
ASTRONOMY
\ iously related to the Arabic root kum (accumulate), and to the Assyrian kamu (to bind); while the "chains of Kimah", referred to in the sacred text, not inaptly figure the coercive power imparting unity to a multiple object. The associated constellation Kesil is doubtless no other than our Orion. Yet, in the first of the passages in Job where it figures, the Septuagint gives Herper; in the second, the Vulgate quite irrelevantly inserts Arcturus; Kai-stens Niebuhr (1733-1815) understood Kesil to mean Sirius; Thomas Hyde (1636-1703) held that it indicated Canopus. Now kesil signifies in Hebrew "foolish", or "impious", adjectives expressive of the stupid criminality which belongs to the legendary char- acter of giants; and the stars of Orion irresistibly suggest a huge figure striding across the sky. Tl\e Arabs accordingly named the constellation Al-gehbar, "the giant", the Syriac equivalent being Gabbara, "a strong man"; and Kesil is actually translated Gabbara in the okl Syriac version of the Bible known as the Peshitta. We may then safely admit that Kimah and Kesil did actually designate the Pleiades and Orion. But further interpretations are con- siderably more obscure. In the Book of Job — the most distinctively astronomical part of the Bible — mention is made, with other stars, of Ash and Ayish, almost certainly divergent forms of the same word. Its signification remains an enigma. The Vulgate and Septuagint inconsistently render it "Arcturus" and "Hesperus". Abenezra (1092-1167), however, the learned Rabbi of Toledo, gave such strong rea- sons for holding Ash, or Ayish, to mean the Great Bear, that the opinion, though probably erroneous, is still prevalent. It was chiefly grounded on the phonetic resemblance between ash and the Arabic na 'ash, "a bier", applied to the four stars of the Wain, the three in front figuring as mourners, under the title of Bendt na 'ash, "daughters of the bier". But Job, too, speaks of the "children of Ayish", and the inference seems irresistible that the same star- group was similarly referred to in both cases. Yet there is large room for doubt. Modern philologists do not admit the alleged connection of Ayish with na 'ash, nor is any funereal association apparent in the Book of Job. On the other hand. Professor Schiaparelli draws attention to the fact that ash denotes "moth" in the Old Testament, and that tlic folded wings of the insect are closely imitated in their triangular shape by the doubly aligned stars of the Hyades. Now Ayish in the Peshitta is trans- lated lyutha, a constellation mentioned by St. Eplu'cni and other Syriac writers, and Scliiaparelli's learned consideration of the various indications afforded by Arabic and Syriac literature makes it reasonably certain that lyutha authentically signifies Aldebaran, the great red star in the head of the Bull, with its children, the rainy Hyades. It is true that Hyde. Ewald, and other scholars have adopted Capella and the Kids as representative of lyutha, and therefore of "Ayish and her children"; but the view involves many incongruities. The glories of the sky adverteil to in the Book of Job inckide a sidereal landscape vaguely described as "the chambers [i. e. penetralia] of the south ". The phrase, according to Schiaparelli , refers to some assemblage of brilliant stars, rising 20 degrees at most above the southern horizon in Palestine about the year 7i)0 B. c. (assumed as the date of the Patriarch Job), and, taking account of the changes due to precession, he points out that the stellar pageant formed by the Ship, the Cross, and the Centaur meets the required conditions. Sirius, although at the date in question it culminated at an altitude of 41 ilegrees. may possibly have been thought of as belonging to the "chambers of the .south"; otherwise, this splendid object would appear to be ignored in the Bible. Job opposes to the "chambers of the south", as the source of cold, an
