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Cornell University Library
BS1191 .S32 1905
Astronomy in the Old Testament, by G. Sc
olin
3 1924 029 281 842
The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029281842
ASTRONOMY IN THE
OLD TESTAMENT
BY
G. SCHIAPARELLI
DIRECTOR OF THE BR ERA OBSERVATORY IN MILAN
AUTHORIZED ENGLISH TRANSLATION
WITH MANY CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS
BY THE AUTHOR
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1905 &
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH
NEW YORK AND TORONTO
NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR
THE author of this book is the Director of the
Brera Observatory in Milan, and his great reputation
as an astronomer causes special interest to attach to
his views on Biblical astronomy. He has been kind
enough to revise his work throughout for the purpose
of the English translation, and also to criticize and
amend the translation itself.
The translator, who has undertaken the work at the
request of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, has
to express his great obligations to the Rev. Dr.
Driver, Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University
of Oxford, and to Mr. A. E. Cowley, Sub-Librarian
of the Bodleian Library and Fellow of Magdalen
College. Both these gentlemen have read the transla-
tion and made important corrections ; and, while they
cannot be held responsible in all cases for the form
which it has finally taken, any claims to accuracy which
it may possess are due to their assistance.
PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR
THIS little book was published for the first time in
Italian in 1903, forming No. $$% of the scientific series
in the large collection of Manuals which are being
published in Milan by Ulrico Hoepli. A German
translation was published at Giessen in 1904, contain-
ing some changes and corrections. All these alterations
have been adopted in the present version, together
with many others which are entirely new.
In presenting it to English readers, I feel bound to
express my sincere gratitude to the Delegates of the
Clarendon Press and to the translator, who have inter-
ested themselves in its publication and have assisted
in rendering it less imperfect. Their observations on
some doubtful assertions, and on certain points which
were open to dispute and not clearly expressed, have
led me to make various improvements and to introduce
important additions and corrections. Special thanks
are also due to my kind and learned friend Monsignor
Antonio Ceriani, Prefect of the Ambrosian Library at
Milan, who rendered indispensable help in my con-
sultation of some Syriac and Rabbinical works.
Some readers may perhaps notice that not a word
is said in this book about some truly sensational
novelties which have been published recently (especi-
ally by some learned German Assyriologists) in regard
to the astronomical mythology of the ancient peoples
Preface v
of nearer Asia, and to the great influence which this
mythology is supposed to have exercised upon the
historical traditions of the Hebrews, upon their reli-
gious usages, and upon the whole literature of the
Old Testament. It cannot be denied that those
novelties have a strict connexion with the subject of
the present book. When we read, for example, that
the seven children of Leah (counting Dinah among
them) represent or are represented by the seven
planets of astrology 1 , we are led to the important
conclusion that, at the date when the traditions con-
cerning the family of Jacob were being formed, the
Hebrews had some knowledge of the seven planets.
And when, in connexion with the story of Uriah, it
is indicated that, in the three personages of David,
Bathsheba, and Solomon, an allusion is contained to
the three zodiacal signs of Leo, Virgo, and Libra 2 ,
we must infer that not only the zodiac, divided into
twelve parts, but also the twelve corresponding figures
or symbols were known to the first narrator of the
story of David under a form analogous to that which
we have borrowed from the Greeks. Now it is certain
that these and other still more important conclusions
could not have been passed over in silence had they
already been brought to the degree of certainty, or at
least of probability, which history requires. But I do
not believe myself to be exaggerating when I say that
these investigations are still in a state of change and
1 Winckler, Geschichte Israels, ii. 58 and 122; Zimmera, in KAT?
p. 625. Dinah is naturally made to correspond to the planet Venus or
I§tar.
1 Winckler, in KAT? p. 223.
vi Preface
much uncertainty. When we consider, further, the
freedom with which the writers of this school use
their own imagination as instrument of research — and
the ease with which they construct vast edifices of
conjecture on narrow and shifting foundations — no
one can be surprised that these ingenious and subtle
speculations are very far from having obtained the
unanimous agreement of the men who are capable of
forming an independent judgement on these difficult
subjects.
So much may be said to explain why, in this little
book, which is intended for ordinary readers, I have
not considered it opportune to take account of in-
vestigations which cannot be held to have brought
certain results to knowledge. Any one who desires
to form some idea of the principles and methods of
this school will find a short but substantial account
of them in Professor Winckler's book Die Weltan-
schauung des alten Orients, recently published at
Leipzig. So far as the Hebrew people are more
specially concerned, fuller information is contained in
the second volume of the same author's Geschichte
Israels, and in Alfred Jeremias's work Das Alte
Testament im Lichte des alten Orie7its. The general
results for the whole of the Semitic East are to be
found fully expounded in the volume which Winckler
and Zimmern have published jointly, under the form
of a third edition of Schrader's well-known work Die
Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament,
G. SCHIAPARELLI.
Milan :
June 30, 1905.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. Introduction i
The people of Israel, its learned men and its
scientific knowledge. — Nature and poetry. —
General view of the physical world as given in
the Book of Job. — Criticism of the sources.
II. The Firmament, The Earth, The Abysses . 22
General arrangement of the world. — The earth's
disk. — Limits of the regions known to the Jews. —
The earth's foundations. — The abyss and Sheol.
— The firmament. — The upper and lower waters.
— Theory of subterranean waters and of springs,
of rain, snow, and hail : the clouds. — General
idea of Hebrew cosmography.
III. The Stars 39
The sun and the moon. — Their course stopped
by Joshua and others. — Allusions to a total
eclipse, probably that of 831 B.C. — The heaven
of stars. — The host of heaven. — The planets :
Venus and Saturn. — Comets and bolides. — Fall
of meteorites. — Astrology.
Table of names of stars.
IV. The Constellations 53
Difficulty of the subject. — 'Ash (ox'Aytsh) and her
children. — Kesil and Kesilim. — Kimah. — The
chambers of the south. — Mezarim. — The serpent ?
— Rahab.
V. Mazzaroth 74
Mazzaroth or Mazzaloth. — Various interpreta-
tions of this name. — It cannot be the Great
Bear. — It probably represents the two phases
of Venus. — Comparison of a Biblical expression
with some Babylonian monuments. — The host of
heaven reconsidered.
viii Table of Contents
CHAP. PAGE
VI. The Day and its Division .... 90
The evening at a certain point of twilight regarded
as the beginning of day. — ' Between the two
evenings.' — Divisions of the night and of the
natural day. — The so-called sundial of Ahaz. —
No mention of hours in the Old Testament. — The
Aramaic shdah.
VII. The Jewish Months 102
Lunar months. — Determination of the new moon.
— Order of the months, and beginning of the year
at different epochs of Jewish history. — Phoenician
months. — Numerical names employed from the
time of Solomon onwards. — Adoption of the
Babylonian months after the exile.
VIII. The Jewish Year 114
Different commencements of the year at different
epochs. — Determination of the Paschal Month.
— What the ancient Jews knew about the dura-
tion of the year. — Use of the octaeteris. —
Astronomical schools in the Jewish communities
of Babylonia.
IX. Septenary Periods 130
The Babylonian lunar week and the free Jewish
week. — The repose of the Sabbath. — The year
of liberty. — The year of remission. — The Sab-
batic Year. — Epochs of the Sabbatic Year. —
The Jewish Jubilee. — Questions relating to its
origin and use.
Appendix I . . 161
The constellation 'Iyutha in the Syriac writers.
Appendix II 163
Kimah, 'Ayis/ty Mazzaroth.
Appendix III 175
The week, and the week of weeks, among the
Babylonians.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
■
The people of Israel, its learned men and its scientific knowledge.—
Nature and poetry. — General view of the physical world as given
in the Book of Job. — Criticism of the sources.
i. It did not fall to the lot of the Hebrew people to have
the glory of creating the beginnings of the sciences, or even
to raise to a high level of perfection the exercise of the fine
arts: both these achievements belong to the great and im-
perishable honours of the Greeks. The Jews were not a
nation of conquerors; they had little or no knowledge of
profound political problems, or of the administrative science
which has brought such distinction to the name of Rome.
Their natural gifts, as well as the course of events, carried
them to a different mission of no smaller importance — that of
purifying the religious sentiment and of preparing the way
for monotheism. Of this way they marked the first clear
traces. In the laborious accomplishment of this great task
Israel lived, suffered, and completely exhausted itselC Israel's
history, legislation, and literature were essentially co-ordinated
towards this aim ; science and art were for Israel of second-
ary importance. No wonder, therefore, that the steps of
the Jews' advance in the field of scientific conceptions and
speculations were small and feeble : no wonder that in such
respects they were easily vanquished by their neighbours on
the Nile and the Euphrates.
It would, however, be incorrect to suppose that the Jews
were indifferent to the facts of nature, that they paid no
attention to the spectacles provided by her in such marvellous
SCH. B
. / v_>
2 Astronomy in the Old Testament
variety, or that they made no attempt to offer any kind
of explanation of them. On the contrary, in every part of
their literary remains their profound feeling for nature rises
to the surface ; and it is manifest how open was their mind
to acute observations of phenomena and to admiration for
all that is beautiful or impressive in them. Their explanation
of natural events (so far as it is still possible to trace it in
the indications, fragmentary and often uncertain, which are
scattered in chance references in the books of the Old
Testament) seems to us, as always happens with primitive
cosmologies, much more fantastic than rational; yet it was
not so exclusively a work of the imagination as to degenerate
into arbitrary or unbridled mythology, in the manner which
we observe among the Aryans of India or the Hellenes of
prehistoric times. It was connected exclusively with the
worship of Yah we : to His omnipotence the Jews referred the
existence of the world; they made its changes depend on
His will, regarded as subject to frequent alteration ; thus the
possibility never presented itself to their minds that the opera-
tions of the material world occurred in accordance with laws
invariably fixed. Hence they gained the foundation of a simple
and clear cosmology, in perfect accord with religious ideas,
suitable for giving complete satisfaction to men of a primitive
type and of simple mind, who were full of imagination and
feeling, but not much accustomed to analyse phenomena
or their causes.
2. Further, we ought not even to suppose that wisdom was
not held in due honour among the children of Israel, and
that there were not among them men eminent for superior
knowledge and culture, who gained through the possession
of these qualities the high esteem of their fellow countrymen.
When the whole nation recognized David as their king,
eleven of the twelve tribes thought it sufficient to complete
the act of recognition by sending to Hebron the hosts of
Introduction 3
their warriors in arms. One tribe alone, that of Issachar,
sent at the head of the troops 200 of their best and wisest
citizens to take part in the deputation. The author of the
Books of Chronicles 1 tells us : 'of the sons of Issachar came
men that had understanding of the times, to know what
Israel ought to do; the heads of them were 200; and all
their brethren were at their bidding/ This ' understanding
of the times' is referred by some interpreters to the arrange-
ments of the calendar, rendered important among the Jews
by the need of regulating their festivals and sacrifices : and
this opinion seems not to be devoid of probability 3 .
The same author speaks in another place of three families
dwelling in the town of Jabez, renowned for having exercised
from father to son the profession of scribe, that is to say, of
literature 3 . Great was also the reputation of the wise men
of Edom, a country inhabited by a people scarcely different
from Israel, and long considered by them as brothers. The
author of the Book of Job has put into the mouth of five
Edomite sages his most profound reflections concerning
the origin of evil and universal justice. The wisdom of the
Edomites and their prudence in important decisions had
passed into a proverb*.
One of the greatest praises bestowed upon Solomon has
1 1 Chron. xii. 3a.
* The opinion of Reuss and Gesenius, who see in these learned men
of Issachar so many astrologers, seems to me less probable ; 200
astrologers for one of the smaller tribes seem to be excessive. It may
also be donbted whether real astrologers existed in Israel at this epoch.
The Septuagint takes the matter differently, translating — ytv&<iK0VT£s
ovvtaiv els tovs rcatpovs. SeeReuss's Commentary; Gesenius's TAes.-p. 994.
3 1 Chron. ii. 55. I adhere to the sense in which this passage has
been understood by the Septuagint and in the Vulgate, though the majority
of modern translators dissent from it. As for the ' City of Books '
(Qiryatk-sephcr, Judg. i. 11 sqq.), that would rather be evidence for the
culture of the Canaanites than of the Israelites.
4 Obad. 8; Jer. xlix. 7 ; Baruch iii. 22.
B 2
4 Astronomy in the Old Testament
reference to his vast scientific knowledge. We read in the
first Book of Kings 1 : ' The wisdom of Solomon was greater
than the wisdom of all the men of the East, and of all the
Egyptians. He was wiser than all men ; wiser than Ethan
the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Calcol, and Darda, the sons
of Mahol ; and his fame was in all the nations round about.
... He spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is on
Lebanon even to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall ;
he spake also of beasts, and of birds, and of creeping things,
and of fishes/ Here we see that several sages of less
celebrity than Solomon, men like Ethan, Heman, Calcol,
and Darda, held a distinguished place in the memory of their
fellow countrymen.
In the Book of Wisdom (vii. 17-21), Solomon is intro-
duced speaking of himself according to the popular view:
* God gave me an unerring knowledge of all things that are,
to know the constitution of the world and the operation of
the elements; the beginning, and end, and middle of times,
the circuits of years, and the dispositions of stars, the alterna-
tions of the solstices, and the changes of seasons ; the nature
of living creatures, and the raging of wild beasts, the violence
of winds, and the thoughts of men; the diversities of plants,
and the virtues of roots. All things that are secret and un-
foreseen, I learned, for she that is the artificer of all things
taught me, even wisdom/
3. From the first the contemplation of the created world
was exalted by the Jews to the honours of poetical treatment.
In no other ancient literature has nature given to poets more
copious and purer springs of inspiration. On this subject
Alexander von Humboldt has expressed some noble and
true thoughts: 'It is characteristic of Hebrew poetry in
reference to nature that, as a reflex of monotheism, it always
embraces the whole world in its unity, comprehending the
1 1 Kings iv. 30-33.
Introduction 5
life of the terrestrial globe as well as the shining regions of
space. It dwells less on details of phenomena, and loves to
contemplate great masses. Nature is portrayed, not as self-
subsisting, or glorious in her own beauty, but ever in relation
to a higher, an over-ruling, a spiritual power. The Hebrew
bard ever sees in her the living expression of the omni-
presence of God in the works of the visible creation. Thus,
the lyrical poetry of the Hebrews in its descriptions of nature
is essentially, in its very subject, grand and solemn V
4. The similes and comparisons in the Biblical writers,
taken from the heaven, the earth, the abysses, the sea, the
phenomena of air and water, and from the whole animal and
vegetable world, are numberless. The vivid impression
which those writers received from this source finds expression
of the sublimest kind in the work of one of their greatest
thinkers, the author of the Book of Job. In chapters xxxviii
and xxxix, which may be considered to be one of the finest
passages of Hebrew literature, God is Himself introduced as
speaking, with the object of convincing Job that he is wrong
to lament his misfortunes, unmerited though they are.. He
makes Job see that he has no knowledge of the dispositions
according to which the world is constituted and governed,
and that he cannot comprehend any part of the designs of
the Almighty. With this aim in view He places before Job's
eyes, in order, the great mysteries of nature, so that Job may
be convinced of his ignorance and nothingness :
38 2 Who is this that darkeneth counsel
By words without knowledge ?
3 Gird up now thy loins like a man ;
For I will ask of thee, and declare thou unto me.
4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ?
Declare, if thou hast understanding.
1 A. von Humboldt, Cosmos (Eng. tr. by Lt-CoL E. Sabine, ii. 44).
6 Astronomy in the Old Testament
5 Who determined the measures thereof, if thou knowest ?
Or who stretched the line upon it ?
6 Whereupon were the foundations thereof fastened?
Or who laid the corner stone thereof;
7 When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy ?
8 Or who shut up the sea with doors,
When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb ;
9 When I made the cloud the garment thereof,
And thick darkness a swaddlingband for it,
10 And prescribed for it my decree,
And set bars and doors,
11 And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further;
And here shall thy proud waves be stayed ?
12 Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days began,
And caused the dayspring to know its place ?
16 Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?
Or hast thou walked in the recesses of the deep ?
17 Have the gates of death been revealed unto thee ?
Or hast thou seen the gates of the shadow of death ?
18 Hast thou comprehended the breadth of the earth?
Declare, if thou knowest it all.
19 Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
And as for darkness, where is the place thereof ;
20 That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof,
And that thou shouldest discern the paths to the house
thereof ?
21 Doubtless, thou knowest, for thou wast then born,
And the number of thy days is great !
22 Hast thou entered the treasuries of the snow,
Or hast thou seen the treasuries of the hail,
23 Which I have reserved against the time of trouble,
Against the day of battle and war ?
24 By what way is the light parted,
Or the east wind scattered upon the earth ?
25 Who hath cleft a channel for the water-flood,
Or a way for the lightning of the thunder ;
26 To cause it to rain on a land where no man is ;
On the wilderness, wherein there is no man ;
Introduction 7
27 To satisfy the waste and desolate ground ;
And to cause the tender grass to spring forth ?
28 Hath the rain a father ?
Or who hath begotten the drops of dew ?
29 Out of whose womb came the ice ?
And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it ?
30 The waters are hidden as with stone,
And the face of the deep is frozen.
31 Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades,
Or loose the bands of Orion ?
82 Canst thou lead forth the Mazzaroth 1 in their season ?
Or canst thou guide *Ayish and her children ?
33 Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens ?
Canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the
earth?
34 Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds,
That abundance of waters may cover thee ?
35 Canst thou send forth lightnings, that they may go,
And say unto thee, Here we are ?
• •••••♦••■
37 Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven,
38 When the dust runneth into a mass,
And the clods cleave fast together ?
39 Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lioness ?
Or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
40 When they couch in their dens,
And abide in the covert to lie in wait ?
41 Who provideth for the raven his food,
When his young ones cry unto God,
And wander for lack of meat ?
39 Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rode
bring forth ?
Or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve ?
2 Canst thou number the months that they fulfil ?
Or knowest thou the time when they bring forth ?
3 They bow themselves, they bring forth their young,
They cast out their sorrows.
1 On Mazzaroth and % Ayisk t see below §§41, 63, and 69.
8 Astronomy in the Old Testament
4 Their young ones are in good liking, they grow up in the
open field ;
They go forth, and return not again.
5 Who hath sent out the wild ass free ?
Or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass ?
6 Whose house I have made the wilderness,
And the salt land his dwelling place.
7 He scorneth the tumult of the city,
Neither heareth he the shoutings of the driver.
8 The range of the mountains is his pasture,
And he searcheth after every green thing.
9 Will the wild-ox be content to serve thee ?
Or will he abide by thy crib ?
10 Canst thou bind the wild-ox with his band in the furrow ?
Or will he harrow the valleys after thee ?
11 Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great?
Or wilt thou leave to him thy labour ?
12 Wilt thou confide in him, that he will bring home thy seed,
And gather the corn of thy threshing-floor ?
13 The wing of the ostrich rejoiceth ;
But are her pinions and feathers kindly ?
14 For she leaveth her eggs on the earth,
And warmeth them in the dust,
15 And forgetteth that the foot may crush them,
Or that the wild beast may trample them.
16 She is hardened against her young ones, as if they were
not hers :
Though her labour be in vain, she is without fear ;
17 Because God hath deprived her of wisdom,
Neither hath he imparted to her understanding.
18 What time she lifteth up herself on high,
She scorneth the horse and his rider. "'
19 Hast thou given the horse his might?
Hast thou clothed his neck with the quivering mane ?
20 Hast thou made him to leap as a locust ?
The glory of his snorting is terrible.
21 He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength :
He goeth out to meet the armed men.
22 He mocketh at fear, and is not dismayed ;
Neither turneth he back from the sword.
Introduction 9
23 The quiver rattleth upon him,
The flashing spear and the javelin.
24 He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage ;
Neither standeth he still at the sound of the trumpet.
25 As oft as the trumpet soundeth he saith, Aha !
And he smelleth the battle afar off,
The thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
26 Doth the hawk soar by thy wisdom,
And stretch her wings toward the south ?
27 Doth the eagle mount up at thy command,
And make her nest on high ?
28 She dwelleth on the rock, and hath her lodging there,
Upon the crag of the rock, and the strong hold.
29 From thence she spieth out the prey ;
Her eyes behold it afar off.
30 Her young ones also suck up blood :
And where the slain are, there is she.
40 2 Shall he that cavilleth contend with the Almighty ?
He that argueth with God, let him answer it.
This superb enumeration, which will only appear long to
those who are accustomed to judge everything according to
the ideas of their own time, contains a complete picture of
the physical world, such as perhaps had not previously been
conceived by any one. Nor is this the only review of the
works of nature with which we meet in the Old Testament.
There are, besides, the well-known account offered by
Genesis in the story of the creation, and the grand descrip-
tion to be found in Psalm civ 1 . Noteworthy also, if shorter
and less complete, are the other picture in Job (ch. xxvi),
and those in Psalms cxxxvi and cxlviii and in Proverbs
(ch. viii). We see that this subject, both through its grandeur
and through its variety, riveted the imagination of the people,
1 We may add that in Ecclus. xliii, and the one contained in the
Song of the Three Children in the furnace (Dan. iii. 52-90, Apoc),
which are wanting in the Hebrew Bible and are to be considered as more
recent imitations.
io Astronomy in the Old Testament
and gave to their greatest poets opportunities for attractive
pictures which are capable of arousing admiration as much
now, and at all times, as they were then.
5. In these fine passages there emerges beyond all other
considerations the admiring and enthusiastic contemplation
of the heaven, the earth, the abysses, in short, of the whole
grand fabric of the universe. And, as mystery is always the
source of marvel and wonder, the effect on these minds,
ignorant of doubt and criticism, was so much the greater, as
the heavens, the earth below its surface, the bottom of the
sea, the abysses, were considered to be secrets, inscrutable to
human thought. 'Knowest thou the ordinances of the
heavens ? ' is a question which God asks of Job along with
a number of others which are equally hard to answer \ The
same conception is to be found in the Book of Wisdom :
' And hardly do we divine the things that are on earth, and
the things that are close at hand we find with labour ; but the
things that are in the heavens, who ever yet traced out 2 ?' It
was considered impossible for man to arrive at the under-
standing of such secrets ; and hence every attempt to acquire
it was useless, unless it were gained by special gift of God,
as appears to have been understood to be the case with
Solomon 3 . But what chiefly alienated the Jews from the
study of the visible heavens was the consideration that the
neighbouring nations of Mesopotamia had been conducted
from astronomy to astrology, and from astrology to astrolatry,
that is to say, to the worship of the sun, the moon, l and
all the host of heaven ' : a worship which was, for the Jews,
no less of an abomination than sacrifices to Baal, Astarte, or
Moloch, and had become all the more detestable since the
time when, under certain kings of Judah, such a cultus had
finally penetrated into Jerusalem, and profaned the Temple
1 Job xxxviii. 33. a Wisd. ix. 16.
8 This is expressly affirmed in Wisd. vii. 17, in Solomon's name.
Introduction n
of Yahwe itsel£ Accordingly the prophets never wearied of
threatening the most terrible judgements on star- worshippers.
One of the greatest writers of the Exile, the anonymous
author of the second part (ch. xl-lxvi) of the book bearing
the name of Isaiah, when foretelling the humiliation of Baby-
lon, exclaimed 1 : * There arise, therefore, in thy help the
measurers of the heaven, the star-gazers, who, at each new
moon, proclaim the things that shall come upon thee. Be-
hold, they are as stubble, the fire burneth them; they
deliver not themselves from the power of the flame/ Jere-
miah says to the sinners of the kingdom of Judah a : ' In
that day, saith the Lord, shall the bones of the king of Judah
be brought out of their graves, and the bones of his princes,
and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets,
and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And they
shall be spread before the sun, and the moon, and all the
host of heaven, which they have loved and served, and after
which they have walked, and which they have sought, and
which they have worshipped ; they shall not be gathered nor
buried, but shall be for dung upon the face of the earth/
Similarly, Zephaniah, speaking in the name of the Lord 3 :
1 1 will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and I will scatter . . . those
that worship the host of heaven upon the house-tops, and
after worshipping and swearing to the Lord, swear to Milcom
also/ In Isaiah we find horror against star-worship carried
to the point of causing him to predict the destruction of the
stars 4 : 'And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and
the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, and all their
host shall fall down, as a leaf falleth off from a vine or
from a fig-tree/ The enforced contact into which Israel
was destined to come with her oppressors of Nineveh and
1 Isa. xlvii. 13, 14. ■ Jer. viii. 1, 2. 8 Zeph. i. 4, 5.
4 Isa. xxxiv. 4.
12 Astronomy in the Old Testament
Babylon, certainly could not induce her to participate in their
customs, their arts, and their science ; she concentrated her-
self on her own struggle and her own hopes, looking for
better times.
6. In view of these considerations, there is no occasion for
surprise in the fact that astronomy among the Jews remained
practically at the stage which we know to have been attained
(and, for that matter, sometimes surpassed) by some native
peoples of America and Polynesia. But the Jews have had
the fortune to preserve through the centuries the better
part of their literature, and the still more remarkable fortune
of seeing this literature spread through the whole world as
the primary basis of Christianity, and thus become the
intellectual heritage, if not of the largest, at any rate of the
most intelligent part of the human race. It follows that,
much more than with the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the
Phoenicians, and the early Arabs, we are in a position to form
a definite idea of the Jewish astronomical notions and of Jewish
cosmography, favoured as we are in this by the fact that
the Biblical writers make so many allusions to these subjects.
This thought has moved me to believe that it might be
a work of some interest to discover what ideas the ancient
Jewish sages held regarding the structure of the universe,
what observations they made of the stars, and how far they
made use of them for the measurement and division of time.
It is certainly not in this field that Jewish thought appears
in its greatest originality or power. Yet it is also true
that nothing can be indifferent in the life of that remarkable
people whose historical importance is certainly not less for
us than that of the Greeks and Romans.
7. The foundation for such researches must naturally be
laid in the Hebrew text of the books composing the Old
Testament, wherever, that is to say, we feel secure that our
interpretation of its sense is correct. It must, indeed, be
Introduction 13
admitted that we are still far from this position; there is
a large number of words and phrases in regard to which
the most eminent commentators have not been able to agree.
And in this number many are words describing astro-
nomical facts and phenomena. It might be supposed that
we ought here to hope for much assistance from the ancient
versions, and especially from the Septuagint, a translation
made by Hellenistic Jews not more than two or three
centuries after Ezra, and consequently at an epoch when
the genuine tradition as to the meaning of every Hebrew
word in the sacred writings should have still been alive
among the doctors of the Law. But in actual fact I have
not found that this hope is materially confirmed, at least
in the, present instance: whether because in treating of
subjects which may be described as technical and not always
familiar to the majority of men, it easily happened that the
true meaning of the words relating to them became rapidly
lost; or because in this version and the others comparable
to it in point of antiquity (Aquila, Symmachus, the Vulgate,
the Peshitta), made exclusively for religious use and for the
edification of the faithful, it was not really necessary and not
even particularly useful to take trouble in seeking for an
irreproachable version of such scientific minutiae, which in
many cases could not be found. In such cases of grave
doubt I have had no other alternative open to me than to
leave the judgement to the reader without prejudice, after
having faithfully expounded the position of the question and
having placed before him the opinions of the most authori-
tative interpreters and commentators, while at the same time
indicating what views appear unlikely and which seem to
have the greatest probability in their favour.
8. This is not, however, the only difficulty with which
our undertaking meets. Under one name, and in one volume
of no great bulk, the Old Testament contains many writings
14 Astronomy in the Old Testament
of very different epochs ; and it would be hard to assert that
they all contained an absolutely identical conception of the
world and of celestial phenomena. And although it is true
that, as we are treating of ideas which are quite primitive
and depend upon the simplest testimony of the senses, we
cannot look for much diversity in such a subject-matter,
we must also admit that discrepancies in details are found
here and there between one writer and another. We have
an example of this in the theories of rain held by the
authors of Genesis and of Job. Yet, speaking generally, so
far as cosmology is concerned, all the writers appear to have
conceived the facts of nature according to a common type
of view which does not vary in its main outlines.
One meets with more difference between the various
epochs of Biblical Judaism in what concerns the manner
of marking the divisions of time, and in the use of fixed
septenary periods. It is impossible to grasp these sub-
jects in their historical order, without determining approxi-
mately, in regard to some of the writers cited in evidence,
the period at which they lived: in several cases, and
especially in those of the writers in the Pentateuch (who
are the most important), these epochs still form the subject
of the hottest disputes. Thus, to take an example, in order
to judge adequately of the historical value of the surviving
notices affecting the great half-century period of the Jubilee,
it is necessary to know approximately at what epoch chapters
xxv and xxvii of Leviticus were written: some believe
these chapters to be the work of Moses himself, others
date their composition about 1,000 years later, after Ezral
9. The critical analysis of the Pentateuch, both literary
and historical, is a difficult problem, on which the most
learned investigators have been engaged with the greatest
industry for a century and a half; unfortunately, the results
have not always been proportionate to the extent and merits
Introduction 15
of their labours. Their researches, being conducted by
methods mostly conjectural (and indeed the material rarely
admits the use of any others) and founded on criteria that
are too often entirely subjective, have led from the first
to a chaos of discordant conclusions. For in this, as in
all scientific problems of great complication and difficulty,
it seems that the human mind is condemned not to attain
the truth without having first tried a large number of
mistaken hypotheses and passed through a whole labyrinth
of error. However, the patience and perseverance of these
investigators has occasionally been rewarded by the dis-
covery of some particular facts which they have succeeded
in proving in a manner sufficiently plausible and convincing.
The accurate study of these facts, and of their relationship,
and the careful arrangement of them have borne good fruit.
In the midst of many aberrations and contradictions, there
has gradually come to be traced out during the last fifty
years a line of inquiry which is less arbitrary and founded
on more secure principles, the results of which, successively
corrected by severe criticism, seem to rest on a foundation
sufficiently solid to inspire a definite degree of confidence.
I allude to the theory of Reuss and Graf, with which many
Of the most authoritative scholars have recently come to
agree l : it will suffice to name Wellhausen, who, in his
1 Two Italian writers have also founded their important labours on
the hypothesis of Reuss : Castelli (Storia degli Israelili t a vols., Hoepli,
Milan, 1887-8), and Revel (Letteratura Ebraica, 2 vols., Hoepli, Milan,
1 888). Both deserve praise for the spirit of fairness and moderation
which they have brought to the treatment of these thorny problems.
Castelli in another work (La Legge del popolo Ebred) has further
proposed some additions and modifications to Reuss's theory. [The
English reader may be referred to Reuss' s own work VHistoire Sainte
tt la Loi (1879), being the introductory volume to his translation into
French of the entire Bible. See also W. Robertson Smith's Old Testa-
ment in the Jewish Churchy or Driver's Introduction to the Literature
of the Old Testament.]
i6 Astronomy in the Old Testament
Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels \ has established its
foundations in the clearest and most rigorous fashion. If
we strip off from these writers' arguments as much as appears
to be less securely asserted and less effectually proved, there
yet remains the possibility of establishing with sufficient
historical probability this important fact: that the final
redaction of the Pentateuch, far from being contemporary
with the entry of the children of Israel from Egypt to the
land of Canaan, belongs rather lo the latest times of Biblical
Judaism, and forms, so to speak, its final and most complete
product. The Pentateuch appears as a compilation of
religious, historical, and legislative matter, belonging to the
most different epochs, from Moses to after Ezra: a com-
pilation the materials of which are not always fused together,
but very frequently placed merely in juxtaposition, so as to
allow an approximate reconstitution of the original docu-
ments, or at any rate a probable classification according to
tendencies and dates.
10. As regards its religious and legislative part, which
affords more facilities for analysis, we can distinguish three
strata : —
(i) The First Code or Book of the Covenant 1 , which repre-
sents for us the most ancient and most simple form of
the laws of Mosaism. This has been preserved (though not,
as it appears, quite completely) in Exodus, chapters xxi-
xxiii, and is preceded by the Decalogue which forms a sort
of introduction to it. Its date is uncertain ; but I shall show
hereafter by certain internal marks that it ought in any case
to be considered as earlier than the age of Solomon. I
believe that it very probably represents the first codification
of the ancient usages and rites of the people of Israel,
according to the principles and traditions traced to Moses.
1 Sephtr Btrith, expressly cited under this name in Exod. xxiv. 8.
Introduction 17
•
(ii) The Prophetic Code, including the greater part of what
we now call Deuteronomy 1 , represents the collection of the
laws of Moses as they were understood by the prophets
of the two centuries preceding the destruction of the first
Temple. This too is preceded by the Decalogue, which
serves as an introduction to it. It is generally allowed that
the " book of the law," found in the Temple and proclaimed
by King Josiah of Judah 2 in 621 B.C., was no other than
the Prophetic Code, (iii) All the other laws of the Penta-
teuch which remain after excluding the First Code and the
Prophetic Code are comprehended (with some small ex-
ceptions) in the Priestly Code y so called because of the great
prominence assumed in it by the exposition of ritual and
the theory of ceremonies. These laws take the form, not so
much of a real code, as of a collection of rules and ordinances
of every age, imperfectly arranged, some of them repeating,
with more or less modification, those of the earlier codes,
others seeming to reproduce under the form of the service
of the tabernacle the ritual of Solomon's Temple ; the greater
part contains all the studies and speculations made during
the exile and from the exile down to comparatively late
times (i.e. to about 400 b.c) on the civil and religious order
which was to be given to the new hierocratic community,
which was gradually being formed round the second Temple.
11. To the Priestly Code there came to be united a brief
narrative of the origins of the world and of man, the story
of the flood and the patriarchs, of the liberation from Egypt,
of the law given at Sinai, and the conquest of the land of
Canaan. This narrative, distinguished by its mass of num-
bers and genealogical schemes, was intended primarily to
serve as an historical introduction to the Mosaic laws, and
as a commentary illustrating their origin and the reason for
their existence — without entering too much into other par-
1 Strictly speaking, Deut. v-xxv. a 2 Kings xxii-xxiii.
sch. C
18 Astronomy in the Old Testament
ticulars. Fortunately, the compiler of the Pentateuch had
at his disposal, besides this account, another of the same
facts, far more detailed and picturesque, gathered from old
chronicles, songs, and popular oral traditions, at a time
much nearer to the events related, while the kingdoms of
Israel and Judah still existed before the Assyrian invasion.
This second narrative was interwoven by him with the first,
and to it is principally due that simple and inimitable beauty
which distinguishes the historical part of the Pentateuch.
The two narratives are so different in style, and the final
compiler has so religiously preserved the original diction
(only making excisions when useless repetitions would other-
wise have occurred), that very often it is possible successfully
to separate what belongs to the one or the other of the two
narrators \ and to judge in this way what degree of antiquity
or authority is to be attributed to this or that particular of
the facts related.
This much may suffice to give an idea of the criteria
on which I have believed that I ought to rely, in cases
where it is of importance to have some kind of notion of
the date at which a given passage was written, whether in
the Pentateuch, or in the Book of Joshua, which may be
1 This must not, however, be carried to the extreme of supposing that
we can separate and assign to their authors every chapter or verse or
fragments of verses, as some have recently believed that they can. As
in such an operation analysis endeavours to pass the fixed limits within
which a reasonable agreement can be obtained, and within which such
an agreement has in fact been obtained, it falls on the shifting and
difficult ground of personal opinions, and criticism ceases to be a science
worthy of respect. On this and other abuses in the analysis and
interpretation of the Biblical texts, see the severe and just reflections of
Prof. F. Scerbo in his work entitled, // Vecchio Testamento e la critica
odierna, Florence, 1902 ; and in the same sense Castelli, Storia cUgh
Israelii i, Introd. pp. lvii-lviii. The result of these excesses has been to
create in regard to these studies an atmosphere of doubt and distrust
which is extremely injurious to the cause of truth.
Introduction 19
considered as an appendix dependent on the same sources.
Speaking generally, the conclusions to which I have been
brought within the narrow field of my present studies have con-
firmed the accuracy of these criteria, and have thus contributed
something towards establishing them still more firmly.
For other books of the Old Testament, the chronological
question does not exist, or at least it does not exist in such
a way as to assume much importance. None of the his-
torical books, beginning with the Book of Judges and going
down to the Books of Chronicles, has giveri rise to such
grave differences of opinion as those of which the Pentateuch
and the Book of Joshua are still the subject. On the other
hand, the date of some of the so-called Hagiographa, and
especially of the collections of Psalms and Proverbs and
the Book of Job (which is so important for our pur-
pose), is still more or less uncertain. But it will be seen
that the notices taken from these sources belong for the
most part to the general heritage of Jewish wisdom, and
the precise determination of their date rarely has to be con-
sidered as of great importance for our purpose.
12. So much may be said about the books of the Old
Testament, which are our principal and practically our only
source of information. It may now be asked whether the
people of Israel, which is found at different times in close
contact with peoples of advanced culture, such as were the
Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and the Babylonians, might not
have absorbed a portion of their ideas: in which case we
should have a new line of evidence.
To this it may be answered that, so far as Egypt is
concerned, the many years which the Jews according to
tradition passed there before the time of Moses, do not
seem to have left many noteworthy traces upon them. The
Jews took but little from the Egyptians : so little as to give
rise in some modern writers to the supposition that the
c 2
20 Astronomy in the Old Testament
sojourn in Egypt and the exodus following upon it are pure
legend and devoid of historical foundation.
The culture of the Phoenicians, who belonged to the
family of the Canaanites and spoke a language which was
almost identical with that of the Jews, was certainly bound
to exercise a powerful influence over them : signs of this
are found in the oldest Jewish calendar, but still more in
the continued tendency, lasting through several centuries
and only repressed with difficulty, to fall into the idolatry
of the Canaanites. A comparison of the Biblical writings
with the historical, religious, and literary monuments of the
Phoenicians would therefore be interesting in many respects.
Unfortunately, nearly all these monuments are lost; nor can
the so-called Sanchuniathon give any assistance for our
object. We can only imagine in general that the Phoe-
nicians, being accustomed to commerce on a large scale
and to long voyages, must have possessed, more than
other peoples, extensive and exact notions of geography,
astronomy, meteorology, and the principles of navigation :
what these were, it is no longer possible to know. From
the Phoenician inscriptions, however, some information can
be derived relating to the oldest Jewish calendar which was
in use down to the times of Solomon.
The case is rather more favourable in regard to the
Babylonians, on whose literature the cuneiform inscriptions
begin to throw some light. In the course of this book oppor-
tunities will occur from time to time for making useful and
interesting comparisons between the cosmographical con-
ceptions of the Jews and of the Babylonians. Yet these are
not so numerous as some might imagine. In spite of the
close analogy between the two languages, pointing to a
common origin, the wide difference between the historical
evolution of the two peoples has resulted in destroying many
important similarities and producing many profound differ-
Introduction 21
ences. I will content myself, remaining within the limits of
my subject, with pointing to the deeply significant fact that
of the five or six names of constellations occurring in the Old
Testament, not one has been hitherto recognized among the
numerous names of constellations found on the cuneiform
inscriptions. Nor should this give rise to any surprise.
Even after having subjugated and assimilated the peoples of
Canaan, the Israelites preserved many traditions from the
time when they wandered in the state of nomadic tribes in
the deserts of Arabia and Syria. The Babylonians, on the
other hand, were heirs of the Sumerian culture, adopted its
principal elements, and developed in a totally different
direction from the Jews.
It is no doubt possible that, in the Jewish writings of the
Hellenistic and the Talmudic periods, cosmological ideas are
here and there concealed, which are derived from Babylonian
science. This is perhaps the case with the singular cosmo-
graphy adopted in the pseudonymous Book of Enoch,
presenting noteworthy analogies with the cosmography which
we find expounded in the sacred books of Mazdeism 1 .
These analogies would in themselves provide a problem
worthy of study, and they would probably result in the belief
that the Jews and the Mazdeists derived the doctrine in
question from a common source, which could only be
Babylonian science in the last stage of its evolution. The
problem would lie outside the limits set for the present work,
in which it is proposed only to consider pure Biblical
Hebraism, and not Hebraism as modified by Hellenism and
by the influence of oriental doctrines.
1 Not, strictly speaking, in the extant part of the Avesta, bnt
in the treatise Bundahish, the material of which is believed to be
derived from lost books of the Avesta, i.e. from the Ddmddd iVask and
perhaps also from the Nddar Nask, the 4th and 5th books of the twenty-
one which originally composed the Avesta. (See West, Pahlavi Texts ,
iv. 14, 414, 421, 434, 445, 465.)
CHAPTER II
THE FIRMAMENT, THE EARTH, THE ABYSSES
General arrangement of the world. — The earth's disk. — Limits of the
regions known to the Jews, — The earth's foundations. — The abyss
and Sheol. — The firmament. — The upper and lower waters. —
Theory of subterranean waters and of springs, of rain, snow, and
hail : the clouds. — General idea of Hebrew cosmography.
13. About the form and general arrangement of the visible
world the Jews had much the same ideas as we find originally
in all peoples, ideas which have satisfied at every time the
greater part of men even among nations with a pretence to
culture : in fact, the cosmography of appearances.
A nearly plane surface including the continents and seas
constituted the earth destined for men's habitation. The
universe was divided into two parts, upper and lower.
Above was heaven, the Hebrew shamqyim or the uplifted x y
with the appearance of a large vault supported round about
upon the extreme parts of the earth. Heaven includes all
the upper part of the world : it is the kingdom of light and
of meteors, and the stars revolve in its highest part Under
the surface of the earth are the actual mass of the earth, and
the depth of the sea, forming together the lower part of the
universe, dark and unknown : this came, in opposition to
heaven, to be described by the name (thorn (or plural tehomdth)
1 If at least we may accept Gesenius's derivation from the root saw J,
which is preserved in Arabic with the meaning alius fuit f and also
apparens, conspicuusfuit. (Gesenius, Thcs. p. 1433, nomen habei coelum
ab elatione et allitudine,)
The Firmament \ Earth , Abysses 23
having the sense of depth and rendered by abyss in the Greek
and Latin translations of the Bible, a word which has now
passed into general use among ourselves also \
14. The vast plain of the earth, partly occupied by the
sea, partly by continents studded with mountains and furrowed
by rivers, is of a circular shape, like the heaven which covers
it; it is surrounded by water which extends as far as the
point where the heaven begins. So we read in the Book of
Job (xxvi. 10) that God ' fixed a circle as limit to the waters,
at the boundary of light and darkness ' : that is to say, at the
point where the illuminated part of the world (land, sea, and
heaven) comes into contact with the dark part (the abysses
and the depth of the sea). Similarly in Proverbs (viii. 27)
mention is made of the time when God ■ drew the circle which
is over the surface of the deep/ This circle can be nothing
else than the visible limit where the heaven and the
sea encircling the continents touch each other round about.
It is probably to this circle that allusion is made in Job (xxii.
14) where God is described as * walking in the circuit of
heaven ' — that is to say, the spherical space bounded by the
circle which forms the limit of heaven and earth. The
distance between heaven and earth and the dimensions of
1 Gesenius derives tZhom from the root hum, signifying disturbance,
violent motion, confusion : whence this word could be applied to the
sea and to any large body of water. The Biblical writers certainly
often use ttkom in the former sense, more rarely in the latter. This
agrees well with the recently-noticed analogy with the Assyrian tiamtu =
sea, see Schrader, KA T. ' p. 6 [ The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old
Testament : English translation by O. C. Whitehouse, where the
German pages are given in the margin]. But, that the Jews always
included in the word tZhom the idea of depth, even when using it of the
sea, is proved by the tradition (in this respect most trustworthy) of
the LXX ; there it is invariably considered as equivalent to afivaaos,
which implies great depth, or, strictly speaking, something bottomless.
The passages of the Bible in which this word indicates the lower or deeper
parts of the universe, will be collected further on.
24 Astronomy in the Old Testament
earth itself are immense and such that no man can measure
them. * Who hath fixed the measures of the earth ? ' God
asks of Job (xxxviii. 5), * or who placed the line above it to
measure it ? ' And elsewhere (xxxviii. 18) : ' Hast thou known
the breadth of the earth ? declare it me, thou who knowest
everything/ So absurd did the idea of being able to measure
heaven and earth appear, that Jeremiah makes the Lord say,
to indicate something impossible (xxxi. 37): * When the
heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the
earth can be searched out beneath, then only will I cast off
from me all the seed of Israel/ The great height of the
heavens and the circular form of the earth are clearly
indicated in Isaiah (xl. 22): 'He (the Lord) sitteth on high
above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants of it are to
him as locusts 1 / In the centre of the terrestrial circle is
Palestine, Jerusalem being the absolute centre : ' Thus saith
the Lord : this is Jerusalem ; I have placed her in the midst of
1 The word used here is hug= circle ; from the same root comes
mehugah = compass (Isa. xliv. 13). The phrase orbis terrarum, so
common in the Vulgate, is to be understood to imply (as always with
Latin writers) the whole of the known regions of the earth, without
adding any idea of roundness. Similarly, the word Erdkreis and the
inappropriate form Erdball t which German translators have introduced
into the Bible where Erde alone would have been the literal equivalent,
are to be understood in the same way. From a passage in Isaiah (xi. 12)
and another in Ezekiel (vii. 2), where mention is made of the four
kanephoth of the earth, some have wished to conclude that the Jews
pictured the earth to themselves as square : but there is little ground
for this theory. The parallel passages of Isaiah (xxiv. 16) and Job
(xxxvii. 3 and xxxviii. 13) show that the allusion here is to the extreme
parts of the terrestrial disk, corresponding to the directions of the four
principal winds (see below, § 22). This is the only possible way of
reconciling the four kanephoth with the circular form of the earth and
the heaven. — The four edges of the earth recall the title ■ King of the
four parts of the earth ' (tar kibrat irbitti) which is used by many
kings of Babylonia and Assyria and contains an analogous idea (see
Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier, p. 167 sqq.).
The Firmament \ Earth, Abysses 25
the nations, and all the lands are in a circle round about
her V
15. On the plain thus described there are arranged round
the centre the nations of the earth and Noah's descendants,
as expounded in Genesis x. They occupy round the centre
a space whose limits, for the Jews before the exile, did not
exceed thirty degrees (about 1875 English miles), whether
latitudinally or longitudinally. The furthest countries in any
sense known were: to the east, Persia and Susiana {Paras
and Elam), with Media (Madai) 2 : to the north, Caucasia,
Armenia, the regions of Asia Minor along the Black Sea
(Magog, Togarmah, Ararat, Gomer)*; to the west, the
southern outskirts of Greece, the Archipelago, Ionia (Elisha,
Javan), Crete (CaphtorT), and the Libyan peoples west of
Egypt (Lubim) ; to the south, Ethiopia (Cush, Phut ?), Yemen
{Saba), Hadramaut (Hazarmaveih), and eastern Arabia (Ophtr,
Regma [R.V. Raamah]), completed the circle. Of the
southern extremity of Europe they had only a general and
1 Ezek. v. 5. In the Vulgate and LXX the navel of the earth is
mentioned more than once (Judg. ix. 37; Ezek. xxxviii. 12). Recent
interpreters, instead of this, translate by c lofty places ' or c heights of the
earth,* understanding the word ' navel ' in a metaphorical sense. We
cannot, therefore, use these texts as evidence of Jewish cosmography.
The conception of Jerusalem's central position was also adopted by
some Christian writers of the first centuries and of the Middle Ages : it
formed, as is well known, a fundamental point in Dante's geography.
3 Some believe the 'land of Sinim' (Isa. xlix. 12) actually to
represent China. This hypothesis is more ingenious than probable.
The LXX evidently did not think of China, as they translate Ik yijs
Tlepawv. See, on the other side, Gesenius, Thes. pp. 948-50. The opinion
which would recognize in Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal (Ezek. xxxviii. 1, 3)
the names of Russia, Moscow, and Tobolsk, is entirely absurd. But it
is probable that Hodu (Esther i. 1, and viii. 9) does really represent India,
some knowledge of which, after the expedition of Alexander, might
have reached as far as Palestine [so A.V. and R.V.].
3 For Ezekiel (xxxviii. 6), Togarmah is the most northerly country of
the inhabited earth.
26 Astronomy in the Old Testament
very confused idea (' the islands of the nations '), which they
undoubtedly derived from the stories of the Phoenicians who
had told them of the marvels of Tarshish l .
The Jews knew, besides the Mediterranean (called by them
yam haggadol, i.e. great sea, or yam haaharon, i. e. western sea),
the Red Sea {yam suph, i. e. sea of weeds, or yam Mizrayim,
i. e. sea of Egypt), and the Dead Sea {yam hammelah, i. e. sea
of salt, oryam ha'arabah, i. e. sea of the steppe). They may
possibly, even before the exile, have had some knowledge of the
Persian Gulf and the Black Sea ; but no mention of them is
found in the books of the Old Testament. A passage in
Genesis might lead us to believe that they conceived all the seas
as being in communication with each other 2 . But in that case
the connexion with the Dead Sea could be only subterranean.
Besides the portions inhabited by Noah's descendants
there were other districts, imagined rather than known,
extending to the great surrounding sea which was supposed
to touch the columns of heaven, that is to say, the base of
the great vault 8 . Genesis and several of the prophets 4 speak
of the ' garden of God ' in the region called Eden, the first
home of Adam and Eve. They seem to have thought of
this place as in the eastern parts of the earth, a supposition
which was preserved throughout Christian tradition down to
Christopher Columbus. Still more east than Eden they
placed the land of Nod (LXX, Na/8), the abode of Cain and
his descendants (Gen. iv. 16).
1 This was an exceedingly rich country situated in the extreme west
at a great and uncertain distance. It is not quite certain to what it
corresponds : a plausible hypothesis, resting on the authority of the
LXX, is that it refers to Carthage.
2 Gen. i. 9 : * Let all the waters that are beneath the heaven be
gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.*
8 For the foundations and columns of heaven, see a Sam. xxii. 8,
Job xxvi. ii.
* Gen. ii. 8, iv. 16; Ezek.xxxi.8,o, 16, i8,xxxvi.35; Isa.li. 3; Joel it 3.
The Firmament, Earth, Abysses 27
16. The plain formed of earth and seas was thought of as
finite, and as included within fixed limits, which are frequently
mentioned 1 . The earth is firmly fixed in its place: we
often hear of its foundations and of its corner-stones 2 , by ^
a simile taken from human buildings. Not that these corner
points are to be regarded as resting on a base ; for on what
then would the base rest? They are simply fixed unalter-
ably by the Divine will; and the earth cannot move from
them in any respect, except when Yahwe himself shakes
them, as happens in an earthquake 3 . The earth then, with
its corners fixed, has no need of a base or support outside
itself: thus alone can we understand the expression in Psalm
cxxxvi that 'the earth is founded on the waters/ and how
Job can say (xxvi. 7) that the earth is 'founded upon
nothing/ These are simple indications of relative position.
The upper part of the earth, as we shall see, stands above the
lower waters ; all the mass, therefore, of the earth, including
these waters, is suspended in space, and consequently rests
upon nothing.
17. The terrestrial mass, which supports the continents
and seas in its upper part, extends in depth to the lowest part
of the universe : to this extension, as has been already said,
the Jews gave the name of iehom, implying depth. We may
conveniently render this by abyss (or deep), ' Thy judgements
are a great abyss/ says the author of Psalm xxxvi to the
Lord, meaning to indicate inscrutable profundity. 'Thou
1 Dent, xxviii. 64; Job xxviii. 24, xxxvii. 3; Jer. x. 13; Ps. ii. 8,
lxxii. 8, and many other passages mention the limits of the earth. The
limits of the sea are alluded to in Job xxvi. 10, xxxviii. 8-1 1 ; Prov.
viii. 29 ; Jer. v. 22.
a Out of many passages the following may be cited : 1 Sam. ii. 8 ;
2 Sam. xxii. 16 ; Job ix. 6 ; 1 Chron. xvi. 30 ; Job xxxviii. 4., 6 ; Ps.
xviii. 15, lxxv. 3, xciii. 1, xcvi. 10, civ. 5 ; Jer. xxxi. 37 ; Prov. viii. 29.
3 The earthquake is mentioned in 1 Kings xix. 11-12; Job ix. 6:
Isa.xxix.6 ; Ezek. xxxviii. 19 ; Amps i. 1 ; Zech. xiv. 5 ; and elsewhere.
28 Astronomy in the Old Testament
hast brought me again from the abysses of the earth/ says
the author of Psalm lxxi to the Lord : that is to say, from
the depth of misery. In Psalm cxxxv the abyss is counted
as part of the universe : ' Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that
did He in heaven, in earth, in the sea, and in all the abysses ; '
where the enumeration begins with the highest places
(heaven), and descends, step by step, to the lowest 1 . But
more often the abyss is connected with the idea of the
subterranean waters. 'He hath gathered the waters of the
sea in one mass, and laid up the abysses in storehouses'
(Ps. xxxiii. 7) ; here the abysses are represented as an immense
mass of water. Hence proceed the ' springs of the sea 2 / or
the 'fountains of the great abyss 3 / which suggest to us
a subterranean hollow full of water, much greater than all
the others, whence the waters of the flood burst forth. From
this mass of abysmal water also proceed springs and the
sources of rivers, which are several times mentioned as
among the greatest blessings of a country*. This is
picturesquely expressed in Psalm xviii : ' Then appeared the
springs of waters, and the foundations of the earth were laid
bare.' In Proverbs also (viii. 24), the abysses come into
relation with springs, where Wisdom is said to have been
born, 'when the abysses did not yet exist, nor fountains
bubbling with water/
18. So then, the Jews thought of an immense mass of
subterranean waters, which formed, together with the waters
of seas and lakes, the system of the ' lower waters/ so called
to distinguish them from the ' upper waters/ which were sup-
1 The abysses are sometimes connected with the bottom of the sea
(Job xxxviii. 16) ; or are simply contrasted as depth with the height of
heaven (Ps. cvii. 26).
9 Job xxxviii. 16. 3 Gen. vii. 11, viii. 2.
4 See the blessing of Jacob (Gen. xlix. 25), the blessing of Moses
(Dent, xxxiii. 13), the description of the promised land (Deut. viii. 7)
and of the land of Assyria (Ezek. xxxi. 4).
The Firmament, Earth, Abysses 29
posed (as will appear later) to stand above the firmament.
These subterranean waters partly rose by means of channels
and caverns to the dry surface of the earth, producing springs
and rivers, partly penetrated to the basin of the seas and
lakes, maintaining their level by the aid of apertures and
channels at the bottom ; so we must understand the expres-
sions, ' springs of the sea/ and { fountains of the great abyss/
This arrangement, by making a single mass of the superficial
and subterranean waters, allowed the Jews to explain how
the sea does not overflow with the ceaseless influx of the
rivers, and how springs come to be perennial, thus affording
a simple reason, ingenious for its time, of the circulation of
waters and springs to the sea and of the sea to springs 1 .
All the Biblical writers appear to be ignorant of the origin
of springs from the condensation of the atmospheric waters.
That the lower waters should overcome the laws of natural
gravity, and rise again from subterranean depths to the
1 This problem is propounded in so many words by Ecclesiastes i. 7 :
1 All the rivers run into the sea, and the sea is not full ; unto the place
whence they come, thither they return again.' Antonio Stoppani
(Cosmogonia Mosaica, Cogliati, Milan, 1 887, pp. 31 2-13) takes advantage
of this passage to assert that the Jews (Stoppani says Solomon, believing
him to be the author of Ecclesiastes) knew of the atmospheric circulation
of waters, as it is now taught in all works on meteorology and physics.
With all due respect to this learned and eloquent writer, I must say that
I cannot see the necessity for such a conclusion. Ecclesiastes merely
dwells on the fact that the sea is not increased by the influx of the
rivers : hence he concludes that the waters of rivers must return from the
sea to their sources. But he gives no clear indication whether this
return takes place by the atmosphere or under the earth. That
this latter supposition was in the minds of the Biblical writers, results
from the sum total of their cosmological ideas, as they are expounded
above. As a matter of fact, Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas
Aquinas still thought that all the rivers, or at any rate the principal
ones, took their origin immediately from the sea, making a path thence
under the earth through its pores : see on this subject, Stoppani, oj>. cit.
P- 347-
30 Astronomy in the Old Testament
surface, was considered as a result of the omnipotence of
God, who ' calls the waters of the sea and spreads them over
the surface of the earth V
19. The abyss is not infinite, just as the heaven is not
infinite : the abyss embraces the lower part of the universe,
and it has its limits like the heaven, earth, and sea 2 . Its depth
is in the same class of measureless size as the height of the
heaven and the breadth of the earth : it cannot be measured
by men 3 .
In the lowest part of the abysses is Sheol, the place where
those dwell who have passed to the state of rephaim or
1 shades V This is the place lower than any other 6 , which is
described in the Book of Job (x. 21-2) as the land where
the shadow of death reigns, where the shadows are scarcely
broken by any glimmers of twilight, where there is no order,
and whence there is no return — in short, as something very
like the Hades and Avernus of the Greek and Latin classics,
and the Aralu of the Babylonians. No Hebrew Dante has
described this place ; yet we already find in Ezekiel 8 a part of
1 Amos v. 8. The analogy between these abysmal waters and the
subterranean ocean (aj>su) of the Babylonians, is evident. See the
description of the latter in Jensen, Kostnologie der Babylonicr, pp. 243-53.
2 This is required by the fact that allusions occur in the Old
Testament to the circuit of the sun, moon, and stars : this circuit would
be an impossibility if the earth were supposed to be prolonged to
infinity. Xenophanes, the Greek philosopher who admitted this pro-
longation, was obliged to suppose that the stars were luminous meteors,
lighted every morning and extinguished every evening. On the other
hand, the Bible considers the sun and all the stars as bodies of permanent
identity and uninterrupted existence.
3 Ecclus. i. 3 (LXX), i. 2 (Vulg.).
4 Ps. lxxxviii. 10; Prov. ii. 18; Isa. xxvi. 14.
• Deut. xxxii. 22 ; Job xi. 8.
8 Ezek. xxvi. 19-20, xxxi. 14-18, xxxii. 18-32. The word ' pit ' (Mr)
often serves in the Bible to indicate the place of burial : sometimes also
it is used for Sheol as a whole. Commentators have therefore usually
interpreted it in these senses even when translating the passages cited
The Firmament \ Earth, Abysses 31
Sheol distinguished as deeper, called the ' pit ' or ' the lowest
parts of the earth/ where the uncircumcised descend and
those who have fallen by the sword, causing terror in the
land of the living. In course of time this distinction came
to be more definite : the upper part of Sheol, destined for
the just, was called 'Abraham's bosom,' and the lower
part became Gehenna, where sinners were tormented in
flames *.
20. Over the surface of the great circle occupied by the
earth and the seas rises the system of the heavens, the king-
dom of light, corresponding to the abyss and the kingdom
of darkness ; first, proceeding upwards, is the heaven called
by the special name rdqia', which the LXX render by (rrepcafui ,
the Vulgate by firmamentum, whence the word firmament
has come into use among ourselves also 2 .
Sometimes it is further described as reqia 1 hasshamayim,
the firmament of the heavens 3 . It is a vault of great solidity,
compared in Job (xxxvii. 18) to a metal mirror ; a transparent
vault allowing the light of the stars, which are placed higher,
from Ezekiel. But attentive reading will show that the reference is to
a place specially destined for the uncircumcised and for men of blood.
1 Luke xvi. 22-8, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Men-
tion is there made (verse 26) of the great leap which must be made to
descend from Abraham's bosom to Gehenna.
a The original meaning of raqia' is not quite clear. Gesenius ( Thes,
p. 131 2) translates it by expansum, idque firmum, deriving it from the
root rdqcC (percussit, tutudit, iundendo expandit). From this meaning
there is derived a second, which the same root raqd takes in the
Syriac language : this may be expressed by firmavit, stabilivit. The
LXX and Vulgate have certainly followed this view of the meaning. In
Ezekiel rdqicC is used to mean a floor or pavement suspended on high
(i. 22-6, x. 1). See the able and learned discussion by Stoppani
{pp. at. pp. 267-81), where the meaning firmament appears to be clearly
established in opposition to the interpretation extension which several
modern commentators adopt.
8 Gen. i. 14, 15, 17, 20. RaqicC alone in Gen. i. 6, 7, 8 ; Ps. xix. 1 ;
Dan. xii. 3. In Ecclus. xliii. 8, read crtptoj/M,
32 Astronomy in the Old Testament
to pass through. Its main duty is to support 'the upper
waters/ holding them suspended on high above the earth,
and separated from ' the lower waters ' of the continents, seas,
and abysses : as we are told in the noble opening of Genesis
(i. 7). So it is said in Psalm civ. 3 that God * has covered the
upper part of the heaven with water,' and in Psalm cxlviii. 4
1 the waters that are above the heaven ' are exhorted to praise
God 1 .
21. By means of flood-gates or portcullises (arubboth) re-
gulated by the hand of Yahwe 2 , the upper waters come to be
distributed over the earth in the form of rain, subject to rules
as to time and place 8 . All are familiar with the account of
the flood, in which, to inundate the earth, not only ' all foun-
tains of the great abyss/ but also ■ the flood-gates of heaven/
are opened 4 . This curious conception, which has evidently
been produced by the desire to explain the phenomenon of
rain, is found repeated in Genesis, the Books of Kings, the
Psalms, and the Prophets : it does not seem possible to
understand it in a metaphorical sense and adapt it to our
ideas B ; it is, in fact, in the closest connexion with the rest
of the conception of the upper waters. Considering the
spherical and convex shape of the firmament, the upper
waters could not remain above without a second wall to hold
them in at the sides and the top. So a second vault above
the vault of the firmament closes in, together with the firma-
1 Repeated in the Song of the Three Children : Dan. iii. 60 (Vnlg.).
According to Jensen {op, cit. pp. 254, 344), the conception of the
upper waters is also found in the Babylonian cosmology.
* Gen. vii. 11, viii. 2 ; 2 Kings vii. 19 ; Ps. lxxviii. 3; Isa. xxiv. 18 ;
Mai. iii. 10.
3 Jer. v. 24; Job xxviii. 26; Dent, xxviii. 12 ; Lev. xxvi. 3. Two
annual rains are distinguished in the Old Testament : the 'former* or
autumnal rain (October to December), and the 'latter* or spring rain
(March to April). See Deut. xi. 14 ; Jer. v. 24 ; Hos. vi. 3.
* Gen. vii. 11, viii. 2.
8 As Gesenius would wish to do {Thes. p. 131 2).
The Firmament \ Earth , Abysses 33
rnent, a space where are the storehouses (ofsaroth, Oqaavpol,
thesauri) of rain, hail, and snow \ They are the ministers
either of the goodness or of the wrath of the Almighty 2 , and
are kept full by His hand, while the water that falls * returns
not on high, but changes into seeds and fruits ' for the use of
animals and men s . In the lower zone of this space, on the
level of the lands and seas and round about them, are the
* storehouses of the winds V which open from one side or the
other in all the directions of the horizon, and so give rise to
the rush of wind.
22. The ancient Jews did not mark more than four direc-
tions in their horizon, and did not distinguish more than four
winds. The ' four winds of heaven ' are alluded to in many
passages of the Old Testament 5 , so much so that the ex-
pression ended by passing into common use among ourselves
also. The four directions corresponded, as would naturally
be expected, to our cardinal points. For each of them the
Jewish writers used three different systems of names, each
resting on a separate principle.
In the first system the observer is supposed to be placed
facing east, and the directions were defined in relation to him
— in front, behind, to his right, to his left. Hence the follow-
ing terms : —
E., qedem, in front.
W., ahor y or ahdron, behind.
N., semoly the left, i.e. that which is on his left.
S^yaMin, or teman, the right, i. e. that which is on his right.
This method of distinguishing the parts of the horizon
was also used by the Indians and partially by the Arabs.
1 Job xxxviii. 22. a Job xxxvii. 6, 11 ; xxxviii. 22, 23, 25-7.
3 Isa. lv. 10, This passage expressly excludes any idea of an atmo-
spheric circulation of waters : see above, note on page 29.
*. Jer. x. 13, li. 16; Ps. cxxxv. 7.
6 Jer. xlix. 36 ; Ezek. xxxvii. 9 ; Zech. vi. 5 ; Dan. viii. 8.
sch. D
34 Astronomy in the Old Testament
From this use, which makes the east into the fundamental
direction, is derived in our western languages the expression
1 to orientate oneself/
A second system of names was derived from the appear-
ances associated with the sun's daily motion : —
E. mizrah, the rising of the sun, east.
W. mebd hasshemesh, the setting of the sun, west.
N. Isafon, obscure or dark place.
S. darom, bright or illuminated place.
A third system, which might be called topographical,
indicated directions by means of local circumstances corre-
sponding to them. According to this principle, the south
was very often described by the name negeb (derived from
the disused root nagab = Latin exsiccatus fuit\ because the
region south of Palestine was so called, being a completely
arid desert. No less frequently we find the west described
by the name miyyam (from the sea) or yammah (towards the
sea); for the sea (yam) formed the western boundary of
Palestine, and for all the Jews without exception was to be
found on the western side. Analogous descriptions for the
north and east do not appear to have been in use l .
The four winds are always indicated by the name of the
direction from which they blow, as with us. The Jews
attributed special qualities to each wind. The east wind
brought them scorching heat and locusts 2 ; the south
1 These three ways of indicating direction are found used pro-
miscuously by the Biblical writers, without any obvious rule of
preference. Thus, in Genesis (xiii. 14) God says to Abraham at his
calling : ' Lift up thine eyes and look from the place where thou
standest, towards tsafon, towards negeb, towards qedem, and towards
yam ' : where terms belonging to all three systems are used together.
It even happens sometimes that the same direction is indicated by two
of its names in combination. Thus, in Exodus (ch, xxvii), the south is
called negeb-teman and the east qedem-mizrah.
a Gen. xli. 6, xlii. 23; Exod. x. 13; Hos. xiii. 15; Ezek. xvii. 10,
atix. 12.
The Firmament, Earth, Abysses 35
wind storms and warmth 1 ; with the west wind came clouds
and rain 2 ; with the north wind cold and calm s .
23. As will be seen, this conception of the firmament
as distributing winds, rain, snow, and hail, takes away from
the clouds their principal function, that of bringing rain.
These mount up from the extremity of the earth 4 and spread
over the sky : in them Yahwe places his bow, the rainbow 8 .
This crude cosmography is not, however, that of all the
Biblical writers : it is not that, for example, of the learned
and gifted thinker who wrote the Book of Job. In his
opinion it is the clouds that contain the rain and distribute
it over the earth 6 . This conception removes the part taken
by the firmament in the distribution of rains, and the hypo-
thesis of the upper waters is no longer necessary. When the
Almighty wishes it to rain, He 'binds the waters in His
clouds/ which are charged with spreading them wherever
it is ordained. Yet we still hear in Job of ' the storehouses
of snow and hail, made ready for the day of enmity and
battle' (xxxviii. 22, 23), where these products are clearly
distinguished from rain and thunder, which are mentioned
a little lower down (xxxviii. 25-8). Accordingly, it is
possible that the author reserved the firmament for snow
and hail; but it must be confessed that he makes no
mention of the firmament, though opportunities for naming
it were not wanting.
The evident connexion, however, of clouds with rain
could not escape the notice of observers, however superficial,
1 Job xxxvii. 9, 17 ; Isa. xxi. 1 ; Zech. ix. 14; Luke xii. 55,
3 1 Kings xviii. 44 ; Luke xii. 54.
3 Job xxxvii. 9 ; Prov. xxv. 23 ; Ecclus. xliii. 22.
4 Ps. cxxxv. 7 ; Jer. x. 13, li. 16.
5 Gen. ix. 13, 14, 16 ; Ezek. i. 28.
6 Job xxvi. 8 : ' He bindeth up the waters in His clouds ' ; and lower
down (xxxvi. 27, 28) : ' The rain falls from the clouds and is diffused
over men/
D 2
36 Astronomy in the Old Testament
and we find some traces of it. The author of Ecclesiastes
says (xi. 3): 'When the clouds are full, they spread rain
over the earth/ In the second Book of Samuel (xxii. 12),
God is described as gathering round about Him 'masses
of water and thick clouds/ where the juxtaposition accen-
tuates a connexion between the two things \ In the Book
of Judges (v. 4), it is said that ' the heavens and the clouds
drop water/ And in Genesis (ii. 6), a cloud is made to
intervene, to moisten the dust, thus rendering possible the
clay for the formation of Adam's body. The connexion of
clouds with dew is clearly indicated in Isaiah 2 .
24. It must be recognized in general that it is no easy
matter to present an exhaustive account of what the Jewish
writers say with regard to the cause and manner of operation
of meteorological phenomena. As we are dealing with
opinions that are derived from the imagination rather than
from the critical study of the facts, a certain difference
between one author and another is to be expected. It
accordingly becomes difficult to distinguish or reconcile
1 This connexion would be still more clearly marked in the Vulgate
rendering: cribrans aquas de nubibus coelorum. But no other inter-
preter comes near this way of understanding it ; not even the LXX.
2 Isa. xviii. 4. The Jews had noticed the spontaneous dissolution of
clouds, especially of morning clouds : see Job vii. 9 ; Hos. vi. 4. But
I have found nothing to indicate any knowledge of the formation of
clouds by condensation of the atmospheric vapours. One might refer
to this fact a passage in the Vulgate (Job xxxvii. 21) : aer cogetur in
nubes. But it is probable that the translator only wished to suggest
the clouding of the air as a mere fact of observation, perhaps following
the example of Symmachus, who translates cvvvcQrjact rbv alOipa.
There seems already to have been uncertainty as to the reading of
this passage in the time of the earliest interpreters. In fact, the LXX
have SxTtitp rb vap' ainov tirl vcQwv, where the air is not even named.
The equivalent of the Massoretic text in Latin would be ventus transiit
et illud (coelum) purificavit, nearly the opposite of the sense adopted
by Symmachus and the Vulgate. Recent commeutators follow the
Massoretic reading more or less closely.
The Firmament ; Earth, Abysses 37
such opinions, represented for the most part by a few phrases
whose meaning is often not clearly determined, to say
nothing of the possibility that we ought to interpret these
words, not strictly and literally, but rather in a metaphorical
sense, or as similes. .
25. We have now exhausted that part of Jewish
cosmography which relates to the earth, the abysses, and the
firmament. All these taken together must be thought of
as forming a cosmic system or body, fashioned in a shape
which cannot be exactly and completely determined by the
aid of the Biblical data. Yet it may be admitted as very
probable that these writers, going by what appearances
suggested, would suppose the whole to be symmetrically
arranged round a vertical line passing through Jerusalem.
We may further admit that, as the heaven forms with the
air an upper part, of a round shape, like a vault or circular
cupola, as it appears to our eyes, so too the abysses might be
symmetrically pictured as included within a surface of equal
shape and size, of corresponding convexity, at the bottom.
Thus the heaven with the air, on the one side, the abysses
with Sheol and the lowest parts of the earth, on the other,
would come to form two equal halves, separated by the plane
containing the surface of the earth and seas, and symmetri-
cally placed in relation to that plane 1 . Such a cosmic system
or body might then perhaps have a spherical shape. Or
others might suppose, with some reason, that the whole
figure formed a spheroid depressed in the vertical direction,
the conception being thus accommodated to the apparent shape
of the firmament, which, as any one can see, is not properly
a half sphere but rather the half of a spheroid much more
extended in a horizontal than in a vertical direction. In
the annexed figure, which is designed to render the pre-
1 An allusion to this symmetrical arrangement might perhaps be
found in Job xi. 8 and Psalm cxxxix. 8.
38 Astronomy in the Old Testament
ceding account more clear and aid the reader's imagination,
I have drawn the universe as a spheroid depressed in this
way. By comparing it with the Biblical data, the reader
will easily be able to judge how much foundation of fact
there is in it, and how much hypothesis \
1 In Figure 1 : ABC = the upper heaven ; ADC = the curve of the
abyss ; AEC = the plane of the earth and seas ; SRS = various parts of
the sea ; EEE = various parts of the earth ; GHG = the profile of the
firmament or lower heaven ; KK = the storehouses of the winds ;
LL =» the storehouses of the upper waters, of snow, and of hail ;
M = the space occupied by the air, within which the clouds move ;
NN =*» the waters of the great abyss ; xxx = the fountains of the great
abyss ; PP = Sheol or limbo ; Q = the lower part of the same, the
inferno properly so called.
B
1>
Fig. 1. Heaven, the earth, and the abysses, according to the writers of the Old
Testament.
CHAPTER III
THE STARS
The sun and the moon. — Their course stopped by Joshua and others.
— Allusions to a total eclipse, probably that of 831 B. c. —
The heaven of stars. — The host of heaven. — The planets :
Venus and Saturn. — Comets and bolides. — Fall of meteorites. —
Astrology.
26. Round about the cosmic body or system which we
have described above, composed of the firmament and of
the earth with the abysses, and representing the central and
immovable part of the universe, are gathered the stars, and,
primarily, the sun and moon, placed, as it seems, at not very
different distances from the earth \ The sun {shemesh) is the
most magnificent work of the Almighty : ' he cometh forth as
a bridegroom from his nuptial chamber, he rejoiceth as a
hero in his victorious course : he ariseth from one end of the
heaven, and his circuit reacheth to the other end thereof;
nothing is taken away from his heat' (Ps. xix. 5-7). His
course continues day and night: 'the sun riseth, the sun
goeth down, and anew he hasteneth to the place where he
must arise' (Eccles. i. 5). Here the subterranean course
of the sun is clearly indicated, from the point of setting to that
of his next rising. As regards the moon (called in Hebrew
1 There cannot be any doubt that the sun and moon were placed
above the firmament and the upper waters. When therefore Genesis
(i. 14, 15, 17) says that God has placed the lights { in the firmament of
heaven/ we must understand that it is the appearance rather than the
reality that the writer wishes to describe. In fact, for the spectator
these lights do project on the vault of the firmament.
40 Astronomy in the Old Testament
yareah, or poetically lebanah, the white one), her course could
not be supposed to be very different from that of the sun.
Moon and sun are continually found associated as two great
lights, destined, the one to rule the day, the other the night,
intended to fix days, months, and years, and also to serve for
the miraculous manifestations portending remarkable events
to come 1 . Although their duty of regulating time requires
a certain regularity of movements and periods, it is not con-
sidered impossible that their course should be arrested or
even turned back at the command of Joshua and other men
loved by Yahwe. An ancient Jewish poet, singing of
Joshua's victory over the Amorites, attributes to that comman-
der the boast of having arrested the sun and moon 2 ; and
certainly one could not conceive a more effective flight of
fancy, or one more fitted for the heights of an heroic
and lyrical composition. But as has happened in other
ancient nations, so among the Jews also the material of
heroic songs passed not infrequently into history, and, as
history, this episode in the wars of Israel is even now re-
1 Gen. i. 14. Such would seem to be the meaning of the word
othoth (LXX th <TT)ftua ; Vulg. in signa). Further discussion of the
various possible interpretations is given in Gesenius, Thes. p. 40.
Among the signs to which Genesis alludes, eclipses are certainly to be
included : especially total eclipses, on which see below, §§27, 28.
2 Jos. x. 12, 13 : 'Then Joshua spake in the presence of Israel : Sun,
stand thou still above Gibeon, and thou moon, in the valley of Aijalon !
And the sun stood still and the moon stayed until the people had
avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is this not written in the
Book of the Upright ? And the sun stood still in the midst of heaven
and hasted not to go down for the space of about a whole day. And
there was no day like that, before it or after it.' The Book of the
Upright or the Just {sepher hayyashar) seems to have been a collection
of songs connected with the heroic deeds and the great men of Israel :
as it contained songs by David, its compilation does not date from
before his time. The words placed in Joshua's mouth have in the
Hebrew a rhythm and poetical colouring, and are to be regarded as
a verbal quotation from the Book of the Just.
The Stars 41
garded by many. According to the narrative in the historical
portion of the book bearing the name of Isaiah, that prophet
is said not only to have stopped the sun, but to have turned
it back 1 . So, too, of Elimelech, husband of Naomi, an
obscure tradition relates that he stopped the sun ; and accord-
ing to the Vulgate of i Chronicles iv. 22, a descendant of
Judah, son of Jacob, is said to have accomplished a like feat 3 .
27. Eclipses of the sun and of the moon were not unknown
to the Jews. They did not understand their reason, and
were wont to regard them as signs announcing Divine
chastisements. Nor did the prophets fail to confirm this
opinion. In Joel the Lord says 3 : c I will shew wonders in
heaven and earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke : the
sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood.'
Similarly, Amos (viii. 9): 'And it shall come to pass in
that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go
down at noon, and I will spread darkness over the earth in
the clear day/ These passages seem to hint at events
actually witnessed. Total eclipses of the moon were always
sufficiently common at every time and place: c the moon
turned into blood' may be confidently referred to the livid
reddish colour which is often noticed in these eclipses. As
regards total eclipses of the sun, the inhabitants of Palestine
and of the neighbouring regions would have had several
opportunities to witness them in the times of Joel and Amos.
In the elaborate catalogues of eclipses published by Oppolzer
and by Ginzel 4 , we find registered as visible in those parts
1 On this event see §§ 81, 82.
3 For these two less known cases see Martini's comment on 1 Chron.
iv. 22.
3 Joel iii. 3, 4 (Hebrew) or ii. 30, 31 (English versions).
* Oppolzer, Caiion der Finsternisse (Memoirs of the Viennese
Imperial Academy of the Sciences: vol. Iii). Ginzel, Specieller Canon
der Sonnen- und Mondjinsternisse fur die Lander des klassischen
AlterthuniS) von 900 vor Chr. bis 600 nach Chr, (Berlin, 1899).
42 Astronomy in the Old Testament
total solar eclipses under the dates, August 15, 831 b.c. ;
April 2, 824 b.c; and June 15, 763 b.c. 1 .
28. Other prophets, later than Joel and Amos, seem to
allude to total eclipses of sun and moon. Micah (iii. 6) :
4 The sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day
shall be dark round about them/ Isaiah (xiii. 10): ' The
sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall
not shine with her light. 1 So far as the sun is concerned,
probably these are reminiscences taken from earlier prophets;
1 According to the maps of eclipses appended to the work of Ginzel
cited above, the zone of totality of the eclipse of August 15, 831 B.C.,
passed near Memphis, crossed Arabia Petraea, and fell within the southern
boundaries of Palestine. The moment of greatest darkness for southern
Judaea and Arabia Petraea would have been almost exactly at midday :
just as the Lord says through the mouth of Amos, ' I will make the sun
go down at midday/ Ginzel's maps show a smaller probability for the
eclipse of 824 B.C., and a still smaller for that of 763 B.C. : first, because
these eclipses were not total within the limits of Palestine and the zone
of totality kept at some distance from those limits ; and also because
the greatest darkness occasioned by them in those regions would not
have taken place at midday, but, in 824 B.C., two hours before midday,
and in 763 B.C., three hours after midday. As to the date of Amos, we
know from himself that his vision took place while Uzziah (also called
Azariah) was reigning in the kingdom of Judah, and Jeroboam II
simultaneously reigning over Israel. According to Oppert's calculations
(Proc. of Soc. Bibl. Arch. 1898, xx, pp. 45, 46) these two kings reigned
contemporaneously from 811 to 773 B.C. So Amos, and Joel too (who
is supposed to have been rather earlier than Amos), would have been
veiy well able to be spectators either of the eclipse of 831 or of that of
824, or of both. It should be mentioned, however, that Oppert's
chronology, founded in essentials on the data of the Books of Kings,
comes into conflict with the Assyrian monuments which are contemporary
with the events ; according to the monuments, these two reigns should
be brought about 25 or 30 years nearer our own time, so that the
interval within which the prophecy of Amos falls comes to be put
roughly between 780 and 750 B.C. The difference is not such as
essentially to change the position of the question. Amos could well
have remembered in old age the extraordinary spectacle of a total eclipse
seen by him in early youth. For Joel, if he is a little earlier than Amos,
the difficulty is still less.
The Stars 43
for, from 763 down to the destruction of the first Temple
(586 b.c), no total eclipse of the sun was visible in
Palestine or its immediate surroundings. In the Book of
Job also (iii. 5) mention is made of a ' darkening of the
day/ which may well be understood of a total solar
eclipse.
29. Above the course of the sun and the moon, as far
as the extreme limit of visible things, there extends the
heaven of the stars, sometimes confused with the firmament.
But while the firmament is thought of as solid and rigid like
a vault, the heaven of the stars is introduced to us as some-
thing thin and flexible, like a cloth or curtain. In several
places in the prophets 1 God is said to have ' stretched out the
heaven/ an expression which it would not seem possible to use
of a solid vault. In Ps. civ. 2 ' God stretcheth out the heaven
like a curtain 2 '; and elsewhere, * He stretcheth out the heaven
like a veil, and spreadeth it out like a tent to dwell in 3 .'
This idea that the heaven, studded with stars, is something
subtile and flexible, bearing the stars fastened on after the
1 Isa. xliv. 34, xlv. 12, li. 13 ; Jer. x. 13 ; Zech. xii. 1.
3 Interpreters are not agreed as to the true sense of yerCah, which is
translated by ' curtain ' above. The LXX have Sippw, with which the
Vulgate is in accord, reading pellem. Luther Teppich [cloth], Diodati cor-
tina [curtain], Philippson Zeltteppich [tent-cloth], Reuss Zelidecke [tent-
covering : the usual meaning, e.g. Jer. x. 30]. But all have in common
the idea of something thin and flexible, designed to serve as a covering.
8 Isa. xl. 22. Here too what is expressed by 'veil* is represented
in the Hebrew by a word of indeterminate sense, doq, including the idea
of thinness and subtilty Gesenius (Thes. p. 348). So the Vulgate goes
straight to the extreme limit, saying, qui extendit velut nihilum coelos ;
while Luther contents himself with ' a thin skin,' ein diinnes FelU
Diodati has come una tela [like a web], Philippson ein Schleier [a veil],
Reuss ein Teppich [a carpet]. The authority of the LXX would appear
to stand alone, in speaking of a vault : 6 ffr^aas d>s KayApav rbv ovpcw6v.
But the word tcafiapa can be used of any kind of cover, even of the
lightest kind and made of skins or silk. There is an example in
Herodotus i. 199, where it stands for the cover of a closed car.
44 Astronomy in the Old Testament
fashion of embroidery, is expressed in the most lively way
by the first Isaiah, who predicts as a sign of the divine
wrath 1 that • all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the
heavens shall be rolled up like a book : and all their host shall
sink down, as falleth the leaf of the vine or of a fig-tree.'
30. In the song of Deborah, one of the most ancient
monuments of Hebrew literature that have reached us, there
is an obvious allusion to the daily motion of the stars
(kokabtm). During the fight at the brook Kishon ' the stars
fought from heaven, they fought from their orbits against
SiseraV In the Book of Wisdom (vii. 19), Solomon is
made to boast of knowing, amongst many other things,
ivtavT&v kvkKovs koi aortpaiu de<rcis f annorum cursus et slellarum
dispositiones. In these last two words we may perhaps
recognize an allusion to the constellations; but, if the late
date of the book be granted, it would not seem improbable
that the astronomical conception of the prevision of celestial
movements is here seen in process of arising, or, it may be,
even the astrological view of the reciprocal configurations
of the seven planets. However this ought to be understood,
the power of knowing all the stars, of numbering them, and
distinguishing them by their names, is reserved to God alone,
who ' counteth the number of the stars, and calleth them all
by their names ' (Ps. cxlvii. 4) s . God alone has full know-
1 Isa. xxxiv. 4. It is unnecessary to remark that the expression ' to
be rolled up like a book ' refers to the older form of books, that of a roll
(Latin volumen\ rather than to the shape of modern books, to which
the Vulgate rendering complicabuntur alludes. The meaning of the
phrase ' host of heaven ' will be discussed a little lower down.
a J U( lg* v * 20 " The WOI "d mesillolh, rendered above by orbits ,
properly means roads marked by being raised above the surrounding
ground (Latin via aggesta), and is to be understood of the ways marked
in tbe sky for the daily course of each star, the celestial parallels as we
should call them.
3 See also Isa. ad. 26 ; Jer. xxxiii. 22 ; Job ix. 7 ; Wisdom vii. 19.
The Stars 45
ledge of the laws which govern the heaven, and the power of
regulating the action which they exercise over the earth
(Job xxxviii. 33).
31. If we examine the astronomical knowledge of primitive
peoples, we find that certain groups of stars, more clearly
defined and more conspicuous than the rest, were more or
less known by all. The Great Bear has been marked and
named not only by the tribes inhabiting the arctic regions of
the earth, but also, so far as is known, by all the peoples
of the northern temperate zone. The splendid constellation
of Orion with its strikingly characteristic shape, and the
group of the Pleiades, crowded densely in such a small
space, are found in the cosmography of all the peoples of
the torrid zone and of the temperate zones of both hemi-
spheres. Accordingly, we find the Great Bear, Orion, and
the Pleiades known among the Jews as well as elsewhere,
and a special name assigned to each, which occurs more
than once in the Old Testament. It must, however, be
confessed that the nomenclature of these groups and, more
generally, whatever concerns the uranography of the
Hebrews, still causes much perplexity as regards its
interpretation. The assured facts are few; the more or
less uncertain conjectures are many. Numerous astro-
nomical and philological discussions have taken place, so
that there is a good deal to say on the subject. I have
therefore thought it advisable to treat it separately and to
devote the whole of the following chapter to it.
32. The host 0/ heaven. There occurs not infrequently in
the Old Testament the expression tseba hasshamqyim, which
the LXX translate by Swa/mr rod ovpavov and elsewhere by
arparta rod ovpavov, the Vulgate by militia or exercitus coeli.
It is not always employed in the same sense. Sometimes
it means simply that which forms the equipment of heaven,
and, hence, all the stars in general. So in Genesis (ii. 1),
46 Astronomy in the Old Testament
where it is said that ■ the heaven and the earth were finished
and all their tsabal we must understand ' all their equipment ' ;
whence the LXX have appropriately rendered tsaba by
Kotrpos, and the Vulgate by ornatus. In other places it is
natural to take tseba hasshamayim as expressing in figurative
language the whole multitude of stars, which may well be
compared to an army or host; so in several places of
Isaiah (xl. 26; xxxiv. 4; xlv. 12). But often especially in
writers later than Isaiah \ by the host of heaven we have to
understand a particular class of stars to which worship was,
during a certain period, paid among the Jews.
33. To arrive at a definition of the stars which were
included under the host of heaven in this last sense, let us
first observe that the allusions only begin in connexion with
the last kings of Israel, who are accused of having aroused
the wrath of God by worshipping the host of heaven, as well
as by other forms of impiety 2 . This worship, introduced
under the influence of the Assyrian invasion, passed in the
times of Ahaz even into the court of Judah, and was only
abolished by the pious Josiah 3 . When then, after the destruc-
tion of Samaria in 721 b. c. and the deportation of its
inhabitants, colonists from Babylon, Cuthah, and Sepharvaim
were substituted in their place, the occasion was favourable
for star-worship to spread much more widely in Palestine.
This first observation is naturally followed by a second,
namely, that the host of heaven must have been included
in that class of stars whose adoration was taught to the Jews
by the Assyrians and Babylonians. Now the star-worship
of these two nations comprehended, besides the sun and
moon, also Venus and the minor planets ; there are in all
seven stars to whose divinity, as is well known, the great
1 Deut. iv. 19, xvii. 3 ; 2 Kings xvii. 16, xxi. 3, 5, xxiii. 4, 5 ; Jer.
viii. 2 ; Zeph. i. 5 ; 2 Chron. xxiii. 3, 5.
3 2 Kings xvii. 16, 3 2 Kings xxiii. 12.
The Stars 47
temple of Borsippa (now a ruin bearing the name Birs
Nimroud) was consecrated by Nebuchadnezzar. Babylonian
theology did not, however, confine itself to these. It
introduced further as objects of superstitious veneration a
quantity of good and malignant spirits connected with par-
ticular stars or groups of stars. The battalions composed
of these spirits or subordinate divinities were called the
hosts of heaven by the Babylonians in the same way as the
spirits ruling over the earth were called the hosts of earth,
Nebuchadnezzar, in one of his inscriptions, exalts the god
Nebo by saying that he • rules over the hosts of heaven and
of earth V Similarly, in a hymn to Marduk (the Merodach
of the Bible), ' the angels of the hosts of heaven and earth '
are said to belong to Marduk 2 .
34. A noteworthy illustration relating to the host of heaven
is found in i Kings (xxii. 19), repeated verbatim in 2 Chronicles
(xviii. 18). According to this narrative, when Ahab, king of
Israel, and Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, wished to make war
with united forces against Ramoth-Gilead, a prophet was
consulted as to the issue of this expedition, who began his
reply by saying, ' I have seen the Lord sitting on a throne
and all the host of heaven stood by him on the right and on
the left.' From what follows it appears that the reference
is to a kind of council composed of good and malignant
spirits (ruhoth), who are ministers for executing the works
of God. The influence of the Babylonian theology on the
ideas of the narrator is here perfectly manifest, and no
doubt can remain as to the nature of the beings which were
supposed to form the host of heaven 3 . They were major or
1 Schrader, KAT? p. 413.
a Smith's Chaldean Genesis (ed. Sayce, 1880), p. 81. The word
'host' is represented in Assyrian by kits' at, which others translate by
ensemble or totality.
3 We mnst return later to the ' host of heaven * and to the figurative
representations of it possessed by the Babylonians: see §§ 72, 73.
48 Astronomy in the Old Testament
minor divinities of the Babylonian Pantheon, or else merely
good or bad spirits ; to each of these were assigned, as home
or as place of rule, so many stars or groups of stars.
35. Of the planets considered singly, two only can be
traced in the Old Testament. One of the great prophets
of the exile, whose predictions are now found mingled with
those of Isaiah, when exulting over the imminent ruin of the
Babylonian Empire, breaks into the following words a : ' How
art thou fallen from heaven, O Helel, child of the morning,
and cut down to the ground, O thou trampler of nations 1 '
The word helel takes its root from halal, which can be inter-
preted luxit, splenduit, gloriatus est\ hence it may easily be
understood of a star ; all the more that, besides the sun and
moon, only stars can 'fall from heaven/ Accordingly, the star
'child of the morning' may appropriately be referred to Venus,
the morning star. The LXX and the Vulgate have under-
stood it so 2 . As we shall have occasion to show lower
down, the two appearances of Venus in the morning and
evening were probably thought of by the Jews as two
different stars with the name mazzarolh (§§ 71-3). An
allusion to Venus might conjecturally be recognized in the
' morning stars ' mentioned in Job (xxxviii. 7) s .
The Hebrew name of another planet may with great
probability be recognized in Amos (v. 26). This name is
read as Kiyun according to the Massoretic pointing, but
it has now been proved that we ought to point so as to
1 Isa. xiv. 12.
a Similarly, in Assyrjo-Babylonian, the planet Venus is sometimes
designated Mustelil (splendens), from the root elil (splenduit). See
Schrader, KA T % > p. 388.
9 In the LXX and the Vulgate other passages occur in which Lucifer
or Vesper are named, but, when examined in comparison with the
Hebrew text, they leave an element of doubt. In some of them
the expressions are to be understood simply of the dawn or the morning
light. So in Job xi. 1 7 and Ps. ex. 3.
The Stars 49
read Kaivan^ as the Syriac translator has done 1 . Now
Kaivan was the name of Saturn among the ancient Arabs
and Syrians, and (as E. Schrader has recently proved) among
the Assyrians too 2 . The words of Amos are these : ' And
ye shall take Sakkuth your king and Kaivan^ the star of your
God, images which ye have made for yourselves.' The
prophet, therefore, reproves the Jews for the worship of the
planet Saturn.
This exhausts the number of the planets, any notice of which
can be found in the Old Testament. For it is not certain that
the names Gad and Mem, which are found in the book as-
cribed to Isaiah 3 , represent the planets Jupiter and Venus.
They seem here to stand for the god of fortune and the goddess
of chance or fate 4 , and their relationship to the planetary
deities of Babylonia has not yet been convincingly proved 5 .
1 On this see Gesenius, Thes. p. 669, where some other interpretations
are given, including that of St. Jerome, Kiyun = Lncifer. The pointing
which gives Kaivan has also been relied upon by the LXX, who
transcribe it as 'Pat<p&v t where the initial P instead of K was probably
already found by the translators in the Hebrew manuscript which they
employed. As a matter of fact, in the Phoenician alphabet (used by the
Jews down to the time of the LXX and still later) the letters caph and
resh can easily be interchanged.
2 Schrader, KAT? pp. 442-3. In the sacred books of the Parsees the
planet Saturn is named K&van. See Bundahish, ch. v.
8 Isa. lxv. 11.
* See the discussion of Gesenius, Thes. pp. 264, 798. The LXX
have ry datfxovi<p, tt) rvxy. The Vulgate, qui ponitis fortunae mensam
et libatis super earn, combine the two divinities into one.
6 The author does not wish to imply that the Jews had not some
more exact knowledge of the planets, especially after they had come into
contact with the Babylonians. It does not, however, seem that the
frequent use of the number 7 in the Old Testament is in any way
connected with the planets, much less the institution of the Jewish week
(as will be shown in the last chapter of this book). The question
regarding the application made of the number 7 in the books of post-
Biblical Hebraism is more complicated, since the influence of foreign
ideas is frequently evident in them.
sch. E
50 Astronomy in the Old Testament
36. Had the Jews also paid attention to comets? It
seems probable that they had : when Joel l makes the
Almighty say that He ' will give blood and fire and pillars
of smoke/ it is possible that he alludes to comets, though
such a description might fit some exceptional meteor such
as we usually call bolides. The * pillars of smoke ' must in
either case be understood of streaks or trains of luminous
vapour. The appearance of a bolide is undoubtedly
described in vivid colours in Genesis (xv. 17), where it is
said of a sacrifice made by Abram that c when the sun went
down and darkness had become dense, behold, there appeared
as it were a smoking brazier and a lamp of fire, which passed
across, between the parts of the victims/ A reminiscence
of a bolide might also be found in a description given by
Ezekiel (i. 4).
An abundant fall of meteoric stones has seemed to some
to be alluded to in Joshua (x. n), as having happened on
the day which saw the sun's course stopped. l And it came
to pass that, while they (the enemy) fled from before Israel
and they were by the descent of Beth-horon, the Lord cast
upon them great stones from heaven unto Azekah, so that
more of them died beneath the hailstones than by the sword
of the children of Israel/ The mention of ' hailstones '
raises a doubt whether the reference is to meteorites and
not rather to a hailstorm, which, according to Job (xxxviii.
22, 23), God has stored up 'for the time of enmity and
for the days of war and battle/
37. What arrangement of all the heavenly bodies ought we
to believe that the learned among the Jews had made in their
minds, and what scheme of their respective distances ? We
have already seen that the firmament^ which kept in the
upper waters and was designed for the distribution of rain
and also to serve as storehouse for snow and hail, was con-
1 Joel iii. 3 (English versions, ii. 30).
The Stars 51
sidered by some writers as a complement of the terrestrial
edifice, a sort of lower, meteorological heaven. Above it
revolved the upper, astronomical heaven with its daily mo-
tion: within the latter revolved the sun and moon with
separate motions of their own. This highest heaven sur-
rounds the earth and the firmament on every side, and above
it is the seat of the Almighty. In some places in the Bible
there occurs the expression sheme hasshamayim (' heaven of
heavens ') \ which implies an intensification of the idea of
heaven, such as is found also in the case of other ideas in
Hebrew idiom 2 . The heaven of heavens is not really different
from the highest part of heaven, that which encloses the
whole universe 3 .
38. It is not impossible that, together with a certain
notion of astronomy, the Assyrians and Babylonians also
imported into Palestine the bad seed of astrology. The
Jews, who in the debased periods of the kingdoms of Israel
and Judah abandoned themselves to the most senseless and
savage superstitions, practised divination of every kind 4 ,
consecrated horses to the sun, adored the host of heaven,
and sacrificed their children in Tophet, could not have
remained entirely free from astrological superstition, which
1 Deut. x. 14; 1 Kings viii. 27; Ps. cxlviii. 4 ; 2 Chron. ii. 5, vi. 18;
Neh. ix. 6.
3 Thus, dor dorim (generation of generations) means an exceedingly
long time : hdbel h&balim (vanity of vanities) means the extreme of
vanity.
8 It is worthy of note that the ancient Iranians also supposed that two
heavens existed : one exterior heaven (twdshd), continually in rotation,
in which the stars are fixed; one interior (dsman), composed of trans-
parent blue material, which represents the firmament of the Bible. See
Spiegel, Eranische Alterthumskunde, i. pp. 188-9 > "• P* x 3 J "• P« io 9«
Neither the three nor the seven heavens of later Judaism and of the
New Testament are anywhere mentioned in the Old Testament : their
Babylonian origin may be regarded as certain.
4 2 Kings xxiii. 5.
E 2
52 Astronomy in the Old Testament
is less absurd and less abominable than so many others.
Yet these were aberrations of a temporary character, and
it is no small honour for this nation to have been wise
enough to see the inanity of this and all other forms of
divination. The great prophet of the exile 1 sarcastically
reproaches the Babylonians for having faith in the ' dividers
of heaven ' (that is, the astrologers), and seeking to read the
future in the stars; while Jeremiah (x. 2) exclaims: 'Fear
not the signs of heaven, at which the heathen are dismayed/
Subsequent history shows that these warnings had their
effect. Of what other ancient civilized nation could as much
be said ?
1 Isa. xlvii. 13.
NAMES OF STARS IN THE ANCIENT VERSIONS*.
Is. xiii. io
Job ix. 9
Job xxxvii. 9
Job xxxviii. 31
Job xxxviii. 32
2 Kings xxiii. 5
'ash
kesil
kimah
hadre theman
heder
mezarim
kimah
kesil
mazzaroth
'ayish
mazzaloth
nefllehon
{their giants)
[Gen. vi. 4 (R.V.)]
'ash
nifla
{.giant)
klma
idderone shitre
mazzalayya bisetar
daroma {planet-
chambers of the south)
idderon 'ila
{upper chamber)
kawwat mezarim
{window of Mezarim)
klmetha
nifla
shitre mazzalayya
{paths of the planets)
zagetha
( = Pleiades)
mazzelatha
hailawathehon
{their hosts)
'iyutha
gabbara
{strong man)
klma
hedar 'al taimna
tauwane
zarifta
{pouring rain)
[so too the Arabic
version of Sa'adya.]
klma
gabbara
'agalta
{carriage)
'iyutha
mauzelatha
'Clptwv
'ApuTovpos 3
"Eanepos 2
IIAeids 1
rafieia Notov
rap-fta
['Apxrovpos]
TlKtids
ripicuv
Ma£ovp&$
Aq. 'npitw
Sy. darpa
Th. "Eairepos
Sy. ra darpa
avrwv
Evnfpos
MafyvpwB,
■ Ma£a\u9
(Scholiast, fySin)
OlSBpcuos- vivTara
acrrpa t& kvk\ovvto
Kotov
Aq. Ma£oi5/>
Th. dxpar^pia
Aq. (or Sy. ?) as in
LXX
Sy. t<! aKofmiaOivra
Th. = LXX
omnia luminaria
eins
Arcturns
{Septentrio 3 )
Vespertinus
( Vesperus*)
Pleiades
( Vergilias l )
interiora Austri
{Austri ministeriitm)
promptuaria
promptuaria
( = mezawim : which
is adopted by Budde
as the original read-
ing: see Ps. cxliv. 13)
Pleias
Orion
Mazuroth
Vesper
splendor earum
[Hier. ap. Field :
Hebraeus, qtio ego
praeceptore usus
sum, Arcturum
interpretatus est.]
Arcturus •
Orion 3
Hyades 3
interiora Austri
interiora
Arcturus
Pleiades
Arcturus
Lucifer
Vesper
duodecim signa
" 1 I • ■ •»! /
sch. To face p. 53.
Fold out
CHAPTER IV
THE CONSTELLATIONS
Difficulty of the subject. — 'Ash (ox'Ayish), and her children. — Kesil
and Kesilim. — Kimah. — The chambers of the south. — Mezarim. —
The serpent ? — Rahab.
39. The investigation of Jewish uranography has to be
undertaken with the aid of only a few notices in the Old
Testament; and those few are for the most part very
doubtful. All the available sources are reduced to three
passages in the Book of Job and one in Amos, where the
names are given of some of the most striking constella-
tions in the sky. But the identification of these names with
constellations now known to us, cannot be built upon any
safe basis of fact. One might think that the so-called
1 Seventy,' who translated into Greek the books of the
Old Testament at a date only two or three centuries later
than that of Ezra, and possessed the advantage of writing
when a sufficiently fresh oral tradition was still flourishing,
must have known the meaning of these names much better
than the moderns, who are guided only by more or less
probable hypotheses. But it can easily be shown that this
meaning had already been lost for them in the larger number
of cases. Where Amos (v. 8) says of God : ' He made
Kimah and Kesil,' the Hellenistic translator wrote 6 ttqiwv
iravra <a\ ptTao-Kevdfav, thus avoiding translating the words
Kimah and Kesil, of which he probably did not know the
precise signification. But another of the Seventy, whose
54 Astronomy in the Old Testament
task was to translate the Book of Job, understood that
they related to stars; twice (ix. 9 and xxxviii. 31) he iden-
tifies Klmah with the Pleiades; Kesil he once identifies
with Hesper (ix. 9), once with Orion (xxxviii. 31). The
same uncertainties and contradictions are found in the
Vulgate : in Klmah this version recognizes Arcturus in Amos
v. 8, the Hyades in Job ix. 9, and the Pleiades in Job
xxxviii. 31. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising
that some scholars (for example, F. Delitzsch) regard the
interpretations hitherto given to the names of the Biblical
constellations as subject to complete doubt, and express the
hope that assistance in these doubts may come later from
the study of the numerous names of stars already found
on the Assyrio-Babylonian monuments 1 . In the face of
such authoritative declarations, no other course is open for
the present except to set out honestly and impartially the
position of the question by passing successively in review the
names presented.
40. I. 'Ask and 'Ayz'sh. Both these names occur in the
Book of Job, the first in ix. 9, the second in xxxviii. 32.
In both places they are accompanied by the names of other
constellations, so that no doubt can arise as to the nature
of the thing to which these names correspond. The identity
of signification of the two is admitted by many, because,
when account is taken of the uncertainty of the vowels in
the old Hebrew way of writing, the difference between them
1 F. Delitzsch, Das Buck Hiob (Leipzig, 1902), Commentary, p. 169.
This hope does not seem likely to meet with a speedy confirmation.
We already possess voluminous researches by learned assyriologists on
the constellations named on the cuneiform inscriptions ; but the discord-
ance of the results does not inspire much confidence in the security of
the interpretations. A sample of these differences may be seen in
Ginzel's article summing the matter up (Die astronomischen Kenntnisse
der Babylonier und ihre kulturhistorische Bedeutung ; in C. F. Leh-
mann's collection, Beitrage zur alien Ceschichte, vol. i. pp. 3-24).
The Constellations 55
may seem not very important; it is even believed that they
are only two divergent ways of writing the same word \ The
word itself seems at first sight to throw little light on the
meaning. It is used in the Old Testament under the form
'ash to mean a moth (LXX <n}s, Vulg. tinea). We learn
something more from the second of the two passages cited
(xxxviii. 32: 'Dost thou guide € Ayish and her children'?),
where it is, however, doubtful whether the word children
is to be understood in a literal or in a metaphorical sense.
The opinion most generally received is that of the famous
Aben Ezra 2 , according to whom 'Ash or 'Ayish is nothing
else than the Great Bear. Both these names are, it is
pointed out, not very different from the name na'sh (in Arabic
a bier, or a portable litter), which has been used by the
Arabs from time immemorial to designate particularly the
four stars a, 0, y, 8 of the well-known quadrilateral of the
Great Bear, or the four wheels of the Wain 3 . Further,
this quadrilateral would, by the Arabs living along the
Persian Gulf, and by the Jews of Sana and Baghdad, be
called simply 'ash \ But the constellation of the Great Bear
also includes, besides the quadrilateral a, /3, y, 6 called na'sh
by the Arabs, the three stars *, £, 17, which form for us the
tail of the Bear and the pole of the Wain. Now these same
Arabs have given to these three stars the name bendt na'sh f
which is equivalent to ' daughters of the na'sh' This at once
1 On the conditions of vocalization under which the difference of the
two names can be reduced to that between the scriptio plena and
the scriptio defectiva of the same word, see F. Delitzsch, Das Buck Hiob t
Commentary, p. 144. He inclines to believe that *esk should be read in
both cases.
2 Ideler, Untersuchungen iiber die Stemnamen y p. 21.
3 Kazwini (in Ideler, op. cit. p. 19). Alsufi, Description des t-toilcs
fixes (translated by Schjellerup), pp. 49-50.
* Karsten Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, p. 115. Ideler, op. cit.
p. 22. Gesenius, Thes. p. 896.
56 Astronomy in the Old Testament
recalls to the mind the ' children of 'Ayz'sh' named in Job
xxxviii. 32. And this parallelism is certainly worthy of
notice.
41. Not much light on the question can be derived from
the most ancient versions. In the LXX rendering of Job ix. g }
it is uncertain which of the three names corresponds to the
'Ash of the Hebrew text 1 ; in Job xxxviii. 32, 'Ayz'sh corre-
sponds to "EoTTfpoi/. The Vulgate has, in the former place
Ar durum for 'Ash and in the latter Vesperum for 'Ayz'sh,
The identification with Vesper seems incredible : for what
would in that case be the children of Vesper ? But supposing
(as is likely) that Ar durum is written by mistake for Ardon 2 ,
we should have, at any rate in one of the renderings adopted
by the Vulgate, a confirmation of the opinion of Aben
Ezra.
The ancient Syriac version of the Bible (called the
Peshz'tia) puts 'Iyulha in both places of Job, for 'Ash and
'Ayz'sh. 'Iyutha is a constellation known to the Syrians,
mention of which is found in the works of St. Ephrem Syrus
and of other writers of his nation. It has been supposed by
several Oriental scholars 3 that 'Iyutha is to be identified with
the bright star of Auriga, the al$ of the Greeks, called by us
by the Latin name Capella. Hence Hyde and Ewald have
believed that the 'Ayz'sh of Job is also to be taken as
equivalent to Capella. Then the children of 'Ayz'sh named
by Job would be the small stars near Capella, £ and -q of
1 The names of the Hebrew text in Job ix. 9 are 'ask, kesil, kimah,
in this order : similarly the names of the LXX in order are Il\eid5a,
"Eaircpov, 'ApKrovpov. Now it is probable that kimah corresponds to
the Pleiades, as we shall prove shortly. This raises a doubt whether
the order of names has been interchanged in the LXX of Job ix.
9 ; it would not, therefore, be prudent to make use of this passage
in the present argument.
8 On a possible interchange of Arcturus and Arctos, see below, § 52.
3 Gesenius, Thesawus, pp. 895-6.
The Constellations 57
Auriga, called by the Greeks in antiquity, and also by our-
selves to-day, the kids.
The weak point of this conclusion consists in % Iyutha
and Capella being regarded as identical. But it can be
shown that this identity does not exist, and that the Syrians
meant by their 'Iyuiha the Head of the celestial Bull, called
by the Greeks and by us the Hyades 1 . It is a most
remarkable group, composed of a great red star of the first
magnitude (the Eye of the Bull, or Aldebaran) and of five
stars of the fourth magnitude (the minor Hyades), accom-
panied by several other less visible stars; the whole being
exactly similar in shape to our letter V, or to the Greek A
(see fig. 2).
HYADES
*
AIM
*
dr,
#
Fig. 2. The Head of the Bull, or the Hyades.
The true conclusion is, that according to the testimony of
the Peshitta, both "Ash and 'Ayish are to be identified with
the star Aldebaran, and the children of 'Apish with the
surrounding minor Hyades.
42. As regards the form 'A sh, the preceding results receive
additional confirmation in another way. It is asserted in the
Talmud, on the authority of Rabbi Jehuda (second century),
that 'Ask is the same as 'Jyu/ka 2 . Attention should also be
■
1 The proof of this affirmation is given in the Appendix at the end of
the book (page 161).
a Tract. Berakhoth, page 58 b : ' Quid est "ash ? dixit Rab Jehuda,
58 Astronomy in the Old Testament
paid to the fact that the name 'ash is several times used in the
Old Testament to mean the moth, an insect which seems to
have been as destructive in ancient Palestine as it is amongst
ourselves. In the larva-state it has no special characteristics,
but it is more easy to recognize in the butterfly stage. When
it is at rest, its wings are not held detached from the body, as
happens with most other butterflies, but spread themselves
over it in such a way as to form a cloak, more or less similar
(according to the several species into which the animal can
be divided) to an isosceles triangle. Now the Hyades are
arranged so as to form just such a triangle, as can be seen
from the representation of their shape in fig. 2 above. It
seems to me possible to explain in this way how the Israelites
might have given to the constellation of the Hyades the name
of the moth. The resemblance in this case is not less than
in the case of the seven Triones, which the Greeks compared
to a Bear. For all these reasons it becomes fairly probable
that 'Ash should be identified with the Hyades.
43. The same arguments might now be adopted, and with
the same result, for the form 'Ayish, if its identity with 'Ash
could be considered absolutely certain. The Syriac translator
in the Peshitta, Aben Ezra, and many recent writers, have
accepted this identity. If we adopt it, this is equivalent to
supposing that 'Ayish is Aldebaran and that the ' children of
'Ayish* are the minor Hyades which surround Aldebaran.
But it is necessary to remark that the identity is not admitted
by all Hebraists. Accordingly, as we have explained the
consequences which follow from adopting it, we ought not to
fail to mention the consequences of denying it. So then, if
we assume it to be certain that ' Ayish is different from 'Ash,
Yutha. Quid est Yutha ? Dicebant ipsi, Cauda Arietis. Alii dicebant
ipsi, Caput Tauri.' The translation is that of Buxtorf, Lex. Chald.
Talm. atqw Rabb. p. 1677 [ed. 1S75, p. 834]. On Cauda Arietis as an
equivalent of K Iyutha, see Appendix, page 161.
The Constellations 59
we shall have only one indication to assist us in determining
its meaning: that given in the text of Job xxxviii. 32, where
Job is asked whether he can l guide *Ayish and her children ? '
This expression, when used to represent a group of stars, will
be most easily and naturally interpreted, if 'Ayish is taken to
be a brilliant star, and if by the ' children of 'Aytsh ' we
understand a certain number of smaller stars crowded round
it in such a way as to form with it a conspicuous group,
capable of arresting the attention even of unpractised
observers. Of such groups, the Hyades and the Pleiades are
certainly the most noteworthy in the sky. By our present
hypothesis, the Hyades have to be excluded. As regards
the Pleiades, popular imagination compares them to a hen
surrounded by her chickens, and this simile might lead us to
see in them ' *Ayish and her children/ But the true Hebrew
name for the Pleiades seems to be Klmah y as will be shown
below. Accordingly, we shall have to search for *Ayish in
some one of the other and less obvious groups in the sky,
such as are, for example, those which we see formed round
the principal star of the Eagle, of the Lyre, or of the Scorpion.
In this case, however, we are left absolutely without any
criterion for judging to which of these groups the preference
should be given.
We alluded above to an opinion which would identify
*Ayish with Capella, and we remarked at the same time that
the argument on which it is sought to base this demonstration
is fallacious. Yet this does not prove the opinion itself to
be wrong ; for anything that we know, it might still be per-
missible to recognize in Capella and her kids a picture like
that of ' f Aytsh and her children/ and if any one considered
this resemblance to be a sign of probable identity, he would
be hard to refute. On this subject, however, it may be
observed that, in the irapairr^^iaTa or astro-meteorological
calendars of the Greeks, the small stars of the kids with their
60 Astronomy in the Old Testament
heliacal rising announced a time of storm. This is the sole
reason for their importance ; for any one who observes these
stars will easily see that they do not form a noteworthy group
along with Capella y and that there are many other groups in
the sky which are equally striking or more so. And it is
probable that they were called the kids because they are not
far (about 6 degrees) from Capella, which served to render
them easier to find, as their own light is very faint If this
group, which is suggested more by convention than by nature,
really represented ' 'Ayish and her children,' we might draw
as a necessary conclusion that the Greeks and the Jews
received this idea from a common source, perhaps from the
Syrians or the Phoenicians. And then the question might
be propounded whether we must accept as effects of pure
chance the assonances existing between the words al£ and
'ayish on the one side and between YaSes and 'Iyulha on the
other. But it will be hard to arrive at certain results on
a subject such as this ; and it will be better to confess that
'Ayish) if considered to be something different from 'Ash,
still remains for us an obscure riddle \
44. II. Kesil is named along with other constellations twice
in Job (ix. 9 and xxxviii. 31) and once in Amos (v. 8). The
name in Hebrew generally means foolish ; in this sense it is
often used in the Bible, and frequently implies also the sense
of impiety. In the second of the passages cited above there
is a reference to its chains : ' Canst thou loose the bands of
Orion ? ' This seems to suggest that, in consequence of some
tradition which is unknown to us, the Jews saw in the con-
stellation Kesil the form of a man chained for his folly or his
impiety. Out of the most brilliant constellations in the sky
there is one, and one only, the form of which agrees with
such a picture: the suggestion is exactly adapted to the
1 [See also Appendix, page 167.]
The Constellations 61
case of Orion (as the Greeks call it ; al-gebbar or ' the giant '
of the Arabs ; the Sahu of the Egyptians ; the Trisanku of the
old Indian myths), which presents to our view, in seven
stars of the first and second degrees of magnitude, a coarse
figure, evidently that of a man of colossal size. The identity
of the constellation Kesil with our Orion is further attested by
the tradition of the ancient versions : of the LXX in Job
xxxviii. 31, and of the Vulgate in Job ix. 9 and Amos v. 8.
Similarly the Peshitta in Job ix. 9 and xxxviii. 31 gives
gabbara (' a strong man '), which is the Syriac name for
Orion, closely related to the Arabic gebbar. Practically all
the more recent interpreters of the Bible agree in admitting this
identity. Yet discordant voices are not wanting: thus, Karsten
Niebuhr wished to identify Kesil with Sirius; Hyde, with
Canopus 1 . The LXX in Job ix. 9 have recognized it as
Hesper, and the Vulgate in Job xxxviii. 31 as Arcturus,
meaning probably the Bear.
45. The name Kesil is found in the plural in the following
passage of the Book of Isaiah (xiii. 10) : * The stars of heaven
and their kesilim shall not shine.' The LXX take no account
of the plural, writing : ol yap dorcpes rov ovpavov Kai 6 *Qplav,
Luther does the same. Reuss renders literally: Die Sterne
am Himmel und seine Orione ('the stars in heaven and its
Orions'), a version similar to that proposed by Gesenius 2 .
The Vulgate has : stellae coeli et splendor earum. Diodati : le
stelle dei cieli y e gli astri di quelli (' the stars of the heavens
and the celestial bodies '). The version of Philippson pleases
me more than any other ; he sees in ' the kesilim of heaven '
the forms of its constellations : die Sterne des Himmels und
ihre Bilder strahlen ihr Licht nicht (' the stars of heaven and
their images do not emit their light '). Even so, however, a
double application of the same idea is not altogether avoided.
1 Ideler, Sternnamen^ p. 264.
8 Gesenius, Thes. p. 701.
62 Astronomy in the Old Testament
46. III. Kimah. This name occurs, together with that of
other constellations, twice in Job (ix. 9 and xxxviii. 31) and
once in Amos (v. 8). It may be connected with the Arabic
root kum (meaning accumulavit), or with the Assyrian kamu
(meaning ligavit) 1 : whence it might be concluded that it
refers to a cluster of stars closely packed together. Here c the
chains of Kimah ' (Job xxxviii. 31) must be understood
in a metaphorical sense. And if that is so, it can refer
to no other cluster than that of the Pleiades, which is the
best known of these clusters and also the only one which
has in consequence of its conspicuous light awakened
universal attention at every time and among all peoples.
This inference, which would not perhaps have much force
in itself, is fortunately confirmed by the tradition of the
LXX, where kimah, keeping the singular number, is always
the Pleiad. In this case there is further to be added
the authority, by no means a despicable one, of Aquila of
Pontus, who in Job xxxviii. 31 also translates by the Pleiad.
The example of the LXX and Aquila has been followed
almost without exception by later interpreters, including
E. Renan and F. Delitzsch. I say almost without exception,
because the Vulgate in each of the three texts containing the
word kimah, has given a different rendering: in one the
Hyades, in another the Pleiades, in the third Arcturus.
Albert Schultens, a celebrated commentator on Job (1737),
seems also to have a different opinion from the ordinary one
and to consider kimah as denoting the most brilliant stars of
the southern heavens in general 2 .
1 This last derivation has been proposed by F. Delitzsch {Proc. Soc.
Bibl. Archaeol. xii. p. 185).
* Ideler, Sternnamen, p. 148. In connexion with kimah mention
must be made of the two different interpretations given of the passage
concerning it in Job xxxviii. 31. The first part of this verse is understood
by most in the sense, ' Hast thou bound the chains of the Pleiades ? '
where ' the chains ' represent the Hebrew ma % anaddoth. The authors of
The Constellations 63
47. IV. Hadre theman. In the Book of Job (ix. 9), all
the constellations hitherto described are named, and also
another bearing the name given at the head of this paragraph.
The LXX translate it rapeta Notov, the Vulgate interior a
Austri; and these versions render well the literal sense of the
word. As a matter of fact, heder is derived from the root
hadar^ which means in Arabic laiuit. It denotes properly
the inmost and most strongly defended portion of a dwelling,
where the articles of greatest value are kept, penetralia ; it
is also used in a metaphorical sense to indicate the most
internal and most secluded part of anything. As for theman,
it means the right side, and, for the Jews, who took their
bearings while turning their faces to the east, it meant further
the south side and the south wind. Combining these
significations with the fact that the reference here is un-
doubtedly to constellations in the sky, Luther has translated
the most ancient versions (the LXX, Aquila, and the Vulgate) have read
it so in their copies. But the fact is that in the present Massoretic text
the same word, with the transposition of the letters «, d, is written
ma'adannoth, which means deliciae, oblectamcnta, cupediae (Gesenius,
Thes. pp. 995-6). Those interpreters who have wished to adhere to this
reading have had to be content with simply transcribing the word
without looking for a meaning in it, as Diodati has done, rendering:
Puoi tu legare le delizie delle Gallinelle ? (' Canst thou bind the
delights of the Pleiades ? ') Or else they have had to admit a very free
translation, as we see done in the English Authorized Version, ' Canst
thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades ? ' [R.V. has : c the cluster of
the Pleiades/ giving 'chain' and 'sweet influences' as alternatives in
the margin.] In these 'sweet influences' which the Pleiades are sup-
posed to exercise, the celebrated meteorologist Maury (Sailing
Directions, Washington, 1858, vol. i. p. 17) has recognized nothing less
than universal attraction and the constitution of the starry universe as
conceived in the hypothesis of Maedler, which made the Pleiades the
centre of all the movements of the stars. The baselessness of this
hypothesis is now recognized by all astronomers. We have here, how-
ever, a new example of the singular aberrations to which men can be
led (and to which they have more than once actually been led) by the
desire of finding in the Bible what cannot possibly be there.
64 Astronomy in the Old Testament
hadre theman by die Sterne gegen Mittag (' the stars towards
the south'), Diodati by i segni che sono in fondo alV Austro
(' the signs that are in the depths at the south ') : both are,
in my judgement, excellent renderings. The author of the
Book of Job has unquestionably wished to indicate some
brilliant constellation among the most southerly ones in his
horizon. The search for such a constellation would not be
difficult if during the interval between the writer's time and
our own the fact of precession had not intervened; as
a result of precession, many southerly stars which were
visible in Palestine (that is to say, about the thirty-second
degree of north latitude) when the Book of Job was written,
would be now no longer visible at the same latitude, or vice
versa. Before all, then, it will be necessary to gain a
sufficiently exact picture of the southern heavens in the year
750 b. c, which we may suppose to represent the date of the
Book of Job. On this date, as is well known, students of
Hebrew literature have not yet been able to come to an
agreement ' ; fortunately for us, three or four centuries more
or less do not essentially change the conditions of the problem.
48. On a globe representing with some accuracy the
actual state of the starry heavens, take a point whose right
ascension is 17 and south declination 75° This point will
indicate approximately the position which the antarctic
pole occupied among the stars in the year 750 b. c. From
the same point as pole, take an aperture of the compasses
which embraces on the globe 32 of a great circle, and
describe a circle. Within this circle will be found all the
stars which were invisible on the horizon of Palestine (or
generally, of places under the parallel 32 north latitude) in
that same year 750 b.c If again, outside this circle, with
1 Opinions vary from the time of Moses (1300 B.C.?) to that of the
successors of Alexander (300 B.C., or even later). The interval is of
a thousand years and more.
The Constellations 65
the same pole, another circle be described 20 distant from the
first, we shall then have marked on the globe between the
two circles a spherical zone of 20 breadth ; within this zone
will be included all the stars which in 750 b.c culminated in
Palestine at a height less than 20 above the southern horizon.
This is sufficient, since it is among these that we must look for
the constellation called hadre iheman or chambers of the south.
49. Now, if we examine this zone, we shall find that
for three quarters of its extent it is rather poor in conspicuous
stars and contains no really important constellation. But
the remaining quarter, which begins with a Argus (Canopus)
and ends with a Centaur /, is for the number and brilliancy of
its large stars the brightest part of the sky; it is to this
that Alexander von Humboldt applies the expression 'the
splendour (Pracht) of the southern heaven 1 .' In a space
embracing less than one-thirtieth of the whole sky we see
here five stars of the first magnitude (including Canopus, the
most luminous of all stars next to Sirius), whereas there are
only about twenty such stars in the whole stellar sphere.
Further there are five stars also of the second magnitude,
while the whole heaven only contains about sixty of them.
Nor is there any lack of smaller stars in abundance, down to
the furthest limit of those visible to the naked eye 2 . All
these stars form a splendid garland, having for its background
the densest and most brilliant portion of the Milky Way. No
other part of the sky contains in an equal space such a mass
of light ; it actually produces in the atmosphere a faint
twilight illumination like that which the moon gives in the
1 A. Humboldt, Cosmos (Eng. tr. by Sabine, iii. 127).
2 The relative abundance of this region in stars of all orders visible to
the naked eye, from the first to the sixth degree of magnitude, can be
verified from the charts appended to the author's article, On the apparent
distribution of stars visible to the naked eye, in the Publications of the
Brera Observatory in Milan, No. xxxiv.
sen. F
66 Astronomy in the Old Testament
first days after new moon 1 . In 750 b.c. all this region
passed to its meridian on the extreme southern horizon of
Palestine, the brilliant stars to which we have referred above
culminating at a height lying between 5 and 16 02 . These
stars form an imposing constellation, more brilliant than any
other, not excepting Orion : on the charts of to-day it is dis-
tributed between Argo, the Southern Cross, and the Centaur.
This is the constellation which we can with great probability
identify with the chambers of the south ; not only because it
satisfies, but because it alone satisfies, all the conditions of the
case. In the times to which we are now alluding, the shepherds
and peasants of Palestine could have seen it (as they can no
longer see) on the extreme southern horizon under an aspect
of intense light as though of an aurora australis sprinkled with
brilliant stars, and have admired a spectacle which can in our
time be seen only by those who go towards the equator as
far as the twentieth degree of north latitude.
50. An examination of the map of the southern sky will
show that the constellation which we have mentioned is con-
nected, from the side of Canopus, with Sirius by means
of some beautiful stars of Canis Major and of Argo. In
1 ' Such is the general blaze of star-light near the Cross, from that
part of the sky, that a person is immediately made aware of its having
arisen above the horizon, though he should not be at the time looking
at the heavens, by the increase of general illumination of the atmosphere*,
resembling the effect of young Moon.' (Jacob, astronomer at Madras,
as cited by Humboldt, Cosmos, Eng. tr. by Sabine, iii. note 254 to p. 137.)
3 Names of these stars, their magnitude, and their height of culmination,
under the parallel 32 north in 750 B.C. : —
Canopus 1st magnitude 5 7 Cruets 2nd magnitude 16 *
7 Argus 2nd „ 16 a Cruets 1st „ lo°
e Argus 2nd „ 6° /3 Cruets 1st „ 13$°
rj Argus (variable) n° Centauri 1st „ I2|°
t Argus 2nd magnitude 8J° a Centauri 1st „ 10J
The variable star rj Argus sometimes sinks to the third or fourth
magnitude; at other times it rises to the first magnitude and approxi-
mates to the brightness of Canopus.
The Constellations 67
so far it might be permissible to extend this constellation as
far as Sirius and to suppose that in hadre theman there was
also included this last-named star, the most striking and the
most luminous in the whole sky. In that case we should
have here an allusion in the Old Testament to Sirius as
well, whereas otherwise there is absolute silence about it.
Yet it must be noted that in 750 b.c, under the thirty-second
parallel of north latitude, Sirius culminated at a height of
41 : on this account perhaps it was already too far from the
horizon to be included in the chambers of the south.
The chambers of the south are also alluded to in another
passage of Job (xxxvii. 9), where it is said : l out of the heder
cometh the tempest.' These chambers, whence issues the
tempest, are to be understood as placed in the direction
of the south wind ; in fact, among the Jews the south wind
meant the sirocco, bringing storms and heat, as is clear from
some passages quoted in the note below l . It seems, therefore,
plausible and natural to suppose that the heder named here repre-
sents the same thing as that which in Job ix. 9 is more clearly
indicated by hadre theman. The LXX and the Vulgate have
used the same words, ra^Xa and interior a, in both passages 2 .
51. V. Mezarim. The same verse of Job (xxxvii. 9)
contains in addition the name of another constellation.
Transcribing the verse as a whole, it runs thus : * Out of
the heder cometh the tempest, and cold out of the mezarim.
I cannot agree with the interpreters on the meaning of the
word mezarim. Some derive it from zarah = disperdo, from
which it is said to be a simple participle = disperdentes. So
1 Job xxxvii. 17:' Thou whose garments are hot, when the earth is
still by reason of the south wind.' Isa. xxi. 1 : ' As whirlwinds come
from the south/ Zech. ix. 14 : ' He will go with the storms of the south.'
2 A fuller discussion of the meaning of the words hadre theman is to
be found in an article by the author : ' Astronomical interpretations
of two passages in the Book of Job,' published in the Pavia Review of
Physics, Mathematics, and Natural Science, 4th year, No. 37, 1903.
F 2
68 Astronomy in the Old Testament
they would understand it of the winds as the scatterers of
the clouds. But why wind and why clouds ?
Others have noticed that there is a kind of symmetrical
opposition between the members of the verse quoted above :
in the first part, the subject is the south and its hot wind ;
the second refers to the cold, which can only come from the
north. This opposition had already been observed by
Luther, who translates Vom Mittag her kommt das Wetter ;
und von Mitternacht K<e^ from the south comes storm, and
from the north cold '). So too Diodati : La tempesta viene
dalt Austro e ilfreddo dal Seitentrione^ the tempest comes from
the south, and cold from the north '). Taking account of this
fact, it seems natural to think that, if the heder of the first half of
the verse represents a constellation. in the south, the mezarim,
1 which bring cold/ can be nothing.else than a constellation in
the north : and what other than the Bear or the two Bears ?
52. The LXX translate the second half ana 'ApKrovpov
yfrCxos l , and the Vulgate renders identically : ab Arcturo
frigus. Only that it is evident in both, cases '(as has already
been observed by Grotius) that instead of Arcturus (the
bright star of Bootes) we must understand Arctos or the
Bear. This confusion is often found in writers who are not
specially versed in describing the stars *_; and in the case
in question there can be no doubt of it. As a matter of fact,
for the Jews, as for us, cold came from the north, as is
clearly stated in Ecclesiasticus 3 ; and Arcturus could not be
1 As a matter of fact, the common text has dtrd facpiuTrjplojv ipv\os.
Bat several scholars, with whom Gesenius {Thes. p. 430) agrees, have
already remarked that dKpomjpiwv can only be a copyist's error for
'Ap/crovpov.
8 A recent example of the confusion between Arcturus and Arctos is
given by Stoppani in his work (otherwise most admirable) Sulla Costno-
gonia Mosaica, p. 310 ; where Arcturus is said to be a star in the Bear.
' heel us. xliii. 33 : ' Frigid us ventus Aquilo flavit, etgelavit cry stall us
ab aqua/
The Constellations 69
described as a northern star, since its distance from the
celestial equator was about thirty-two degrees at the time of
the LXX, and about twenty-eight degrees at the time of the
Vulgate. Considering all these facts, I think it probable
that mezarim simply means the constellations nearest to the
arctic pole, probably Ursa Major or both the Bears : to
which then corresponded, even better than now, the direction
of the cold north winds \ It is, therefore, fitting that the
author of the Book of Job should make the stormy and
hot south wind come from the quarter where the hadre
theman, that is to say, the large southern constellations,
appeared ; and should make the cold north wind come from
the quarter where the most northerly stars, the mezarim
or the arctic constellations, could every night be seen.
53. We are now in a position to propound a plausible
conjecture as to the true reading and the origin of the name
which in the pointed Massoretic text is now read mezarim.
We may first observe that the five Hebrew letters with
which this name was written in the original unpointed text
could equally well be read, with a somewhat different point-
ing, as mizrim, or also as mizrayim, of which the one is the
plural, the other the dual, of mizreh. Now mizreh means
a winnowing-fan, the instrument with which grain is scat-
tered in the air to sift it 2 ; and it has its root, like mezarim,
in the word zarah } to which we have already referred above,
and which, besides the sense dispersit 3 bears also the sense
expandit, ventilavit.
Now it is easy to see, if the arrangement of the seven stars
1 About the year 750 B.C. the pole was not far distant from £, e, 7 of the
Little Bear : so that it could be said to be as near to the pole as it now is.
But the Great Bear was then much nearer to the pole than now. Of its
seven stars the furthest from the pole was 17, the last in the tail, and the
polar distance of this one did not amount to twenty-six degrees.
3 This sense is assured by the use made of it in Isa. xxx. 34 and
Jer. xt. 7.
70 Astronomy in the Old Testament
of the Great Bear is considered, that their shape can be com-
pared to a winnowing-fan quite as well as (or perhaps even
better than) to a bear or a waggon. In fact, the hollow part
of the winnowing-fan, in which the grain is put, may very
fairly be said to be represented by the four stars a, 0, y, 8
of the quadrilateral ; while the stars e, (, rj may quite well
form the handle. The ancient Chinese, following out a
similar idea, have recognized in the seven stars the form
of a ladle (an instrument which scarcely differs in shape
from a winnowing-fan), and, in this conception also, they
*7
FlG. 3. Constellation of the Winnowing-fan, as
conceived by the Jews.
treat a, /3, y, 8 as the cavity, and e, £, 17 as the handle *. The
hypothesis, accordingly, that the Jews, being an agricultural
people, might have likened the arrangement of the seven stars
to a winnowing-fan, is not devoid of some foundation 2 .
To conclude: if mizreh may be read in the text of
Job xxxvii. 9, we should undoubtedly have to recognize
1 In the Shih-king, or collection of the most ancient Chinese poetry,
there is an ode in which the poet, after describing the position of various
constellations in relation to his horizon, concludes thus : ' On the side
of the north is the Ladle, which lengthens its handle towards the west.'
This happens when the Bear is below the pole. See Legge, The Sacred
Books of China, p. 364 (vol. iii in the collection of the Sacred Books of
the East, edited by Max Muller).
3 The figures here given (Figs. 3 and 4) serve to show how the stars
of the Great Bear can be represented as a winnowing-fan (according to
the conception of the Jews), or as a ladle (according to the conception
of the Chinese).
The Constellations 71
in it the large winnowing-fan represented by the stars of the
Great Bear. But as we are obliged in any case to read
mizrim in the plural or mizrayim in the dual, we shall at once
perceive that it is not a question here of one winnowing-fan
only ; and as the Bears in our nomenclature are also two,
both readings fit the case perfectly. So we come to learn
that the ancient Jews, besides the Great Bear, knew the
Lesser Bear also, representing that too to themselves under
the shape of a winnowing-fan. Nor can this cause any
surprise. It is historically certain that the Phoenicians
(which is equivalent to saying the Canaanites) used the Lesser
%*^r •«.
V*- -•-- ~T
»•
»•
«i »
Fig. 4. Constellation of the Ladle, as conceived by the Chinese.
Bear to find the direction of the north when at sea, and
for this reason the Greeks, who learnt its use from them,
gave it the name QotviKtj. Consequendy, even if the Jews
had not noted this constellation on their own account (and
the Arabs did learn to note it on their own account), they
would always have been able to acquire a knowledge of
it from the Canaanites, with whom they lived intermingled in
Palestine for several centuries, till they ended by entirely
absorbing or assimilating them. The five letters in the text
here discussed, which have hitherto been read mezarim t
ought instead to be pointed so as to read mizrim or mizrayim,
and mean the winnwuing-fans or the two winnowing-
fans, corresponding to what we call the two Bears. The
result is to confirm, at any rate in substance, the
72 Astronomy in the Old Testament
traditional interpretation preserved by the LXX and the
Vulgate \
54. Besides the constellations already mentioned, some
interpreters think that another is to be recognized in the
nahash bariah of Job xxvi. 13, which means fugitive serpent
(LXX bpaKovra anoo-TaTTjv : SymmachllS rbv ifytv top (TvyKkciovra I
Vulgate coluber tortuosus). There can be no question here
of the Dragon of the sky, which winds between the two
Bears. The Dragon is in fact one of the artificial con-
stellations, invented by the ancients when they felt the
necessity of occupying the whole heaven with groups of
figures so as to be able to use a simple method of naming
the stars ; a constellation whose shape does not carry con-
viction, just as, for that matter, the two other serpents of the
sky, the serpent of Ophiuchus and the Hydra, have no obvious
shape, and are mere expedients for filling up. However,
if any one is at the pains of comparing the words cited from
Job xxvi. 13 with the rest of the speech preceding and
following them, he will not think it likely that there is
any allusion here to a constellation or even to any kind
of astronomical myth.
55. In two other places in Job (ix. 13 and xxvi. 12)
we find the name rahab, which is differently understood
by various writers. The word has in general the sense
of ferocity, insolence, pride, and is sometimes employed
symbolically to represent Egypt 2 . The LXX in the first
of the two passages have tcjrrj to in oipavop ; in the second,
t6 KijTot. Hence Reuss has thought that the allusion is to an
astronomical myth : Renan definitely names the constellation
1 Some further treatment of the question affecting tnczarim may be
found in the author's article on 'Astronomical interpretations of two
passages in the Book of Job ' (see p. 67).
9 Ps. Ixxxvii. 4, lxxxix. 10; Isa. xxx 7. See Gesenius, Theh
p. 1267.
The Constellations 73
of the Whale, but, to all seeming, with little ground '.
Further, it may here too be objected that the Whale is not a
natural grouping of stars which attracts attention at the first
glance : like the Dragon, it is an artificial constellation made
to unite together under one figure many stars of no special
distinction, which are spread irregularly over a large tract
of sky. Hence Rahab might be a fabulous monster, like
Leviathan or Behemoth ; but it does not seem easy to find for
it any connexion with the stars of the sky. In the note are
indicated the very divergent interpretations given by various
authors for the phrase 'ozere rahab in Job ix. 13 2 : a com-
parison of these will enable the reader to see in what grave
uncertainty the matter is involved.
56. Strictly speaking, therefore, we find certain designa-
tions in the Old Testament for only six constellations, which
would come to be identified, more or less plausibly, with the
following : Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, the Hyades with Alde-
baran, Orion, the Pleiades, and the so-called chambers of the
south. Ursa Major, the Hyades, Orion, and the Pleiades,
are also found in Homer, and, more generally, in almost
all primitive descriptions of the universe. To the chambers of
the south, however, Homer does not allude, as he lived in
a more northerly latitude (about 3 8°), at which some of those
stars could not be seen (for instance Canopus), others
appeared too low down and immersed in the vapours of
the horizon.
1 Gesenius {Thes. p. 1268) makes the just observation that ra for'
ovpavSv, ' the things that are under the heaven? are terrestrial things,
just as things ' under the sun ' or * sublunary things' are terrestrial.
3 LXX, /fqrij tcL vir' ovpav6v : Symmachus, ol tirtptiSSfitvoi aXa^ovda :
Vulgate, qui portant orbem : Luther, die stolzen Herren (the proud
rulers) : Diodati, i bravi campioni (the brave champions) : Philippson,
des Widerstandes Stiitzen (pillars of resistance) : Reuss, des Drachen
Bundesgenossen (the allies of the dragon) : Renan, la milice du Dragon
{Baleine ?) : Delitzsch, die Heifer des Rahab (the helpers of Rahab :
so R.V.). See Gesenius, Thes. pp. 1267-8.
CHAPTER V
MAZZAROTH
Mazzaroth or Mazzaloth. — Various interpretations of this name. — It
cannot be the Great Bear. — It probably represents the two phases
of Venus. — Comparison of a Biblical expression with some Baby-
lonian monuments. — The host of heaven reconsidered.
57. The two words mazzaroth and mazzaloth seem to
refer, under a slightly different pronunciation, to the same
celestial object or to the same system of celestial objects \
In Job (xxxviii. 31-2) the name mazzarotk is found in
company with various constellations, the whole context
standing as follows: 'Hast thou bound the chains of the
Pleiades or unloosed the bonds of Orion ? Dost thou make
mazzarotk come forth in his season, and dost thou guide the
'qyish with her children?' In the second Book of Kings
(xxiii. 5) we read of king Josiah that he exterminated those
who worshipped and burnt incense to Baal, 'the sun, the
moon, mazzaloth, and all the host of heaven/
The ancient versions here give us little aid in regard to
these words : we cannot be wrong in saying that the LXX
were already ignorant of their meaning, since in both
places they do not translate, but simply transcribe them as
na£ovpa>9. We have reason to believe that Aquila also did
the same. The Vulgate has Luciferum in the former of the
two passages, duodecim signa in the second. Symmachus
1 The authority of the LXX and of Aquila, whose transcription is
fm^ovpijO, seems to support by preference the former mode of pro-
nunciation.
Mazzaroth 75
translated by o-KopirurBevra 1 . St. Chrysostom (with whom
many others agree) interprets as faSta, but remarks that
other interpreters identify pa(ovpa>0 with the heavenly dog,
meaning Sirius.
58. It is not even quite certain whether the allusion is to
one thing or several. The termination oth would certainly
seem to indicate a plural, and the majority of interpreters
have taken this view. Yet it is worth notice that in Job
xxxviii. 32 the Massoretic text reads: hathotsi mazzaroth
beittd. And the Septuagint is in exact agreement : 9 Buutoigeis
fmCovpa>6 iv Kmpu, qvtov ; This can only be translated in English
by : ' Dost thou make mazzaroth come forth in his season ? '
Clearly then, mazzaroth is here considered as a singular.
However, the word might be considered to be a plural in
grammatical form but not in meaning, as happens fairly often
in the Hebrew language 2 . Taking this point of view, it
would no longer appear absurd to suppose that mazzaroth
might stand for a single star. Now, when we read the
series in 2 Kings : ' The sun, the moon, mazzaloth % and
all the host of heaven/ the idea naturally suggests itself
that mazzaloth is the most luminous star after the sun and
moon, worthy as such of being distinguished from all the
host of heaven : or in other words, the planet Venus, as the
author of the Vulgate supposes 3 , and as Theodoret also
thought. Consideration will show that there is some reason
also, though not equal justification, for the opinion of
St. Chrysostom which identified mazzaloth with Sirius. Sirius
is in fact the most luminous of all stars properly so called.
1 This is certainly from ffKopirifa = spargo, disperdo ; so that
mazzaroth would mean the stars or constellations that are scattered. It
is clear that Symmachns derived mazzaroth from the root zarah y
signifying sparstt, dzspersit, dissipavit.
a To take the best known instances: Elokim (God), shamayim
(heaven), mayim (water), all have a plural termination.
' s Job xxxviii. 32.
76 Astronomy in the Old Testament
59. An examination of the relation that may exist between
viazzaroth and the constellations mezarim leads to a very
different result. We have examined mezarim above (§§ 51-3),
and saw that for reasons of considerable plausibility they
could be identified with the two Bears. The relation between
viazzaroth and mezarim was considered as one of complete
identity as long ago as the time of the celebrated Aquila, who
translated the Old Testament into Greek in the second
century after Christ. In the surviving fragments of this
version he renders mezarim by fxagovp, which only differs
from the paCovp&d of the LXX as a singular from a plural.
The identity of the two also seemed probable to the great
commentator Abraham Aben Ezra ; and Diodati's translation
of mazzaroth by ' segni settentrionali ' (northern signs) appears
also to rest upon this foundation. It is undoubtedly true
that arguments of no slight force can be adduced in favour
of this identity, drawn from the analysis of the two words as
they stand in the unpointed text. None the less it is certain
that, if our conclusions be admitted, according to which
mezarim (or rather mizrayim) represents the two Bears, the
identity in question must be entirely set on one side. What-
ever may be the star or collection of stars which the Bible
indicates by the name of mazzaroth, one thing is certain:
it cannot be a circumpolar star or a group of circumpolar
stars. As a matter of fact, the Hebrew says : l Dost thou
make mazzaroth come forth in his season?' Clearly then,
mazzaroth was a star or a constellation or a collection of
stars, subject to periodic appearances and not always visible,
that ' came forth' (i.e. rose above the horizon) ' at a determined
season.' Now this cannot be said of the mezarim or
mizrayim, supposing that they are the Bears ; for the Bears
were both absolutely circumpolar for the latitude of Palestine
at the time when the Book of Job was written. Hence they
could not 'come forth' at any season: as they were con-
Mazzaroth 77
tinually visible from evening to morning on any clear night,
it could not be said of them that they repeated their appear-
ances at fixed times,
60. The etymology for the word mazzaroth given by
Symmachus * and others, who derive it from the verb zarah
(dispersit, dissipavit, ventilavit\ does not seem to lead to any
probable conclusion as to its meaning. But another can be
drawn from the verb azar, which has the meaning cinxit:
whence azor (girdle) and mazzaroth (formed in a girdle). Maz*
zaroih would then be stars or constellations arranged in such
a way as to form a girdle or a wreath. And so some ancient
Jewish interpreters have explained the word by rota siderum
or zona siderum : more recent ones have had recourse to the
Corona Borealis, others again to the girdle of Orion. But the
former of these two does not seem to be a constellation of
sufficient importance or prominence to enter into discussion
here ; while as for the girdle of Orion, that is undoubtedly
excluded by the fact that Orion is found named as a whole,
immediately before the mazzaroth, in the passage from Job
(xxxviii. 31,32) cited a short way back. — Again, there is in the
sky another girdle or wreath of much greater importance,
namely, that formed by the constellations which mark in the
heaven the course of the sun and of the moon. This is the
belt of the signs of the zodiac, which played such a prominent
part in ancient astronomy, and still more in astrology.
Hence, perhaps, arises the opinion which finds expression
in the Vulgate 2 and in St. Chrysostom that the mazzaroth
are simply the twelve signs of the zodiac : an opinion which
has come to be widely spread since and has ended in being
received by the majority of interpreters.
61. Gesenius (Thes. pp. 869, 870) admits the explanation
of mazzaroth as the signs of the zodiac, principally on the
authority of later Jewish and Chaldaean tradition. He rejects
1 See above, p. 75. * a Kings xxiii. 5.
78 Astronomy in the Old Testament
the explanation * girdle ' or * wreath ' given above, and asserts
that the only possible meaning ex certo linguae Hebraicae et
Arabicae usu is that of ' premonition/ and, in a concrete sense,
of ' premonitory stars.' This sense he deduces from the root
nazar, which among its meanings has, especially in Arabic, that
of advising a man not to do something. The interpretation
seems very far-fetched ; I may also be allowed to remark that
the ' premonitory stars ' par excellence would in that case be,
not the twelve signs, but the seven planets, which form the
principal basis of all astrology. But the hypothesis of the
planets is expressly rejected by Gesenius.
62. It must further be noticed that all is still doubt and
mystery as regards the date when, and the nation in which,
the zodiac was invented 1 . In the present state of our
knowledge, no one is in a position to prove that the zodiac
and its twelve signs were already known at the time when
Josiah exterminated the worship of the mazzaloth at Jerusalem
(621 b.c). Again, if the word bore the meaning of a ' girdle*
or 'belt* of constellations encircling the whole sky, that
would not be because it stood for the twelve signs, but rather
because it represented the twenty-eight stations of the moon,
the observation of which is undoubtedly easier and is in
a certain way suggested by nature, while the division of the
twelve signs is entirely conventional. Hence it comes that
1 Scholars have in recent years believed that they have found thg
zodiac on Assyrio-Babylonian monuments, which are much older than
anything Greece could have produced on this subject. What they have
really succeeded in proving is that three or four out of the numerous
figures which are supposed to represent constellations of the Babylonian
heavens, belong to the Greek zodiac. A true Babylonian zodiac earlier
than the Greek (that is to say, a series of twelve constellations arranged
along the annual course of the sun) has not, so far as I am aware, been
yet published. The question of the origin of the zodiac is just now
being valiantly debated by many learned men, and it would be pre-
sumptuous to express an opinion at this moment which did not rest on
an accurate study of the documents.
Mazzaroth 79
the lunar stations are found in the primitive astronomy of
Asia, not only among the Semites of Arabia (and perhaps of
Babylon), but actually also among the Indians of Vedic
times and among the Chinese of the first dynasty. The
Jews, who at all periods of their existence as a nation are
found in frequent contact with the Semites as well of Meso-
potamia as of Arabia, might easily receive from them the
notion of the lunar stations.
63. This hypothesis might find support from the actual
meaning of the word, if it be assumed that mazzaloth is its
right pronunciation. This can, in fact, be derived from the root
nazal, which is found, not in the Old Testament, but in Arabic
writers, with the meaning descendil, devtriii : mazzaloth would
then have the sense of ' stations on a journey/ and be perfectly
fitted to denote a series of constellations, each of which serves
to mark from day to day the tracts of the sky traversed by the
moon in twenty-four hours along her apparent orbit This
title, ' stations on a journey/ would correspond very imper-
fectly with the signs of the zodiac, which constitute an
arbitrary and conventional division, not determined by the
necessity of the daily rest which forms the fundamental idea
of the lunar stations. This interpretation of mazzaloth might
also be further authenticated by the habit of the Arabs, who
have from time immemorial given to their lunar stations 1 the
name menazil el-kamar, or 'stations of the moon.' Now^
menazil is the plural of menzil (station or lodging), a word
derived from the Arabic root nazal, which we have cited
above as having the meaning descendit, deversatus est. These
considerations would leave no doubt as to the identity of
the Hebrew mazzaloth with the Arabic menazil, if it were
quite certain that the ancient Hebrew would use the root
1 A full account of the lunar stations of the Arabs may be found in
Ideler, Stermuimen, pp. 120 and 287.
80 Astronomy in the Old Testament
nazal in the same sense as that in which it is found used in
Arabic *.
64. There is, however, a decisive consideration to which no
one appears to have paid attention. According to the narrative
in 2 Kings (xxiii. 5), divine honours were offered in Jeru-
salem to mazzaloth, as to the sun and to the moon. The
origin of this worship can be sought nowhere else than in
Babylonia. Now, in all that is known of the star-worship of
the Babylonians, not the least trace can be found of an
adoration of the signs of the zodiac or of the lunar stations.
This is enough to eliminate all possibility of recognizing in
mazzaroih either these signs or the lunar stations.
65. Much preferable in this respect would be the hypothesis
which supposes that mazzaroth stands for the five larger
planets. On the adoration of which they were the object
in Palestine, we have the positive testimony of Amos * : at
Babylon and Nineveh they were placed among the greater
divinities. Further, the place assigned to mazzaloth in
2 Kings, immediately after the sun and the moon, corre-
sponds well to the great brightness of the planets, and parti-
cularly of Venus, Jupiter, and Mars. To the planets may
be applied in an astrological sense the title 'premonitory
stars/ which Gesenius supports. Hence it was just to the
planets that the name mazzaloth was employed in Rabbinic
literature, to indicate the determiners of fate 8 . Lastly, it may
be observed that the regular and periodic appearances, which
seem to be implied in Job xxxviii. 32, fit in well with the planets.
1 Gesenius in his Thesaurus admits this root nazal only in the sense
of fiuxiti manavit. But Leopold in his manual lexicon allows in
addition the different sense of descendit, dcversatus est : probably with
a view to mazzaloth, which he explains as deversoria Softs, id est
duodecim zodiaci signa. [The root has this latter sense in Arabic ; see
Frey tag's Lexicon AraJficum."]
* Amos v. 26,
* Riehm, Handwdrttrbuch des biblischen Alterthutns, p. 1551.
Mazzaroth 81
66. Fox Talbot, one of the creators of the photographic
art, and at the same time one of the founders of Assyriology,
turned his acute intellect to this question also 1 . He com-
pares mazzaroth with the Assyrian word matsartu, meaning
' watch/ According to him, therefore, mazzaroth would be
the constellations which, by their successive rising above the
horizon, or rather, by their successive culmination in the
meridian, indicated the hours of the night at which the
sentinels had to be changed. This idea seems to be worthy
of careful consideration. As a matter of fact, in Assyrian,
matsartu is derived from the word natsaru, meaning to
< watch/ custodtre. Now the same verb, in the same form
natsar and with the same meaning, exists in Hebrew also,
as can be seen from the lexica. So, then, it ought to be
possible to derive matsaroth in Hebrew from natsar in the
sense of 'watch/ as in Assyrian matsartu is derived front
natsaru in the same sense. And it can be seen further that
the pure and simple meaning ' watch ' or ' guard/ corresponds,
better than that proposed by Talbot of ' stars determining the
changes of sentinels/ to the nature of analogous derivations
Used in the Hebrew language.
67. We may also observe that the problem of determining
at every instant the hour of the night by the appearance of
the constellations alone, is not so simple as some might think,
and requires a continued study of the sky and its aspects at
the various stages of the year. And it is much to be doubted
whether in the Assyrian armies (and generally in any army,
ancient or modern) astronomical knowledge had reached the
point necessary to render this method of changing the watch
possible. Probably some means were employed for this
object which were also applicable when the sky was clouded
over ; and perhaps long experience of estimating duration
was sufficient for the purpose without any external aid.
1 Trans. Soc. Bibl. Archaeol. i. 339-42.
SCH. G
82 Astronomy in the Old Testament
68. Yet in spite of this, the fact remains that if, with
Talbot, the form matsaroth is assumed and is considered to
be derived from the Hebrew verb natsar, the meaning of
• watch' or 'sentinel* deduced from it may lead us to a
plausible interpretation, provided that any one of the stars
can be found which answers well to this meaning. The two
Bears, for instance, would correspond well to this condition,
since it can be said of them that they keep watch continu-
ously in the sky and might even be thought of as two
sentinels placed to guard the arctic pole of the heavens. But
it has already been shown above that there cannot here be
any question of circumpolar stars, as mazzaroth have to come
forth at fixed seasons (§59). All the conditions, on the
other hand, are satisfied by two stars of exceptional bright-
ness, which keep guard in turn over the sun, the one
preceding him in the morning at his rising, the other follow-
ing him in the evening at his setting: Lucifer and
Hesperus, the star of morning and the star of evening. In
this way we are led back to the interpretation given by the
Vulgate in Job xxxviii. 32 and also adopted by Theodoret.
69. In spite of the small account which the most authori-
tative expositors seem to have made of it, various other
reasons speak in its favour, and render it, perhaps, more
probable than any other.
I. This hypothesis is the only one according to which the
plural form of the name can be reconciled with the use made
pf it as one thing in the singular number, in Job xxxviii. 32.
In fact the planet Venus, apparently uniting two different
manifestations as Hesperus and Lucifer, may have received a
plural name from the first, i. e. the name mazzaroth \ When
1 Strictly speaking, a dual might be expected, but this is not
a necessary condition. For instance, the two tables of the law of
Moses are always in the Old Testament named in the plural {JuhotK)
and never in the dual (luhothayim). That the two aspects of Venus
Mazzaroth 83
the identity of its two appearances at morning and evening
was discovered, it naturally came to be thought of as one
star, and hence the author of the Book of Job used it as a
singular in a plural garb.
II. In Job xxxviii. 32 we read: 'Dost thou bring forth
mazzaroth in his season?' The phrase clearly indicates a
law of periodical appearance. Now it is perfectly true that
not only the zodiacal stars, but all non-circumpolar stars
generally, appear periodically during the year when effecting
their heliacal rising; but the special stress here laid on a
period seems to indicate something different from what
happens with the generality of stars. Again, as in the dis-
course in chapter xxxviii God propounds to Job a series of
things which are impossible to man, and the secret of which
is reserved to the Divine mind, one might also suppose that
to make a star issue at the appointed time constitutes a part
of the hidden knowledge to which man is not wise enough
to attain.
III. In 2 Kings xxiii. 5 mention is made of those who
burned incense ' to the sun, to the moon, to mazzaloth, and
to all the host of heaven.' Here mazzaloth is placed after
the sun and the moon, but, along with them, is distinguished
from ' all the host of heaven.' The most natural and most
probable supposition is that mazzaloth is the most brilliant
star in the sky after the sun and moon, and that like them it
Was separated by a long interval from the other stars. Thus
we are inevitably led to Venus, which is the only star, after
the sun and moon, capable of producing shade.
70. To all this must be added that the mention of the
were at first considered in Babylonia to be two different stars can be
proved from a considerable number of monuments. The same can also
be shown of the most ancient Egyptians ; and with regard to the Greeks,
the tradition exists that Pythagoras was the first to recognize that
Lucifer and Hesperus were one and the same star.
G 2
84 Astronomy in the Old Testament
three stars (the sun, the moon, and mazzarolh), considered
separately as the three principal stars of heaven, has its
special significance in a form of worship that came to the
Jews from beyond the Euphrates and was probably intro-
duced along with the Assyrian invasion. As a matter of
fact, the sun, the moon, and Venus, occupied a pre-eminent
position in the Pantheon of the nations of Mesopotamia. In
many and many a sculpture exhumed from the excavations
made in Assyria and in Babylonia, and especially where any
idea connected with religion appears, a triad of stars is found
designed (symbolizing, no doubt, the corresponding deities),,
each of which has its own peculiar shape, identically repeated
everywhere with the same type. These stars are the sun,
the moon, and Venus, and their shapes are as they are given
here.
Fig. 5. Sin (Moon). bamas (Sun). IStar (Venus).
These three shapes occur frequently beside the portraits
which we possess of the Assyrian kings, sculptured in bas-
relief 1 ; and they stand before them in the host of symbols of
their protecting deities. The same shapes are also found on
the figured reliefs which we possess of the Babylonian
1 See the portraits in bas-relief of Asshumazirpal (884-860 B.C.), of
his son Shalraanezer II (859-825 B.C.), and of his grandson Samsi-
Adad IV (824-811 B.C.), reproduced in the Transactions of Soc. Bibl'
Archaeol. vol. v. pp. 224, 278, vol. vi. p. 88. See also the bas-relief of
Esarhaddon, found in the excavations at Zenji rli in Cilicia and now
preserved in the Berlin Museum. On the Assyrian monuments, the
figure representing the sun is a little different from that on the Baby-
lonian monuments which is reproduced above.
Mazzaroth 85
kings \ And they occur finally in another class of monu-
ments which is much more numerous: that is to say, on
certain stelae or upright stones which were placed in the fields
as boundary marks (according to a view held by many),
or rather as public titles of property, titles that were inviolable
and whose removal was accompanied by the most terrible
maledictions, as the inscriptions on the pillars themselves
show. These monuments, a great many of which must have
existed, as about thirty of them have already been dis-
covered, bear an illustrated scene or representation which
displays in the most conspicuous place the three symbols of
the sun, the moon, and Venus, as described above, arranged
for the most part in the following order, — the first place
is given to the moon, the second to the sun, the third to
Venus.
71. The supposition would not therefore be far-fetched
that in the Temple at Jerusalem, Ahaz or one of his suc-
cessors might have erected a monument analogous to those
described above. Then the ' host of heaven/ to which the
Biblical writer alludes in 2 Kings, would not be absent
either. In fact, on the boundary pillars or titles of property
of which we have spoken above, after the three symbols
of the sun, the moon, and Venus (or round about them,
when the representation is circular in shape), a whole crowd
of strange figures invariably stand designed. Among them
can be distinguished a large snake, a scorpion, fantastic and
monstrous animals sometimes wearing a terrifying expres-
sion, a winged centaur in the act of shooting, a goat with
a fish's tail; further, various emblems of a more simple
1 For instance, on the pillar of Nebuchadnezzar I (abont 11 30 B.C.),
reproduced in Rawlinson, Cuneif. Inscript. of Western Asia, V. tab. 57.
Also on the stone of Nabupaliddina (about 860 B.C.), found by Rassam
in the ruins of Sippara and often published, e.g. by Hommel, Gesch.
Babyl. u. Assyr. p. 597.
86 Astronomy in the Old Testament
character, such as altars with tiaras or points of lances above
them, a lamp, an arrow, a staff, and other objects, which are
hard to explain, but are found sculptured in greater or
less number on each monument. About forty figures are
Fig. 6. The sun, the moon, Venus, and the Host of Heaven,
on a Babylonian monument of the twelfth century B.C.
known up to the present, some of which are repeated with
greater frequency, others more rarely.
72. Clear evidence as to the subject of these figures is
given in some of the inscriptions which usually accompany
them 1 : they are nothing else but emblems or symbols of
1 On a pillar of this kind belonging to the reign of Mardukbaliddina I
(about 1 1 70 B.C.) it is said, if any one remove it from its place,
conceal it, or destroy it, ' May the gods Ann, Bel, and Ea, Ninip and
Cula, and all the deities whose emblems are seen on this stone tablet^
violently destroy his name : may a terrible malediction fall upon him,'
Mazzaroth 87
divinity or of supernatural beings, to whose protection the
permanence and preservation of the monument was com-
mended. Not, however, of divinities of any kind indifferently.
If in fact we observe these figures carefully, we see that some
of them have a more or less complete resemblance to
certain figures representing constellations of the Greek
sphere, and a still greater resemblance sometimes with the
sphere as conceived by the ancient astrologers, the so-called
barbarian sphere : thus the identity is occasionally complete,
as between the Babylonian scorpion and the scorpion of our
zodiac, between the goat with a fish's tail of the Babylonian
pillar and our Capricorn, between the winged shooting
centaur of the Babylonians and the archer of the barbarian
sphere and of the Egyptian zodiacal sculptures 1 . Hence
some Assyriologists 2 have wished to recognize in these figures
a series of zodiacal signs or of other constellations belonging
to the Babylonian sphere. That an astronomical character
is to be discovered in them seems probable, not only on
&c. (G. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, ed. 2, p. 241). On another,
belonging to the reign of Marduknadinachi (about n 15 B.C.) the
corresponding curse is expressed as follows : ' May the deities whose
images are on this stone and whose name is invoked persecute him
with irrevocable maledictions ' (Oppert, in Records of the Past t vol. ix.
p. 101).
1 On this and other resemblances see the recent important work
of F. Boll, called Sphaera, pp. 181-94 : on the Babylonian astronomical
works of the class described above, see the same work, pp. 198-208,
besides that of Hommel cited in the following line.
2 So Hommel (Aufsatze und Abhandlungen, pp. 236-68), whose
conclusions, however, can hardly stand criticism. On the other hand,
Morris Jastrow {Relig. Baby I. u. Assyr. p. 192) not only rejects them,
but falls into the opposite extreme and denies emphatically that the
relations between the divinities of the Babylonian Pantheon and their
pictured emblems depend on principles or facts of astronomy or astrology.
Perhaps the truth lies between them. We can admit some connexion
of these emblems with celestial phenomena ; only we are not in a position
to indicate the nature of this connexion.
88 Astronomy in the Old Testament
account of the coincidences just mentioned, but also because,
the symbols of the moon, the sun, and Venus, are, as has
been said, always present on these monuments. I believe
myself that it cannot be wrong to consider them as emblems
or material representations of the divinities of heaven, since
there were bound to be such divinities; including in this,
number the divinities of the planets and the good and bad
spirits with which Babylonian theology associated the stars
and constellations of the firmament. These are the ' angels
of the hosts of heaven,' over which Marduk reigned, according
to the hymn cited above (§ 33); this is the ' host of heaven'
named by Nebuchadnezzar in his large inscription, and the
worship of which at Jerusalem caused so much horror to
the prophets of Israel.
73. As we have seen, the Biblical expression (2 Kings
xxiii. 5) about those who adored 'the sun, the moon,
mazzaroth) and all the host of heaven/ is found graphically
illustrated by the monuments here described, in the most
complete and unexpected manner. Sun, moon, and maz-
zaroth are distinguished in this Biblical passage by being
named specially and in the first place : on the monuments
they are distinguished by their place of precedence when the
figures form a line, or by occupying the central position
when the figures are distributed over a circular or oval
space. As for the remaining multitude, l the host of heaven/
it would be of profound interest to examine the various
classes into which they were probably divided, and their
hierarchy. But this is not a subject to be treated briefly,
or in this place : its relations are not so much with the
astronomy of the Bible as with the mythology and urano-
graphy of the Babylonians ■.
1 Instructive enough drawings of the Babylonian monuments belong-
ing to the class here considered can be found in well-known works*
There is one in the second edition of G. Smith's Assyrian
Mazzaroth 89
Discoveries, showing the stela of Mardukbaliddina I (about 1170 B.C.),
which was cited on page 86. Another, referring to the reign of
Marduknadinachi (about 1115 B - c ) ^ s to be seen represented in lateral
perspective in Bezold, Ninive und Babylon, p. 52. Reduced to circular
projection, it has been published by Lenormant, Histoire de T Orient
(ed. 9, continued by Babelon, vol. v. p. 183). Thus reduced, it appears as
in our Figure 6 above. Here the three symbols of the moon, the sun, and
Venus, occupy the convex top of the monument, which is at the same
time the centre of the surface covered by figures. The same is the case
with the so-called 'Michaux stone* preserved in the Bibliotheque
Nationale at Paris, which has been often reproduced during the last
century, and, recently again, in the work by Lenormant to which we
have referred, in Hommel's Gesch. Baby/, u. Assyr. p. 74 [and in
Maspero's Dawn of Civilisation, pp. 762-3]. To the same category
belongs also the fine relief of Nebuchadnezzar I, the figures of which
may be seen excellently reproduced in Bezold, Ninive und Babylon,
P. 49-
CHAPTER VI
THE DAY AND ITS DIVISION
The evening at a certain point of twilight regarded as the beginning of
day. — 'Between the two evenings/ — Divisions of the night and
of the natural day. — The so-called sundial of Ahaz. — No mention
of hours in the Old Testament. — The Aramaic ska* ah.
74. There can be no doubt that the Jews placed the
beginning of the civil day or nychlhemeron in the evening,
nearly in the manner which was usual among the Italians
a hundred years ago, and is still adopted by the whole
Mohammedan world. In fact, Genesis, after relating the
works completed by God on the first day of creation,
concludes thus : ' And the evening and the morning were
the first day.* The same is repeated regularly for all the
days of creation. The evening was therefore understood to
precede the day. A still more convincing piece of evidence
is to be drawn from Ps.lv. 17, where the words are: 'At
evening and at morning and at midday will I complain and
moan,' &c. Here the evening precedes both morning and
midday. All festivals of the Jews, which were so arranged
as to be obliged to last through one or more entire days,
began with evening and ended with evening. So the repose
of the sabbath lasted from the evening of one day down
to the evening of the following day. The same is to be said
of the Day of Atonement *, which was observed in the seventh
month, lasting from the evening of the ninth day to the
evening of the tenth; and of the Feast of Unleavened
1 Yom hakkippurirn. See Lev. xxiii. 32.
The Day and its Division 91
Bread, which began with the fourteenth day of the first
month at evening, and ended with the twenty-first day at
evening \ It may be added that the Jewish community still
commence their ritual day in the evening 2 .
75. This habit of commencing the civil day or nychthemeron
with evening was originally practised by those peoples who
adopted the rule of taking for the beginning of their month
the moment at which the new moon first became visible
to them in the evening twilight. As Ideler justly remarks
on this subject 8 , there is a certain connexion between the
two things ; it was, in fact, natural to commence to count
the first day of the month from the same instant as that
at which the month itself was supposed to begin, and it is
easy to see what inconveniences the custom would have
caused of commencing the month at one moment and the
first day of the month at another. Now the Jews, as we
shall see, were in the habit at every period of their history of
counting the months from the instant when the luminous
crescent of the moon began to become visible after its
conjunction with the sun; that is to say, from the instant
of the visible new moon. The practice of commencing the
day with evening was deduced from this as a consequence,
by the Jews as well as by other peoples, among whom the
Greeks are to be included.
76. The Hebrew word for the evening is *ereb, from the
root 'arab meaning niger fuii 4 ; it alludes, therefore, to the
1 Exod. xii. 18.
2 Ideler, Handbuch der mcUhematischen und techniscken Chronologic,
i:8o.
3 Ideler, op. cit. i. 482.
* So Gesenius, Thes. 1064. But the verb *arab in the sense niger fuit
is not found in the Old Testament. It seems difficult, however, not to
admit a connexion between the Hebrew *ereb and the ereb Samsi of the
Assyrio-Babylonian inscriptions, which means ' setting of the sun '
(literally ' entry of the sun ' below the horizon — from erebu, to enter).
92 Astronomy tn the Old Testament
gradual darkening of the atmosphere after the sun has set.
Like the name sera (evening) in Italian, it was generally
used in a somewhat indeterminate sense, including both
the last part of the clear day and the beginning of darkness.
What was the moment of evening which constituted the
end of one nychthemeron and the beginning of the next
nychthemeron ?
There can be no doubt as to the answer. Among those
peoples who marked the beginning of the month by the
moment when in the dusk at evening there appeared towards
the west the faint crescent of the new moon, the beginning
of the day could be only that phase of evening twilight when
the observation of the crescent became possible. This phase
could not be the setting of the sun, because the lunar crescent
could not yet be visible in full daylight; and neither was
it the end of twilight and the beginning of the complete
darkness of night, because the most brilliant stars and the
planets are wont to become visible a good while before the
sky is completely blackened; how much more the lunar
crescent 1 That crescent is accustomed to appear at an inters
mediate moment, when the stars are not yet seen, though the
light of dusk has already much diminished. Experience
shows this moment of first visibility to depend on several
circumstances, which vary from one new moon to another l ;
but it can be defined in a general and approximate manner
by saying that the crescent is accustomed to appear when
the sun has sunk about six degrees below the horizon. In
the latitude of Palestine this may be said to happen, taking
one time with another, half an hour after sunset, and one com-
plete hour before twilight is ended and the complete darkness
1 The chief among these are the angular distance of the moon from
the sun at the moment of observation, the height of the moon above the
horizon, the moon's distance from the earth, the degree of clearness of
the atmosphere.
The Day and its Division 93
of night begins. Accordingly, on the evenings of a new
moon the duration of twilight from the moment of the
crescent's appearance is divided into two unequal parts,
which the Jews called ' the two evenings/ or in Hebrew
'arbayim. The first evening formed an interval of about
half an hour, during which, as it was still sufficiently light
to be considered as a continuation and part of the preceding
day, the common occupations of the day could be attended
to ; that interval, in fact, which we call the ' twilight of the
civil day V The second evening lasted nearly an hour ; its be-
ginning marked the beginning of the following nychthemeron\
its end was at the commencement of the complete darkness
of night ; when it began, the lamps were lighted, an action
which ushered in the period of night. In the Pentateuch we
find use made several times of the expression ben ha'arbayim
(' between the two evenings ') 2 to indicate the moment which
Separated the two periods described above, and marked for
the Jews the beginning of the civil and religious day. Of
special interest is the passage in Exod. xxx. 8, where Aaron
is spoken of as lighting the lamps of the tabernacle * between
the two evenings'; it is decisive on the meaning of the
expression bin ha'arbayim (which has been much discussed 3 ),
and shows clearly that what is indicated by it is the moment
of evening twilight when the natural light became insufficient
and it was necessary to resort to artificial light 4 . One
1 The twilight of the civil day is assumed to commence at sunset and
to end when the son attains a depth of 6-J° below the horizon. The
average duration of this twilight in Palestine is about half an hour.
8 Exod. xii. 6 ; xvi. 12 ; xxix. 39, 41 ; xxx. 8 ; Lev. xxiii. 5 ; Num.
ix. 3, 5 ; xxviii. 4.
3 Those who wish for information as to this discussion, can gain an
idea of it from Ideler, op. cit. i. pp. 482-4 ; and from Gesenius, Thes.
pp. 1064-5. The question was important for determining the right
moment at which the Paschal lamb had to be sacrificed and the week
of unleavened bread begun.
* This method, therefore, was analogous to the old Italian custom of
94 Astronomy in the Old Testament
certainly cannot suppose that Aaron lighted the lamps
with the sun still on the horizon, nor yet that he waited
to light them till it was altogether impossible to see any
more.
77. The night was called layil or laylah by the Jews,
a word of uncertain derivation. Its duration was divided
by the Jews, after the example of the Babylonians \ into
three ' guards ' or * watches,' while the Greeks and Romans
divided it into four. The first was called 'the evening
watch ' or ' the beginning of the watches ' ; the second, ' the
midnight watch '; the third, ' the morning watch V The ' half
of the night ' (or ' midnight ') is also found named in the Old
Testament 3 .
78. The morning in the broad sense is generally indicated
by boqer, which is also applied in a more particular sense to
the first light. The twilight (nesheph) of the morning bears
the further title shahar> equivalent to dawn. The Jews had
two dawns, as they had two evenings ; the two dawns were
separated by an intermediate phase of the morning twilight,
bin shaharayim \
beginning the nyehthemeron half an hour after sunset, at the moment
when the twilight of the civil day was closed. Ideler, op. eit. i. 83.
1 The three watches of the Babylonians were given precisely the same
titles as the Jews nsed : the first watch, the midnight watch, the
morning watch. All three are fonnd named together on a small tablet
in the British Mnseum, published in Rawlinson, Cuneiform Inscriptions
of Western Asia, vol. iii. tab. 5a, no. 3 ; partly translated and
explained by Sayce, Trans. Soc. Bibl. Archeol. iii. 151-60.
2 The ' beginning of the watches ' is found named in Lam. ii. 19 ; the
midnight watch in Judges vii. 16; the morning watch in Exod. xiv. 24
and 1 Sam. xi. 11.
8 H&tsi hallaylah, Exod. xii. 29, Judges xvi. 3.
1 Shaharayim is not, however, found used in this sense in the Old
Testament, but only as a proper name, 1 Chron. viii. 8. None the less,
this dual form suffices to prove that ' two dawns ' were distinguished as
parts of the morning twilight, even though little practical use may have
been made of the distinction.
The Day and its Division 95
79. The word_jww, like its equivalent in Italian gt'ornq
(day), was used to indicate both the whole nychthemeron
and also the illuminated part of it only, that is to say, the
natural day. The one common division of the natural day is
given by midday, isohorayim, a word derived from Isahar,
which probably signified splenduii, luxii (in Arabic, ' to
appear'). It is the dual of Isohar, light. So then fsohtirayim
would be equivalent to saying ' double light/ and would be
a way of expressing the greatest light of the day. Ewald 1
is, however, of opinion that this dual ought to be classed with
the two evenings and two dawns of which we have already
spoken; tsohtirayim would in that case mean two parts of
the day, those which immediately precede and follow the
point of midday. The duration of these two parts cannot
be assigned, as they are not limited by any special natural
phenomenon.
80. But the division of the day into two parts only is
insufficient for practical purposes. Consequently, the Jews
aided themselves by other designations arrived at indirectly.
We find, first, the two moments mentioned, before and after
midday, at which the sacrifice called minhah 2 was accustomed
to be offered in the Temple. How far they were from
midday cannot be determined. — Other indications of the
1 Ewald, Antiquities of Israel, Eng. tr. f p. 340. Ewald's opinion
seems to be confirmed by the phrase bethoch tsohSrayim (' in the midst
of the two lights '), which would allude to two consecutive intervals of
greatest light (Isa. xvi. 3).
* Diodati translates this offerta di fanatic a (R.V. 'meal-offering').
It consisted of flour, hominy, or meal, seasoned with oil and salt.
An allusion is made to the time of morning sacrifice in 2 Kings iii.
20, which shows that it was made very early : to the time of evening
sacrifice in 1 Kings xviii. 29 and 36, whence we infer that a considerable
period of daylight remained available after it. In the service of the
second Temple, according to the directions in Exodus (xxix. 38-41), one
of the sacrifices was to be made in the morning, the other ' between the
two evenings.'
§6 Astronomy in the Old Testament
Same kind are : ' in the heat of the day * or ' in the heat of
the sun l ' ; ' tke declining of the day 2 ' ; * the approach
of evening 3 ' ; * the time of taking food V That this simple
way of describing the periods of the day can suffice during
a long time for a pastoral and agricultural people is proved
by our own experience of every day. Even in a more
cultivated society the majority of men live without clocks,
and contrive by hook or crook to fix the time for themselves
with such precision as is sufficient for their wants. In
Country districts quite simple persons are to be found who
watch the sun and know how to mark the time at every
stage by this method, without blundering by more than
twenty or thirty minutes.
But the idea of hours , that is to say, of a regular division
of the day into equal parts, seems to have been unknown
to the Jews till some time after the exile ; it is certain at any
rate that the corresponding word is not found in the Hebrew
of the Old Testament, and only begins to appear in the
dialects used in Palestine after Hebrew ceased to be the
spoken language of ordinary life, — dialects belonging to
the Aramaic branch of the Semitic languages. This con-
sideration leads us to consider the question of Ahaz's so-
called sundial, which would seem to have been placed in
the royal palace at Jerusalem by order of that king about
730 B.C.
81. It is narrated in the Second Book of Kings 5 that,
when Hezekiah king of Judah wished for a sign of the
speedy recovery promised to him by Isaiah, ' Isaiah said :
Let this be to thee a sign from Yahwe that He will do the
thing that He hath spoken. Shall the shadow go forward
ten ma'aloth, or go back ten ma'dloth ? And Hezekiah said :
1 Gen. xviii. 1 ; 1 Sam. xi. 9 ; 2 Sam. iv. 5.
a Judges xix. 8. s Deut. xxiii. 1 1.
* Ruth ii. 14. 8 2 Kings xx. 9-1 l.
The Day and its Division 97
It is easy for the shadow to go down ten mdaloth [further],
but not that the shadow return back ten mdaloth. And
Isaiah the prophet cried unto Yahwe, and He made the
shadow return by as many mdaloth as it had gone down on
the mdaloth of Ahaz, namely, ten mdaloth back/ The same
incident is related rather more shortly in the historical
section of the prophecies of Isaiah *, where the prophet says
to Hezekiah : ' And let this be the sign to thee. . . . Behold,
I will make the shadow return by as many mdaloth as it has
gone down on the md&lolh of Ahaz with the sun, namely, ten
mdaloth back. And the sun returned ten mdaloth back, as
many mdaloth as it had gone down/ The interpretation
of this passage presents a certain amount of obscurity, not
only as to the sense to be attributed to the word mdaloth,
but also because the same word is here found used in two
somewhat different manners. It appears first as a simple
plural expressing a certain number of the units, each one
of which is called mdalah. In the second place it is
employed to mean some construction arranged by Ahaz,
which contained a number of the units mdalah exceed-
ing ten ; along it a shadow glided while the sun advanced in
its daily motion, and the whole is so arranged that Hezekiah
could observe the displacement of the shadow while in a lying
posture on his bed.
82. The word mdalah almost always means a step on
a staircase 2 : the plural mdaloth may also be understood of
a flight of steps or staircase. We shall have accordingly to
picture the matter to ourselves in this way: Ahaz, on
the occasion of the new buildings arranged by him in the
1 Isa. xxxviii. 8.
3 Gesenius, The*, p. 103 1, where the passages of the Old Testament
are given which confirm this interpretation. The few cases which seem to
require another meaning are also cited in the same place, but it would
not be suitable to dwell upon them here.
sch. H
98 Astronomy in the Old Testament
Temple and the royal palace *, had caused a flight of steps
to be made, which was called in consequence the mdaloth, or
steps, of Ahaz. The shadow of some higher part of the rest
of the edifice projected over these steps; this shadow,
gliding from step to step, was continuing to descend at the
hour of the day when the prodigy occurred. It is not
impossible that these steps were used by some as points of
reference for guiding themselves as to time ; this is a natural
proceeding, and analogous practices have been adopted at all
times and places. However that may be, the miracle, as
understood by the writer, was this: after the shadow had
gone down the ten steps, it mounted them all again, at the
command of Isaiah. The second of me two narratives which
have been quoted would further imply a retrogression of the
sun ; the first narrative does not clearly imply this prodigy,
which would be equal to or even greater than that of which
Joshua has the credit.
83. The most ancient interpreters have understood the
matter in the way here explained: so the LXX and the
Syriac version. But Symmachus, m his Greek version of
the second century a.d., and, later on, the Vulgate and the
Targum (or interpretation by learned Jews), put another
opinion into the field which is now almost universally received.
According to this second way of looking at it, the mcCaloth of
Ahaz are said to have been lines marking the hours on a
solar quadrant, which Ahaz had caused to be placed in the
palace at Jerusalem, each line constituting a maalah or step
of progression of the shade. This sundial claims to have
been imported from Babylonia, since the invention of the
gnomon and the quadrant for marking hours are certified as
existing among the Babylonians by the authority of Hero-
dotus a . All this must be admitted to be possible. It is, in
fact, probable that the invention of the sundial (as may be
1 2 Kings xxiii. 12; xvi. 18. a Herod, ii. 109.
The Day and its Division 99
said with certainty of the division of the day into hours) is due
to the Babylonians, even though none has as yet been found
in the Mesopotamian ruins. And king Ahaz, who seems to
have been exceedingly fond of foreign customs, might well
have caused a sundial to be placed in his palace by some
Babylonian or Syrian or Phoenician astronomer. But it has
already been remarked that not the slightest hint is given in
the Old Testament of regular divisions of the day, either at
the time of Ahaz or later. Again, the distant and imperfect
resemblance which lines for marking hours can have with the
steps of a staircase does not seem to me sufficient to justify the
abandonment of the interpretation given by the LXX, which
adapts itself so exactly and so naturally to the actual words
df the Hebrew text \
84. The regular division of the day into equal portions
was practised at Babylon long before the exile of the Jews.
The fragments of Babylonian astronomy which have been
unearthed at Nineveh prove that the custom there was to
divide the nychthemeron into twelve kaspu, each of which
corresponded to two of our equinoctial hours 2 . It would
1 The steps of Ahaz and his so called sundial have given rise to a
whole literature, from which curious and eccentric ideas are not absent.
A collection of these may be found in Winer's Bibl. Rcalworterbuck, i.
498-9. Most remarkable of all appears to me to be a problem of
gnomonics, in which it is proposed to determine how and when and in
what places on the earth the shadow projected by a gnomon on a plane
perpendicular to it, after having revolved for a certain part of the day
round about the foot of the gnomon in a given direction, may remain
stationary for a moment, and then revolve in the opposite direction,
returning upon its course. We leave to the reader the whole
pleasure of resolving proprio Marte this none too difficult problem, and
of seeing how it would be possible to reproduce in a certain sense the
reported miracle of the retrogression of the shadow on the supposed
quadrant of Ahaz.
* * On the sixth day of the month Nisannu the day and the night
balanced each other : six kaspu of day and six kaspu of night/ This im-
portant observation is to be found in Rawlinson's Cuneiform Inscriptions
H 2
ioo Astronomy in the Old Testament
consequently not be unlikely that the Jews, when they came
in contact with the Babylonians in the exile, should have
learned from them, along with other things, the habit of
dividing the time of day with greater precision than had been
their previous practice. They could have borrowed it from
the Egyptians even long before this : for we know of the
Egyptians that, as early as the date of the Pyramids, they
were acquainted with the division of the natural day into
twelve equal portions and of the night into as many l . But
it is impossible to find any proof of this in the books of the
Old Testament. It is true that in the Book of Daniel there
is found repeated several times the word shdah or shddthah,
which the LXX translate by &pa and the Vulgate by hora 2 .
We notice, however, that this word occurs only in the
Aramaic part of the text of Daniel, the original Hebrew of
which is lost ; we do not know what word corresponded to
it in the Hebrew. Further, the meaning of shdah or
shddthah in these passages does not seem to imply hours
truly and properly so called, that is to say, measures of time ;
it ought rather to be taken in the sense of moment or point
of time, as is done among ourselves when we use such
expressions as a quest or a (' at this hour of the day '), in
mat or a ('in an evil hour'), alt ora (' the very hour'), and so
on. The &pa in the LXX and the hora of the Vulgate are
certainly to be understood thus 3 . At what date the use of
of Western Asia, vol. iii. tab. 51, no. 1 ; translated by Sayce in Trans. Soc.
Bibl. Archaeol. iii. 229. Unfortunately the year in which the equinox
was observed is not given.
1 Brugsch, Die Aegyptologie , pp. 364-5.
* Dan. iii. 6, 15 ; iv. 33; v. 5.
5 See Gesenius, Thes. pp. 1455-6. In all the passages cited the word
stands in the connexion bah shddthah^ for which we could well say, * the
same moment.' It may be added that the LXX and the Vulgate use
&pa and hora in places in the Old Testament where the Hebrew has *eth,
which is, strictly speaking, equivalent to fccup6s or tempus : -e.g. Josh. xi.
The Day and its Division 101
hours began to be disseminated among the Jews, it is no
longer possible to show. It is certain that in the times of
Christ they had adopted for the night the four watches of the
Romans 1 , and that they divided the interval between the
rising and setting of the sun into twelve equal parts, after the
example of the Greeks. These were the ' temporary hours,'
varying in duration according to the seasons, which were
numbered as first, second, third . . . down to the twelfth 2 .
Dante in the Divina Commedia still counts time according
to hours of this kind. At the present time they are reserved
for the liturgical purposes of the Church.
6; I Sam. ix. 16. There is reason to believe that the word for hour,
under the form shed, which differs little from shc£athah> was in use
among the northern Syrians as early as the fifteenth century B.C. But
there is no proof of this as regards the Jews, who, for that matter, had
not yet entered the land of Canaan at that time. See Winckler, Die
Thontafeln von Tell el-Amarna, Lett. 91, 1. 77.
1 Matt. xiv. 25. 2 Matt, xxvii. 45.
104 Astronomy in the Old Testament
Amos 1 . In the second Temple the new moon was cele-
brated with special sacrifices, as can be seen from the twenty-
eighth chapter of Numbers. The problem of determining the
new moon continued to assume greater importance as time went
On, and it is not impossible that, from after the exile down
to the institution of a regular calendar, the doctors and heads
of the Synagogue made use in some way of the procedure
adopted by the Babylonians and the Syrians.
87. At different epochs of their history the Israelites used
different systems of months, one after the other, and some-
times more than one at the same time. It is unknown what
names they used for the months, before they conquered the
land of Canaan. After the conquest they adopted the
Canaanite names, down to the epoch of Solomon and the
foundation of the first Temple. But the Canaanite names
and the order of the Canaanite months were abolished when,
at the building of the Temple, a more regular and more
strictly national form was given to the system of worship.
Then the months began to be described by numerical names in
their order, without any special designations ; and for religious
purposes this use lasted till the destruction of Jerusalem by
Titus. But immediately after the return from the exile
under Zerubbabel, we already find the Babylonian names
adopted in civil use : after the destruction of the second
Temple these latter ended by gaining the upper hand in
religious use also, and they continue down to the present
day to be exclusively employed in the Synagogue. We may
now examine with somewhat greater precision the series of
these changes.
In the most ancient documents of the Jewish law which
have reached us (that is to say, in the First Code and in
1 Amos viii. 5 ; Hos. ii. 11 ; 2 Kings iv. 22 sqq. For later times see
Isa. i. 13, 14; Ezek. xlv. 17; xlvi. 1, 3, 6; Num. x. 10; xxviii. 11-
14; &c.
The Jewish Months 105
Exodus xxxiv, which is derived from the First Code 1 ),
the month in which the feast of unleavened bread was cele-
brated is called by the name Abtb\ this means month of
the ears, and corresponded nearly to the month of April.
Other ancient names of months are found in the minute
account of the fabric and consecration of Solomon's Temple,
which has been preserved in i Kings, and is probably taken
from a narrative contemporary with the event. This account
gives the correspondence of these names with the titles
which came later into use. Four of them which are pre-
served are set' out below, with the correspondence referred
to:—
Ancient Equivalent «, in
months. Ancient order. Later order. modern 0ld J TestammL
names.
Ethanim First month Seventh, month October i Kings viii. 2
Bui Second „ Eighth „ November i Kings vi. 38
Ablb Seventh „ First „ April Exod. xxiii. 15
Ziv Eighth „ Second „ May 1 Kings vi. 1, 37
Some further light has been recently thrown on the origin
of these names. It was already thought by many that they
were the regular names for the months among the inhabitants
of the land of Canaan, with whom the Israelities had inter-
mingled since the conquest, and from whom they had
borrowed this use. This supposition has been brilliantly
confirmed by the study of the Phoenician inscriptions, in
three of which the month Bui has been recognized, and in
two others the month Ethanim 2 . The older Jewish calendar
1 Exod. xxiii. 15 and xxxiv. 18. From these ancient documents we
must suppose the later notices in Deut. xvi. 1 and Exod. xii. 4 to be
derived.
a See the complete collection of the Phoenician inscriptions quite
recently published by Landau {Beitrdge zur Alterthumskunde des
Orients, fasc. ii and iii). The name Bui is found in the long inscription
of Eshmunazar, king of Sidon (Land. 5 ; Cooke, North Semitic Inscrip-
106 Astronomy in the Old Testament
was therefore identical with that of the Phoenicians, that is,
of the Canaanites, to whom the Phoenicians were nearly
related. It was also used in the Phoenician colonies, at
Carthage, in Malta, and in Cyprus.
88. As the close affinity between the Phoenician and
Hebrew languages is known, it is even possible to speculate
with some probability on the etymology of these names. It
has already been said that the month Abib means the month
1 of ears ' ; for the ears were already formed in Palestine in
this month, though not entirely ripe \ Ziv means ' splendour
of flowers/ a name well adapted to the corresponding month,
which was nearly the same as our May, ihe JiorSal of the French
Jacobin calendar 2 . The meaning of Ethanim is less clear;
Gesenius and Ewald s would make it equivalent to ' continual
waters'; perhaps because the autumnal rains supervene in
October, and the watercourses commence to be refilled after
the dryness of summer. Lastly, the abundance of rain in
November is well represented by the name Bui, at least if
this is rightly interpreted as meaning ' copious rain V
89. These same Phoenician inscriptions, of which I have
spoken just above, have already contributed, and will pro-
bably contribute still more,, to our further knowledge of the
Phoenician calendar, which is equivalent to saying the most
ancient Jewish calendar. In inscriptions of Cyprus, of Malta,
and of Carthage B , the month Marpeh is found, which may
(ions, p. 31), and in two other inscriptions from Cyprus (Land. 15 and
96 ; Cooke, pp. 55, 75). The name Ethanim is found in two inscriptions
from Cyprus (Land. 91 and 103; Cooke, pp. 69, 89).
1 A6t6 = ea.r: hodesh kaabtb = month of the ears. The month used
also to be called Abib, without adding hodesh.
2 Gesenius, Thes. p. 407.
3 Gesenius, Thes. p. 644 ; Ewald, Antiquities of Israel (Eng. tr.,
P- 345).
4 Gesenius, Thes. p. 560.
5 Landau, 16, 183, aa8 (cf. Cooke, p. 58).
The Jewish Months 107
be interpreted as ' recovery Xf : perhaps this was the month
when attention was paid to health and to the care of the body,
as with us Italians in autumn, and men rested from the
labours of agriculture and navigation. Four inscriptions
found in Cyprus, and one found at Carthage, are dated by
the month Pha'uloth *, the month of ' gains/ analogous per-
haps to the Mercedonius of the Romans 8 . The name Karar
seems to have been given to the hottest month of the year \
Some other names have been discovered, which are less easy
to interpret: such are Marzeah or Mirzah, Mapha c , Hir,
Zebah-shishim: so that the list i9 now almost complete 6 .
Unfortunately, the Phoenician inscriptions, though they give
these names of the months, do not give the means of knowing
the order in which they were arranged : it has not, therefore,
been possible to make use of them to complete the table
given above.
90. As has already been mentioned above, when, at the
time of Solomon, the forms of worship were organized and
1 From raphah = sanavit.
3 Landau, 91, 94, 104, 105, 223 (cf. Cooke, pp. 69, 73, 83).
3 Unless it ought to be explained as the month of ' business.' In this
case one would have to suppose that some great meeting of business men
took place during this month, like the fairs of Leipzig or of Senegallia.
* Landau, 98 (Cooke, pp. 77, 144). Perhaps connected with the
Assyrian garar, drought or heat.
5 For these names see the publications of Landau, nos. 6, 18, 99, 105,
and 180. For Marzeah and Mirzah see Jer. xvi. 5 and Amos vi. 7 :
Gesenius, Thes. p. 1280; Cooke, pp. 95, 121 sqq., 303. It is not,
however, quite certain that all the Phoenician months were in use
among the Jews, and vice versa. In Phoenician inscriptions the
names Abib and Ziv have not yet been found. On the other hand,
the Phoenician name Zebah-shishim seems to allude to usages
which were unknown among the ancient Jews. Further know-
ledge on the relations between the Phoenician calendar and the
earliest Jewish calendar will only be obtained through new epigraphical
discoveries. See Cooke, pp. 40, 85; 78, 90, 127 (Hir or Hiyyar);
59-
108 Astronomy in the Old Testament
amplified, the Phoenician or Canaanite names of months
were abolished to make room for others. It is in fact
natural to suppose that an attempt was made to separate
from the service of the Temple all that could recall the
abominations of the enemies of Israel and of Yahwe. The
new names were simple numerical names, indicating the position
which each month occupied in relation to the beginning of.
the year. That beginning was now fixed at the new moon
of the month formerly called Abib, which had hitherto been
the seventh month, but now became the first : starting from
this, they were counted as the second, third, fourth . . . down
to the twelfth month 1 . The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua
use this system exclusively, as is to be expected in books
that are much later than the age of Solomon. They also
project it into earlier times, not only as far back as Joshua
and Moses, but even up to the flood, the chronology of
which is arranged according to the numerical numbers of the
months, as can be seen from the seventh and eighth chapters
of Genesis.
If, then, we set on one side the Pentateuch and the Book
of Joshua, the earliest mention of these names is to be found
in a notice preserved in Chronicles 2 , where the allusion is
to some celebrated warriors of David : * These are of the
children of Gad, heads of the host; the least was over
a hundred, the greatest over a thousand: these were they
who passed over Jordan in the first month, when it was
swollen over all its banks/ &c. This account, if not of
1 The Chinese too, throughout the long duration of their history,
have always called the months by their numerical names. From
a similar usage also, the Roman names Quinctilis, Sextilis, September,
&c, are derived. The Egyptians used a mixed system in their writings :
they divided the year into three seasons (inundation, winter, and summer),
in each of which they counted the first, second, third, and fourth month.
But in the spoken language they used special names for each month.
2 i Chron. xii. 14, 15.
The Jewish Months 109
David's time, may date from the period in which the
memorials of his reign were first put in writing, that is, from
the age of Solomon.
More certain as regards its date is the mention of the
new numerical names made, together with the corresponding
Canaanite names, by the author of the description of the
Temple and of the festival of its inauguration, in i Kings \
This double nomenclature shows that in that writer's time
both sets of names were still in use 2 . For it does not seem
likely that the numerical names were added for the reader's
convenience when the Canaanite months were altogether
forgotten. However this may be, it is certain that not more
than forty years after the consecration of the Temple the
use of the numerical names was in full vigour. We have
only to read another passage in i Kings 3 , how Jeroboam,
after having established new forms of worship in the kingdom
of Israel which he had created, * made a feast in the eighth
month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that
was celebrated in Judah . . . ; and he offered upon the altar
which he had made in Bethel, on the fifteenth day, in the
eighth month, in a month which he devised of his own heart.'
From this time onwards the citations of the months are
. more frequent, and are always given by the numerical names.
A great sacrifice takes place in Jerusalem in the third
1 1 Kings vi. I, 37, 38; viii. 2. In Chronicles, where the accounts
of the building and consecration of the Temple are derived from 1 Kings,
the Canaanite names of the months are removed and only the numerical
names retained. This suppression removes much of the authority which
the indications taken from Chronicles might have for the purposes of the
present discussion. But even if no account be taken of these indications,
enough remains, not to modify the conclusions we have given.
3 In the same way and for the same reason the double nomenclature
of the months which is found in Zechariah (numerical and Babylonian
names) comes from the fact that the two systems of names were both
used in his time.
3 1 Kings xii. 32, 33.
no Astronomy in the Old Testament
month of the fifteenth year of Asa, king of Judah \ Hezekiah
solemnly celebrates the Passover on the fourteenth day of the
second month, in the first year of his reign 2 . Similarly
Josiah celebrates a solemn Passover in the eighteenth year
of his reign, on the fourteenth day of the first month 8 .
The various dates concerning the destruction of Jerusalem
by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C., are all expressed by the
numerical names of months 4 , as are those of the death of
Gedaliah and of the liberation of Jehoiachin 5 . So again
are the numerous dates contained in the prophecies of
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, and in the Book of
Ezra*, to say nothing of other later books, such as
Chronicles, the Book of Judith, and the first Book of the
Maccabees.
91. But when at the time of the exile the nation found
itself as it were lost in the midst of the Mesopotamian
peoples, the names of the lunar months employed by those
peoples also came into regular use among the Israelites
with the same ease as had the Phoenician or Canaanite
names many centuries before. Accordingly, as early as
the prophecy of Zechariah (520 b.c) shortly after the
return from exile, in the autobiographical memoirs of Ne-
hemiah 7 (440 b.c), and in other later writings, for instance
1 2 Chron. xv. 10. a 2 Chron. xxx. 2, 15.
* 2 Chron. xxxv. 1. '2 Kings xxv. 1, 8.
6 2 Kings xxv. 25, 27.
e An apparent exception occurs in Ezra vi. 15, where the Babylonian
name Adar is given, instead of saying the twelfth month. But it is to be
noted that this exception falls in that part of the Book of Ezra which,
the original Hebrew being wanting, has been supplied by an Aramaic
version (from iv. 8 to vi. 18). It is probable that the original preserved
the method used throughout the rest of the book, which is that of the
numerical names.
T In the Book of Nehemiah, his original memoirs extend from the
beginning down to vii. 69, and are resumed from ch. xiii to the end.
The rest is a narrative by another writer, who always uses the
The Jewish Months in
both the Books of the Maccabees and the Book of Esther,
a new system of names for the months is seen appearing,
which Jewish writers had not previously used. There was
already reason to suppose that these names were Babylonian
in origin: the question was placed beyond the reach of
doubt by the recent discoveries of the Assyrio-Babylonian
cuneiform inscriptions, through which it has been proved
that the names are, with very slight modifications, those
used in Babylonia and in lower Chaldaea from time imme-
morial, which were further adopted by the Assyrians, and
in great part also by the Aramaeans of northern Syria and
western Mesopotamia.
The relations between these different calendars are clearly
set out in the following table, where the first column con-
tains the numerical names of the months according to the
Jewish use after the time of Solomon. The second column
contains the new names which in the Old Testament appear
for the first time with the prophet Zechariah : names which
thenceforward always served and still serve in the religious
calendar of the Jews. The third column gives the names
of the Babylonian calendar, as it is found on numberless
cuneiform inscriptions, Assyrian and Babylonian 1 . In the
fourth column may be found the names of the lunar months
of the Syrians, which were further adopted by the Seleucids
in their official calendar, from 312 b.c onwards 2 . While,
however, in the previous columns the first name is also that
of the first month of the year, in the Syrian calendar the
numerical names, like the author of the Book of Ezra, with whom he is
perhaps identical.
1 They are here transcribed from the list published by Prof. Sayce :
Trans. Soc. Bill. Archaeol. iii. pp. 158-9.
3 Taken from Ideler, Handb. d. Chronol. i. p. 430. The reference
here is naturally to the lunisolar reckoning used by the Syrians before
they adjusted their calendar to the Roman use and reduced it to a mere
variant of the Julian calendar.
ii2 Astronomy in the Old Testament
first month of the year is the seventh on the list ; in other
words, while the Jews and Babylonians began the year in
spring with Nisan, the Syrians began it six months later
in autumn with Tishri. In the last column are added the
corresponding names of our calendar. As we are dealing
with lunar months, which begin strictly with a new moon
in each case, this correspondence can only be understood
as roughly approximate.
Jewish
names.
Assyrio-Baby-
Syrian
Approximate
Numerical.
Post-exilic.
lonian names.
names.
equivalents.
First month
Nisan
Nisannu
Nisan
April
Second „
Iyar
Airu
Iyar
May
Third „
Sivan
Sivanu
Haziran
June
Fourth „
Tammnz
Duzu
Tammuz
July
Fifth „
Ab
Abu
Ab
August . ,
Sixth „
Elul
Ululu
Elul
September
Seventh „
Tishri
Tasritu
Tishri I
October
Eighth „
Marheshvan
Arah samna
Tishri II
November
Ninth „
Kislev
Kisilivu
Kanun I
December
Tenth „
Tebeth
Dhabitu
Kanun II
January
Eleventh ,,
Shebat
Sabadhn
Shebat
February
Twelfth „
Adar
Addaru
Adar
March
The intercalary month, which was necessarily added from
time to time to prevent the year from deviating too much
from the course of the sun, was put in the thirteenth place,
after Adar, and called Veadar, which means Adar again
(literally and Adar).
The comparison of the second, third, and fourth columns,
shows that the Jews borrowed their names for the months
from the Babylonians, and not, as was for some time be-
lieved, from the Syrians. The second and third columns
are evidently almost identical, the most important difference
being in the eighth position. The Babylonians, while as-
signing a special name to each month, made an exception
in the case of the eighth and called it simply arah samna,
The Jewish Months 113
which is equivalent in their language to 'eighth month/
In Hebrew this would have had to be translated yerah
shemini. But no account was taken of its meaning, and
by a simple phonetic corruption arah samna became trans-
formed into Marheshvan \
■
Thus the Israelites, while preserving the order of the
months, and without disturbing the ritual of their festivals,
gradually accustomed themselves to the Babylonian names
of the months, first in civil use, then later, after Titus, in
religious use also : finally they consecrated those names in
their Calendar, which has been used for fifteen centuries in
all Synagogues. In this Calendar, however, the commence-
ment of the year was placed in autumn and at the new moon
which began the month Tishri. In consequence of this
change the intercalary month Veadar came to occupy the
seventh place in the year, whereas it formerly occupied the
thirteenth.
1 This transformation could be all the more easily admitted as in
Assy rio- Babylonian the consonants m and v were represented in the same
manner, whence the name of the eighth month could also be read arah
savna, where the consonants do not differ at all from arheshvan. The
addition of the initial m is perhaps not of Hebrew origin. As a matter
of fact, we find on the celebrated trilingual inscription of Darius I at
Behistun, under the Persian form Markazana, the name of a month
which probably corresponded to arah samna and to Marheshvan.
This correspondence is not, however, admitted by all scholars, and for
the present it is best to leave the question undecided.
SCH.
CHAPTER VIII
THE JEWISH YEAR
Different commencements of the year at different epochs. — Determina-
tion of the Paschal Month. — What the ancient Jews knew about
the duration of the year. — Use of the octaetcris. — Astronomical
schools in the Jewish communities of Babylonia.
92. As the moon served to determine the months, so the
sun determined the duration and succession of the years.
The Jewish year was a solar year. It was not a conven-
tional year like that of the ancient Egyptians, nor like that
of the Mohammedans, because the Israelites made its deter-
mination depend on the course of the seasons and on the
recurrence of field labours, in the manner which will now be
described. That they did so from the first times of the
Mosaic legislation is proved by a passage in the First
Code x , where they are told to observe ' the feast of ingather-
ing at the end of the year ' : this festival it was the custom
to celebrate in autumn after the last of all the produce, such
as that of the vine and of the late fruits, had been gathered
from the fields. In the same code we find further the feast
of unleavened bread fixed in the month A did, that is, in the
month of the ears : here we find the feasts and the months
connected once more with the year of agrarian labour,
and hence with the solar year. Again, the beginning and
course of the months in this year were regulated by the
phases of the moon : so that there can be no doubt that the
calendar of the Jews was at all times lunisolar, like that of
1 Exod. zxiii. 16.
The Jewish Year 115
the Babylonians, Syrians, and Greeks. In such a calculation
the year began with that new moon which marked the
beginning of the first month. But this beginning point was
not always the same for the people of Israel at the different
periods of their history.
93. In the First Code, which represents the most ancient
stage known to us of the Mosaic legislation \ the beginning
of the year is placed in autumn, after the gathering was
finished. ' Likewise observe the feast of harvest, of the first-
fruits of thy labours, of that which thou hast sown in thy
field ; and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year^
when thou shalt have gathered in thy labours from the
fieldV
This ancient custom of beginning the year in autumn after
the end of the field labours, was abolished at a date which
we can now no longer fix with precision. The second Book
of Samuel begins the story of the unfortunate Uriah by say-
ing : ' It came to pass at the return of the year, at the time
when the kings went forth, that David sent Joab and his
servants with him and all Israel, and they laid waste the land
of the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah V Here the ' going
1 On the First Code, see the Introduction, § 10.
8 Exod. xxiii. 16. The words ' at the end of the year' are represented
in the Hebrew by bitseth hashshanah, where the word bZtseth is perfectly
definite and means 'at the going out.* This command is repeated
in the document (Exod. xxxiv. 10-26), which claims to be the text of
the ten articles of the fundamental compact, concluded between Yahwe
and Israel on Sinai and written (in one place, we are told, by God,
in another, by Moses) on the two tables of stone preserved in the Ark.
The second half of this document is only a somewhat altered copy
of the last section of the First Code, Exod. xxiii. 12-19. Among the
alterations occurs the change of bfrseth hashshanah (' at the end of the
year') into t&kuphath hashshanah which Gesenius translates ad (post")
decursum anni (see his Thes. p. 1208). This change was probably
made when the beginning of the year had already been moved into
spring.
8 2 Sam. xi. 1. The phrase c at the return of the year ' is represented
I 2
xi6 Astronomy in the Old Testament
forth ' can only be understood of a warlike expedition. Now
it is well known that in ancient Asia, as among ourselves at
the present day, the customary time for going out to war was
the spring : a large number of examples of this practice are
found on the inscriptions of the warrior monarchs of Assyria '.
The beginning of the year must therefore have fallen in
spring at the date when these words in 2 Samuel were
written. If we assume that the writer took them from docu-
ments that were contemporaneous with the events or only
slightly later, we should have a limit to which the custom
of commencing the year with spring must go back, a limit
which could not be much later than the reign of David, and
in any case is not later than the reign of Solomon.
On the occasion of a war between the kingdom of Israel
and Benhadad king of Syria, Elijah says to king Ahab : ' Go
and gather thy forces, consider and watch what thou doest :
for at the return of the year the king of Syria will come upon
thee 2 / We are here in the presence of a fact analogous
to the one just quoted, and our conclusion from it must be
the same. A third example of the same kind is found in
2 Chronicles, referring to the time of Joash king of Judah :
* And it came to pass at the return of the year that an army
of the Syrians went up against him (Joash), and they came
in the Hebrew by lithZshubath hashshanah, and in the LXX by imffrpi-
tpavros rov hiavTov. The same expression is repeated in 1 Chron. xx. 1.
1 I have examined the inscriptions of several of these monarchs who
have left annals giving more details and in more regular form than the
majority. Five of them (Asshurnazirpal, Shalmaneser II, Samsi-Adad IV,
Sargon,and Asshurbanipal) have furnished me with eleven dates connected
with the day and month when they quitted their residences (Nineveh,
Calah, or Babylon) for distant warlike expeditions. Of these dates three
belong to the month Airu ( = April to May), seven to the month Sivanu
( = May to June), one to the month Abu ( = July to August). It will
be seen that ten out of eleven dates belong to the spring.
3 1 Kings xx. 23, 26. Here too we have lithZshubath hashshanah.
The Jewish Year 117
to Judah and Jerusalem/ &C. 1 In two other places in
Chronicles 2 , mention is made of a solemn Passover cele-
brated by Hezekiah in the second month, and of another
solemn Passover celebrated by Josiah in the first month. As
the Passover is inseparably connected with spring, it may be
inferred from these two passages that the beginning of the
year was in spring during the reign of Hezekiah and also of
Josiah.
Lastly, an admirably clear indication of the beginning of
the year in the closing period of the kingdom of Judah is
found in Jeremiah 3 , where he relates that in the fifth year of
Jehoiakim son of Josiah ' the king was sitting in his winter
palace, in the ninth month, and a burning fire-pan was before
him/ Now supposing that in Jeremiah's time the year began
in spring with April, the ninth month came to an end in
December or January, a date which thoroughly explains the
king's residence in the winter palace and the burning fire-pan.
94. These passages seem to prove satisfactorily that the
custom of beginning the year in spring was not imported from
Babylon after the destruction of the first Temple, but was
certainly in vogue for some centuries before, and probably as
early as the time of Solomon 4 . That this custom was in full
1 2 Chron. xxiv. 23. The words here are tZkuphath hashshanak.
a 2 Chron. xxx. 2, 15 ; xxxv. 1. 3 Jer. xxxvi. 22.
4 Wellhausen {Prolegomena to the History of Israel, Eng. tr., p. 108)
is of opinion that the year began with autumn throughout the period of
the kings. ' Deuteronomy,' he says, ' was found in the eighteenth year
of Josiah, and there was still time for the Passover to be celebrated in the
same year, according to the regulations of that book: this is only
possible if the beginning of the year be supposed to have fallen in
autumn.' I may observe in the first place that the Passover was
celebrated, not on the first day of the year, but on the fifteenth.
Fourteen days were therefore available for reading the book and giving
the directions necessary for a solemn and general Passover throughout
the small kingdom of Judah. Further, from the eighteenth year of
Josiah to the fifth year of Jehoiakim is an interval of seventeen or
n8 Astronomy in the Old Testament
vigour when the Jewish authors of the exile and of later
times wrote, and that the Passover was understood by all
to be fixed at the full moon of the first month and in the
month of the early corn, is shown by a mere glance at
the prophecies of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah, at the
Books of Kings, at the Priestly Code, and at the Book of
Joshua. The two last-named books not only follow this
use for the times in which it was actually and systematically
employed, but extend it by anticipation to the more ancient
periods in which the beginning of the year is known by in-
contestable evidence to have been placed in autumn. The
tradition gradually formed itself that the rule for com-
mencing the year from the Paschal moon had already been
laid down by Moses, even before the Jews quitted Egypt, as
may be seen in Exodus xii (certainly written some centuries
after the event): 'This month (that of the exodus from
Egypt) shall be for you the beginning of months, the first of
the months of the year V
95. We have expressed the opinion above, that the
transference of the commencement of the year from autumn
to spring was made in the time of Solomon. An argument
in favour of this view may be derived from the fact that, just
at this time, the forms of worship were arranged in a more
orderly way, with a splendour and elaboration which were
wholly new. The calculation of seasons was intimately
bound up with religion. The change of the commencement
of the year and the abolition of the Canaanite names of the
months (effected, as has been shown in § 90, just at this
eighteen years only, and it is certain, as has been shown above, that the
latter year commenced in spring. One would have to suppose that
a reform of the calendar was carried out during this interval in order to
obey the new religious code. But in Deuteronomy as known to us
there is certainly no mention of the point at which the year ought to
begin.
1 Exod. xii. 2 j in manifest contradiction with xxiii. 16, and xxxiv. 22.
The Jewish Year 119
epoch) were probably parts of a new organization which was
designed to make of the worship of Yahwe something ex-
clusively national and absolutely distinct from the religions of
the neighbouring peoples.
For religious purposes the commencement of the year was
kept in spring, at least till the destruction of the second
Temple, and till the complete dispersion of the nation. Yet
even as early as the period of Persian rule, the long contact
with the Aramaic peoples, and later, the influence of the
kingdom of Syria, led to the gradual introduction in civil
use amongst the Jews also of the fashion of commencing the
year, as the Syrians did, in autumn, so that they returned to
the old rules borrowed from the Canaanites.
When that happened, cannot be said exactly; but it is
certain that the method of computing in this way for civil
purposes is already found in the writings of Nehemiah, who
acted as civil official of Artaxerxes I in Jerusalem \ The
custom of commencing the beginning of the seventh month
with the sound of the trumpet seems to show that the in-
tention was to inaugurate the civil year in this manner. This
custom is in fact unknown in the legislation earlier than the
exile, and is found only in Leviticus (xxiii. 24) and Numbers
(xxix. 1), which must be considered as having only been
definitely redacted after the time of Nehemiah. We are led
1 Nehemiah relates in his memoirs (Neh. i. 1) that, in the twentieth
year of Artaxerxes, in the month Xislev, he learned from Hanani the
wretched state of affairs in Jerusalem ; and that, after various incidents,
in the month Nisan of the same twentieth year (ii. 1) he obtained
permission from Artaxerxes to betake himself to Judah to procure
a remedy. Now it is easy to see that, supposing the years were counted
from the spring, beginning with Nisan, Nehemiah's dates would involve
a contradiction. We must therefore suppose that Nehemiah began the
year with Tishri, according to the civil use, just as the names of the
months employed by him are those of the civil year. The procedure
was suitable in the case of a civil official like Nehemiah.
120 Astronomy in the Old Testament
to the same conclusion by considering the manner in which
the repose of the land in the sabbatical year is prescribed
(Lev. xxv. 4) : ' In the seventh year there shall be a sabbath
of rest for the land ; thou shalt not sow thy field in it, nor
prune thy vineyard ; thou shalt not reap that which groweth
of its own accord . . . and thou shalt not gather the grapes of
the vine that thou hast not pruned : it shall be a year of rest
for the land.' Here, as in the old law of the First Code
(Exod. xxiii. 11, 12), it is clear that the reference is to the
sowing, reaping, and vintage of one and the same agricultural
year, and such a year could only begin in autumn. The
same observation applies also to the Year of Jubilee, which
was ordered to begin on the tenth day of the seventh month,
in this case also with the sound of the trumpet (Lev. xxv.
9-12), and lasted from the autumn of one year to the autumn
of the next. However, the numbering of the months was
always that of the religious year, which began in spring with
the first month or with Nisan, at any rate so far as the
periods covered by the Old Testament are concerned. But
the habit of commencing the civil year in autumn with Tishri
after the manner of the Syrians, continued to prevail more and
more, and even lasted on under the Seleucids, under the
Hasmoneans, and in the later Jewish schools; it ended by
also prevailing in the religious calendar systematized by the
Rabbis of the fourth century of the Christian era, a system
which is still in use at the present day.
96. It has already been indicated above how the year of
the Israelites from the earliest times was regulated according
to the course of the sun, so as to be renewed in a manner
corresponding to the changes of the seasons (§ 92). We
must now examine this point with somewhat greater precision,
and show what position in the Jewish year was occupied by
the festivals : since these festivals were of an agricultural
character, and hence were inseparably bound up with the
The Jewish Year 121
changes of the atmosphere and with the annual course of
the sun.
In the first month, in the evening which concluded the
fourteenth and began the fifteenth day, the moon being full 1 ,
the Passover was celebrated, and the festival continued for
twenty-four hours, down to the evening of the following
fifteenth day. With the fourteenth evening of the first
month began also the seven days of unleavened bread, which
lasted for seven days, down to the twentieth evening from
that of the new moon. On whichever of the seven days
fell after the sabbath, the offering of the 'omer ['sheaf']
was made 2 . A sheaf of new ears was presented as first-
fruits, with the rites prescribed in Levit. xxiii. 10-13.
Here we have the first connexion of the Jewish calendar with
the seasons ; by this day, that is to say, falling after the first
half of the first month, the ears of barley were supposed to be
completely formed, or at any rate sufficiently formed, in so
far as it was not necessary to have them completely ripe and
dry. Barley begins to ripen in Palestine with the beginning
1 It must not be forgotten that the new moon beginning the month
coincided with the observation of the lunar crescent in the evening, which
was one or two days later than the astronomical new moon, i.e. the
actual geocentric conjunction of the moon with the sun. Hence the full
moon took place more often on the fourteenth than on the fifteenth day.
a The rnles given in the Pentateuch for the offering of the l omer are
commonly understood as meaning that this offering was brought imme-
diately after the Paschal day, i.e. on the sixteenth day of the first month.
Josephus already takes this view, and almost all the Rabbinical writers.
I have kept myself strictly to what is prescribed in Lev. xxiii. 11 and 15.
The First Code and Deuteronomy give no regulation on the subject.
They do not mention the offering of the 'onier, and Deuteronomy only
orders fifty days to be counted, starting ' from the beginning of harvest/
to celebrate the feast of firstfruits at the end of them. The First Code
seems to suppose that the feast of firstfruits ought to be celebrated after
the harvest is finished. The ordinance of Leviticus (not too clearly
expressed, as the discordant interpretations prove) belongs perhaps to
a date later than the exile.
122 Astronomy in the Old Testament
of April, and in the lower and warmer parts the cutting is
begun at the end of the same month. Hence we see that
the first new moon, which began the first month and the
Jewish year, could only take place in the last days of
March at the earliest, and the sacrifice of the 'omer at
the earliest only some days before the end of the first half
of April.
After this sacrifice it was permissible to begin reaping and
living on the new grain. The cutting of the wheat fell some
time after that of barley ; besides which, the dwellers in the
colder climate of the higher ground were bound to be later ;
the harvest was consequently not finally finished till the
second half of May. There followed on the harvest the
feast ' of the weeks/ the fixed date for which was seven
weeks or forty-nine days after the day of the 'omer l :
* From the day of the offering of the 'omer ye shall number
seven complete weeks; unto the day after the seventh
week ye shall count fifty days/ On the fiftieth day took
place the offering ' of the Weeks ' and the festival of the
harvest, which might be delayed, according to years and
districts, as late as the end of June. Here is a second con-
nexion which fixed the Jewish calendar in relation to the
seasons. The fiftieth day from the offering of the 'omer,
which fell in the first half of the third month (putting it
generally, from the sixth to the thirteenth of the month), had
to come to an end with the harvest completed.
No other festivals, except the regular ones of sabbaths
and new moons, occurred in the Jewish calendar till the
seventh month. But on the first day of the seventh month
there was celebrated with the sound of the trumpet the
commemorative festival of teruah, or festival ' of joyful
noise ' [R. V. * blowing of trumpets '] 2 . Some critics have
1 Lev. xxiii. 14-16.
3 Shabbathon zichron ttruah (Lev. xxiii. 24). The word ttru'ah is
The Jewish Year 123
wished to recognize in this the memory of the ancient custom
of joyfully celebrating the beginning of the year with every
kind of noise, when it fell in autumn and coincided with the
vintage or followed it by only a short interval The corre-
sponding festival at the beginning of the first month was
never celebrated ; in the new system of months the beginning
of the year was not marked by any special ceremony other
than what was usual on all days of new moon.
In the seventh month, exactly on the full moon or fifteenth
of that month, the third of the great annual festivals began.
This was anciently called the feast of Ingathering, and later
the feast of Tabernacles. It lasted seven days, from the
fifteenth to the twenty-first, and was celebrated as a thanks-
giving after the gathering of grapes and olives had been
finished. Its date regularly fell in our October, and at this
time the harvests of field and vineyard were supposed to be
finished: which gives us a third connexion between the
Jewish calendar and the seasons and course of the sun.
97. So then this calendar, both in its old Canaanite form
and in the revised form now described, was inseparably
connected with the course of the sun. But, to maintain it
in order, it was not enough simply to count twelve moons in
a year as the Mohammedans now do. It was necessary to
intercalate a thirteenth moon from time to time. To find
rules for making intercalation without deviating too far from
the course of the sun and moon, was a problem which long
exercised, as is well known, all the acumen of the Babylonian
and Greek astronomers. The illustrious names of Harpalus,
Cleostratus, Meton, Eudoxus, Calippus, Hipparchus, are
connected with it, and its solution required an exact study of
the solar and lunar periods. How did the learned in Israel
solve this problem ?
derived from ru' meaning vociferatus est, jubilavit, tuba cecinit, and is
translated by /actus clamor (Gesenius, Thes. p. 1277).
124 Astronomy in the Old Testament
The Old Testament contains no notice which might serve
to enlighten us on this point. The months are always
counted as twelve, and there is never an allusion to an
intercalary month. There are even indications which would
seem to exclude its existence. In the Books of Chronicles *
are registered the twelve divisions of the Jewish army which
are said to have performed their turns of service in the time
of David, each for a month ; the months are counted from
one to twelve without any hint of an intercalary month,
during which the service would have remained without
provision. Similarly, twelve ministers are mentioned in
i Kings 2 , each of whom had to provide for the maintenance
of the household of Solomon during one month : here, too,
no indication is given on whom the charge would fall, should
a thirteenth month occur. These facts have induced some
scholars to conclude that the Jewish months were not lunar
months; but this hypothesis is contrary to the evidence of
too many unmistakable passages. The very nature of
circumstances makes it necessary for us to assume that
from time to time the lunar periods of the year were counted
as thirteen. ' Even if/ as Ideler says 3 , ' no passage in the
Old Testament mentions an intercalary month, we must
nevertheless believe in its existence; for it is absolutely
necessary to add a thirteenth month from time to time to
the twelve of the lunar year, if we do not wish the beginning
of the year to go on being displaced and to recede gradually
round the whole circle of the seasons.' To omit the inter-
calation would produce a year like that used by the
Mohammedans, whose beginning completes the circle of the
seasons about three times in a century, and such a system
would conflict with the fixed relation in which the Hebrew
1 I Chron. xxvii. 1-15. 3 1 Kings iv. 7-20.
3 Ideler, op. cit. i. 488-9.
The Jewish Year 125
months have been shown above to stand to the seasons and
to the course of the sun.
The proceeding adopted to prevent the months from
deserting the corresponding seasons could only be of a very
simple character. A probable allusion to it is perhaps to be
found in Deuteronomy at the beginning of ch. xvi, where
the words are : ' Observe the month of ears and offer the
Passover to Yahwe/ Here the word * observe ' (in Hebrew
shamor) means ' watch, pay attention/ As a matter of fact
it was sufficient, in order fully to attain their object, to watch
the progress of the months after blossoming time, when the
ears began to be formed. It was then easy to determine, at
the end of the twelfth lunar period of the preceding year,
whether, if the new year began with the new moon following,
the ears would be sufficiently ripe fifteen or twenty days
later to make the offering of the 'omer. If this was so,
the new year was made to begin at the next new moon;
in the opposite case its commencement was deferred till the
succeeding new moon. This method of fixing the beginning
of the new year and the date of the Passover, though we
should call it empirical and experimental, was quite
appropriate to an essentially agricultural people, and it did
not require them to trouble themselves with calculations
about the course of the sun and of the moon. With this
system, however, the determination of the beginning of the
year came to depend not only on the connexion between
the periods of the sun and of the moon, but also to a great
extent on the meteorological condition of the preceding
months and on the progress of the vegetation in each year ;
which could not have failed to produce some irregularity
in the distribution of the thirteenth or intercalary month.
To sum up, — when the dates at which barley, wheat, and
vines ripen in Palestine are considered, it may be maintained
that as a rule the beginning of the year fell on the first,
126 Astronomy in the Old Testament
sometimes on the second new moon after the spring
equinox ; this caused the Passover to fall from the first
ten days of April to the first ten days of May, the feast
of Weeks and the end of harvest from the last ten days of
May to the last ten days of June, the feast of Ingathering
for the most part within October. In the colder districts
of Palestine the vintage takes place about the end of
September \ When further, in spite of all precautions, the
inclemency of the season was such as not to allow the
offering of the new ears on the fifteenth day after the year
had begun, there was still left open the permission to take
advantage of a last and infallible expedient ; it was per-
mitted, that is to say, to begin the Passover on the fourteenth
day of the second month. Of this permission, if we are to
believe the Chronicler, Hezekiah availed himself for the
solemn Passover celebrated in the first year of his reign \
98. It remains for us to examine what knowledge the
Jews had of the duration of the tropic year, that is, of that
year which governs the return of the seasons. Some
evidence on this subject is furnished by one of the writers
in Genesis, where he assigns to the life of the patriarch
Enoch, before he was taken away by God, the duration of
365 years, since it is hard to believe that this number is
put here by chance s . But even if that were so, we cannot
doubt that this writer knew the year of 365 days. In fact,
he makes the flood begin in the 600th year of Noah's life,
on the seventeenth day of the second month; and the
definite drying of the earth and end of the flood he puts
in the 601st year of Noah's life, on the twenty-seventh day
of the second month *. These months are certainly those
' Volney, Voyage en Syrie el en £gypte (Paris, 1792), p. 19a.
9 2 Chron. xxx. 2, 3. A law for similar cases is given in Numbers
ix. 10, 11.
9 Gen. v. 24. * Gen. vii. II, and viii. 4.
The Jewish Year 127
of the Jewish calendar, that is to say, lunar periods. The
flood would therefore have lasted for twelve moons and
eleven extra days. It is hard not to recognize here the
intention of making the flood last for an exact solar year ;
for if 354 days be assumed for the duration of twelve moons
(they amount in reality to 354 days, 9 hours) the total
duration of the flood comes to 365 days \
99. When the Israelites began to find themselves dispersed
in various regions of the earth far distant from each other,
such as Babylon and Egypt, it became impracticable to
employ the method previously used of determining the
beginning of the year by watching the ripening of the new
ears of corn. Those who lived in Babylon could with-
out difficulty follow the official computation of the Baby-
lonians ; and we may suppose this to have been sufficiently
well adapted to the Jewish rules, in the conditions of
times which did not render the offering of the sacrifices
obligatory. The Jews of Alexandria, however, could not
adopt a similar course, for the calendar of the Egyptians was
of little service to them, and that of the Romans of still
less. They were always obliged to obtain the requisite
information from the Sanhedrin in Palestine. At that time,
according to the account of Julius Africanus 2 , they adopted
the octaeteris of the Greeks, supposing it equal to eight years
of 365J days, and to ninety-nine moons of 29JI days each.
1 In the pseudepigraphic Book of Enoch and in the Book of Jubilees
(both written at dates not far from the beginning of our era) very crude
ideas are still found on the elements of the lunisolar calendar. The
Book of Enoch supposes that the lunar year is one of 354 days exactly,
the solar year of 364. [R. H. Charles, Book of Enoch, p. 187 sqq.]
* Jul. Afric. apud Syncellum {Ckronogr., p. 61 1, ed. Bonn.). Approxi-
mately the same statements are repeated by Cedrenus (i. 343, ed. Bonn.).
Some idea (even though a very imperfect one) of the octaeteris was
already possessed by the author of the Book of Enoch, who discourses
about it in ch. 74.
128 Astronomy in the Old Testament
But this calculation was very imperfect ; adapting, as was
natural, their solemnities to the course of the moon, they
were quickly in disagreement with the course of the sun and
with the seasons l . The boast of giving a definite basis for
the calculation of the festivals and for the observance of the
rites was reserved for the Jews of Babylonia, the descendants
of the ancient exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar had deported
thither. After many and various vicissitudes they found
favour, or, at any rate, benevolent toleration, under the
Arsacids and the first Sassanids; the Jewish communities
of the Euphrates flourished, and along with the development
of material prosperity a vigorous intellectual growth also
took place. In the first half of the third century we find
astronomy cultivated and taught in the schools of Nahardea
and Sura by distinguished professors such as Rabbi Samuel 2
and Rabbi Adda, who not only were in possession of exact
fundamental principles concerning the motion of the sun and
moon, but also knew the Metonic cycle. Were they the
1 According to the course of the sun eight years represent approxi-
mately 2,922 days, while ninety-nine moons actually give 2,92 3 \.
Counting time by moons involved an error of one and a half days in
eight years or fifteen days in eighty years, and the calculation was
bound to deviate to that extent from the real course of the seasons.
Ideler {pp. cit. i. 571-2 ; ii. 243 and 615) alludes also to the use
which, according to some pieces of evidence, the Jews are said to
have made of a period of eighty-four years. The notices, however, are
of too uncertain a character for any stress to be laid on them : it
is not mentioned at all in the Talmud or in any of the Rabbinical
writers. Schiirer (Gcschichte des jiidischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jem
Christi, ed. 4, i. 751-5) [cp. Eng. tr. of earlier edition, I. ii. 369] has
collected various notices as to the method by which the Jews deter-
mined the intercalation of the thirteenth month, in the centuries imme-
diately before and after the beginning of our era.
9 It is related of Rabbi Samuel that he said, speaking of shooting
stars : ' Known to me are the ways of heaven, even as the ways of the
city of Nahardea are known : but what a falling star is, that
I know not.'
The Jewish Year 129
heirs of the dying astronomy of Babylon, or had they
learned from the Greeks? However that may be, these
masters already knew how to reduce to a sound practice
the calculation of the new moons and of the equinoxes.
Herewith the most urgent needs were supplied, and the
bases of the existing Jewish calendar laid, which is believed
to have been definitely systematized by Rabbi Hillel about
the middle of the fourth century l .
1 On the origin and history of the Jewish calendar, with which we
cannot occupy ourselves here, see Ideler, op. cit. i. pp. 570-83.
SCH
CHAPTER IX
SEPTENARY PERIODS
The Babylonian lunar week and the free Jewish week. — The
repose of the Sabbath. — The year of liberty. — The year
of remission. — The Sabbatic Year. — Epochs of the Sabbatic
Year. — The Jewish Jubilee. — Questions relating to its origin
and use.
ioo. The length of the monthly period determined by
the lunar phases was not easily adapted for all the usages
of social life. Various peoples which have reached a certain
degree of civilization, have felt the necessity of dividing time
into shorter intervals, whether for the regulation of religious
festivals and ceremonies, or so as to have an easily observable
order for markets and other events occurring at distances
of only a few days apart. Hence the origin of cycles that
include a small number of days. Thus we find the period
of three days among the Muyscas on the plateau of Bogota^
of five days among the Mexicans before the Spanish con-
quest, and the week of seven days among the Jews, the
Babylonians, and the Peruvians at the time of the Incas.
The period of eight days is known as used by the Romans
in the republican times (nundinae), and lastly that of ten
days which was in regular use among the ancient Egyptians
and among the Athenians. In the majority of cases, these
periods were so arranged as to divide the lunar month into
equal or almost equal parts. Thus the ten -day period was,
among the Egyptians exactly, among the Athenians approxi-
mately, the third part of a whole month. The week of the
Septenary Periods 131
Babylonians and of the Peruvians was fixed by the quarters
of the lunar period. And among the Mexicans the five days
were a quarter of their month, which is known to have
consisted of twenty days only.
101. As the length of a lunation is about 29^ days,
a quarter of it comes to 7§ days. But as men cannot
proceed in this matter otherwise than in whole numbers,
they are obliged to keep to the nearest number of whole
days. Hence arises the period of seven days, representing
the nearest equivalent to a quarter of a lunation. The first
and most ancient form of the week was accordingly to count
successively seven, fourteen, twenty-one, and twenty-eight
days from the beginning of the month (or from the new
moon), leaving one or two days remaining over at the end,
so as to recommence in a similar manner the calculation
from the commencement of the next new moon. — This form
of week, bound up with the lunar phases, was anciently in
use among the Babylonians, as appears from a portion of
a Babylonian calendar preserved in the British Museum 1 .
In this precious record, which unfortunately contains one
month only, the festivals and sacrifices to be celebrated are
indicated, and the part the king ought to take in them.
The seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days
of the month are marked as umu limnu, that is, as unlucky
days ; and, at the side of those days, various things are noted
which might not be done on them. The king had to abstain
from eating certain kinds of food, from attending to decisions
affecting the affairs of state, from going out in his chariot.
The priests could not utter oracles, the doctor could not lay
1
1 Published in the original in Rawlinson's Cuneiform Inscriptions of
Western Asia, vol. iv. tab. 33 and 33. Translation by Sayce, Records
of the Past, first series, vii. 157-68. [See also Jastrow, Religion of Bab.
and Ass. (1898), p. 376 ff.] Commentary by Zimmera, KAT. s p. 592
[untranslated]. The document is the transcript of a more ancient copy,
made by order of Asshurbanipal and found in the ruins of Nineveh.
K 2
132 Astronomy in the Old Testament
his hand on a sick person. Men were not, however, for-
bidden to attend to their private affairs, to buy and sell *.
102. From the week thus bound up with the lunar phases
it was easy to pass to a week which was purely conventional
and rigorously periodic, such as we now use. The former
was in fact subject to all the irregularities and uncertainties
which accompany the determination of the new moon: it
was natural to resolve this difficulty by making a perfectly
1 This is clearly shown by the dates of the Babylonian contracts.
Boscawen {Trans. Soc. Bibl. ArchaeoL vi. 1-78) has transcribed the
dates of about 400 documents taken from the archives of the Babylonian
business firm, Egibi and Sons. By classifying these dates according
to the days of the month, I find that the number of contracts concluded
on the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days, is not
at all smaller than the average. These same documents show that a real
and actual abstention from business matters only took place on the
nineteenth day of each month, i.e. the forty-ninth day (7 x 7) counting
from the beginning of the preceding month. This nineteenth day is also
marked, in the Babylonian Calendar which has been cited above, as until
limnuy i.e. dies ne/astus, and all the rules laid down for the seventh,
fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days are valid for the nine-
teenth day also. But, in addition, contracts were not concluded on the
nineteenth day. Perhaps therefore we must understand the matter thus :
the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days were to be
regarded as nefasti in the palace, but outside the palace, only for works
of magic or divination; while the nineteenth day was considered
nefastus for all purposes.
It does not appear that the days in question were days of rest among
the Babylonians. And it does not appear that they employed the word
shabattn to describe them. It is more probable that they meant by it
1 a day of pacification * (of a deity's anger). The coincidence derived
from the resemblance between the two words affords no proof in favour
of a real weekly rest or Sabbath among the Babylonians.
[On the use oishabattu in Assyrian, see the article Sabbath in Hastings's
Dictionary of the Bible, iv. 31 9*. or Zimmern, JCAT.* p. 592 ff. Since
these articles were written, a lexicographical tablet belonging to the
library of Asshurbanipal has been discovered by Mr. Pinches, in which
shapattu is given as the name of the fifteenth day of the month, i.e.
(presumably) of the day of the Full Moon : see Zimmern in Zcitschr.
d. Deutschen morgenland. Gesellschaft , 1904, pp. 199 sqq.]
Septenary Periods 133
uniform period of seven days, free from any dependence
on the moon or on any other celestial phenomenon of any
kind. In this way it was easy to render the use of the
week public and popular, by connecting it with some civil
or religious act, for instance with a festival or a market,
which was always held on the same day of each period,
or even with both a festival and a market. Whether the
Jews arrived at this conception through their own reflection
or received it from others, it is no longer possible to decide.
The institution of the week is certainly to be ranked among
the most ancient recorded usages of the Jewish nation, and
the Sabbath * as a day of enforced rest is found mentioned
in the most ancient documents of the law, such as the two
Decalogues 2 and the First Code 8 ; as also in the Books
of Kings during the time of the prophet Elisha 4 , and in
the prophecies of Amos and Hosea 6 . Its origin may
possibly go back to the first beginnings of the Jewish
people, and may well be even earlier than Moses. Carried
by the Jews into their dispersion, adopted by the Chaldaean
astrologers for use in their divinations, received by Christi-
anity and Islam, this cycle, so convenient and so useful
for chronology, has now been adopted throughout the world.
Its use can be traced back for about 3,000 years, and there
is every reason to believe that it will last through the cen-
turies to come) resisting the madness of useless novelty and
the assaults of present and future iconoclasts.
103. It does not appear that the Jews gave special names
to the days of the week, except to the Sabbath, which was
regarded as the last day of the seven, a suitable position
1 Shabath = cessavit (ab aliquo opere), feriatus est, qnievit : Shabbath =
quies, sabbatnm.
2 For the first Decalogue, see Exod. xx. 8-11 and Dent. v. 12-15.
For the second, Exod. xxxiv. 21.
3 Exod. xxiii. 12. * 2 Kings iv. 23.
5 Hosea ii. 11; Amosviii. 5.
134 Astronomy in the Old Testament
for the rest which ought to follow after labour. No trace
of such names appears in the books of the Old Testament,
From the titles, however, which are found at the head of
certain Psalms in the version of the LXX and in the Vulgate 1 ,
it may be argued that, at any rate in the centuries immedi-
ately preceding the Christian era, the Jews indicated each day
by its numerical name, designating the day following the
Sabbath as the first day, its successor as the second, and
so on. The sixth day, which preceded the Sabbath, was
described as ' the day before the Sabbath ' ; and at a later
date it was called by the Hellenistic Jews 7rapao-K€vf) or
* preparation ' for the Sabbath, which corresponds to our
Friday. Similar indications are found in the New Testa-
ment 2 .
104. Many believe that the week had its origin from the
seven stars visible to the naked eye which traverse the
celestial zodiac. For the ancient astronomers --and astro-
logers these stars were the sun, the moon, and the five
larger planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
On this subject we may observe first that to associate the
sun and the moon, stars giving so much light and of so
appreciable a diameter, with the five so much smaller planets
just mentioned, is not what might be expected of the primi-
tive systems of cosmography. To perceive their common
characteristic, which is periodic movement within the zodiacal
belt, an accurate and sufficiendy prolonged study is required.
1 In these titles the Psalms are mentioned as to be sung on particular
days : Psalm xxiv on the first day after the Sabbath ; Psalm xlviii on the
second day after the Sabbath ; Psalm xciv on the fourth day after the
Sabbath; Psalm xciii on the day preceding the Sabbath. These indications
are absent in the Hebrew text of the Psalms, a fact which seems to
prove that their origin is later than the composition of the Psalms
themselves.
a Matt, xxviii. 1; Mark xy. 42, xvi. 9; Luke xxiii. 54, xxiv, 1;
John xx. l.
Septenary Periods 135
It is also necessary to have recognized that Mercury and
Venus as morning stars are the same as Mercury and Venus
as evening stars. All this seems to have been known to
the Babylonians, at any rate at the time of Nebuchadnezzar,
who boasts in one of his inscriptions of having raised
a temple to the seven rulers of heaven and earth l . And
yet, in spite of this, the week of the Babylonians, as was seen
above, was not a planetary week like our own, but was
founded upon quarters of lunations. In the Babylonian
Calendar of which we have already spoken, there is no
indication either of the planets or of the corresponding
deities. On the other hand, the oldest use of the free and
uniform week is found among the Jews, who had only
a most imperfect knowledge of the planets. The identity
of the number of the days in the week with that of the
planets is purely accidental, and it is not permissible to
assert that the former number is derived from the latter.
105. The numerous relations, whether peaceful or war-
like, of the Jews with Rome, when she had succeeded to
the inheritance of the kings of Syria, had the effect of
making the seven days' week and the Sabbath known to
the Romans even before the Empire was established.
Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, Persius, Juvenal, speak of the
Sabbath as of something universally known; and Josephus
could write that in his time there was no city, whether
Greek or non-Greek, where the Jewish habit of celebrating
the Sabbath was unknown 2 . About the same time men
began already to attribute to the various days of the week
those same names of pagan divinities which are still em-
ployed at the present day, with only small alteration, among
all the neo-Latin peoples, and are also used among the
1 Ball, The India House Inscription of Nebuchadnezzar the Great (in
Records of the Past, 2nd Series, vol. iii. pp. 102-23).
2 C. Apionem t ii. 39.
136 Astronomy in the Old Testament
peoples of Germanic origin, though in a form modified
according to northern mythology. Tibullus, in the third
Elegy of his first Book, already calls the Sabbath the day
of Saturn and a day of bad omen (lines 17, 18) : —
Aut ego sum causatus aves, aut omina dira,
Saturni aut sacram me tenuisse diem.
Not long ago the following inscription was found scratched
on the wall of a dining-room in Pompeii * : —
SATVRNI
SOLIS
LVNAE
MARTIS
IOVIS
VENERIS
This gives the days of the week in the order still adopted
at the present time, with the omission, however, of Wednes-
day, which is no doubt an accidental error. So then these
names were already known and generally used before the
destruction of Pompeii, which took place in 79 a.d.
106. The astrological origin of these names is too familiar
to require relating here. Their order depends on two sup-
positions. The first is the division of the nychthemeron into
twenty-four hours. This is enough by itself to exclude the
possibility that their invention may be due to the Baby-
lonians, since we have already seen that they divided their
nychthemeron, not into twenty-four hours, but into twelve kaspu*
Secondly, the order of these names is closely connected with
the order of the seven planetary spheres adopted by Ptolemy"
and after him by almost all astronomers and astrologers
down to Copernicus. This order, commencing with the
highest planet and descending to the lowest, is: Saturn,
1 Atti delta R. Accademia dei Lincei, anno 1901, Notizie degti Scavi,
P- 33°-
'. Septenary Periods 137
Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. Now the first
notices which we possess of this arrangement do not ga
back much beyond the first or second century before our
era 1 . It is improbable that the application of the names
of the planetary divinities (which are Greek divinities) to
the days of the week is much older. We are indebted for
these names to mathematical astrology, the false science
which came to be formed after the time of Alexander the
Great from the strange intermarriage between Chaldaean
and Egyptian superstitions and the mathematical astronomy
of the Greeks 2 . The division of the nychthemeron into twenty-
four hours certainly came from Egypt; the order of the
planetary spheres which has been described above is prob-
ably the result of neo-Pythagorean speculations, as I hope
to show on another occasion.
107. Has the progress of the week always been regular
and never been interrupted throughout the centuries, in such
a way as always to place an interval of seven days from one
Sabbath to another, or a number of days which is some
multiple of seven ? It is clear that an interruption of its use,
even for a not very long time, might have disturbed the uni-
formity of the succession, and in consequence a Sabbath
occurring after the interruption could be separated from
a Sabbath occurring before it by a number of days which is
not a multiple of seven. Not all the materials for settling
1 If we were to believe Macrobius, this order would already have
been adopted by Archimedes, and hence would go back to the third
century B.C. See his CommentaHum in somnium Scipionis t i. 19 ; ii.
3. The authority of Macrobius in such a matter does not seem to be of
much weight. Even, however, if it be accepted, not much would result;
in no case can the inference be drawn from it that the conception of the
week arose from the seven planets.
2 On the history of the week in east and west, Ideler may be
consulted with advantage {pp. cit. i. 60, 87, 178-80,480-2; ii. 177-9;
and elsewhere).
138 Astronomy in the Old Testament
this question are in existence, or at any rate, not all have the
degree of certainty which one could desire : recourse must
in part be had to conjecture. It is certain that an institution
of such antiquity, and sanctioned by all the religious codes of
the Jews, must have been observed with the utmost care
before the Babylonian exile. During that exile the Jewish
community of Babylon seems to have attained a remarkable
degree of cohesion and authority : so much so that it
could continue a vigorous existence for more than a thousand
years, down to the persecutions of the last Sassanids. In
this community, where the existing Jewish calendar had
its origin, and the Babylonian Talmud was composed, it
cannot be doubted that the Sabbath continued to be ob-
served, at any rate so far as concerns complete abstention
from any servile labour; and for this purpose the fact of
residence in a foreign land offered facilities for profiting
by the aid of non-Jewish servants. Hence it cannot be
doubted that the Sabbatic interval has successfully traversed
without interruption, not only the period from the destruction
of the first Temple to the building of the second, but also
the time down to the destruction of the latter by Titus
in 70 a. d. By this date, however, the Sabbath had already
penetrated into the habits of the Roman world, and into
Christianity itself, where no difficulty was felt from the first
in accepting a calculation on which the life of the Redeemer
and its last incidents had been regulated. The only im-
portant alteration took place when, instead of the Sabbath,
the day of the Sun was adopted as the festal day, and hence-
forward it was called ' the day of the Lord ' {ji^pa KvptaKq,
dies Dominica), owing to the resurrection of Christ having
occurred on that day. This change, the first indications of
which are found in St. Justin Martyr's Apology », exercised no
influence on the periodical recurrence of the seven days'
weeks, and only caused this consequence that the repose of
Septenary Periods 139
the Jews and the weekly festival of the Christians were no
longer celebrated at the same time. But for the one, as for
the other, the Sabbath fell on the same day. Nor was any
change effected in the days of Constantine, when for the
names dies Lunae, dies Martis, dies Mercurii, &c, an attempt
was made, though with only small success, to substitute the
less pagan titles feria secunda, feria teriia, feria quarta,
&c. After Constantine, the week came definitely to form
an essential part of the Christian liturgy, and thencefor-
ward no further occasion for alteration arose. The week
pursued its course undisturbed even at the time when the
Christian calendar was reformed by -Gregory XIII in 1582.
Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans are perfectly in agree-
ment on the dates of the Sabbath, although they celebrate
their weekly festivals on different days, namely, the Mohamme-
dans on Friday, the >Jews on Saturday, and the Christians on
Sunday. Hence the week has become a- golden thread which
often serves to guide the historian through the uncertainties
of chronology.
108. Pbriods of Seven Years. >Even from the first times
of the Mosaic legislation, the interval of seven years was
used to regulate certain religious or civil ordinances. One
of these concerned the enforced liberation of slaves of Jewish
nationality in the seventh year of their bondage. We read
in the First Coder 1 : ' When thou hast bought a Hebrew
slave, he shall serve thee for six years; but in the seventh
year he shall go out free -without paying for his redemption/
This arrangement is repeated together with strong exhortations
in Deuteronomy 3 ; it is considered as a duty by Jeremiah 3 ,
and is again mentioned in Ezekiel 4 , from whom we also know
that this seventh year was called 'the year of liberty.'
In this case the septennial period was a mere interval, the
1 Exod. xxi. 2. a Deut. xv. 12-18.
3 Jer. xxxiv. 13, 14. * Ezek. xlvi. 17.
140 Astronomy in the Old Testament
beginning and end of which varied according to persons and
places. On the other hand, a fixed septennial period, a
true heptaeteris common to the whole Jewish people, exists in
the period which prescribed the remission of debts. Perhaps
this, too, was not originally tied down to dates common to
the whole people. The First Code says nothing at all about it.
The oldest mention of the ( year of remission ' (shemittah) is
found in Deuteronomy l : ' At the end of seven years thou
shalt make the remission : and this is the manner of the
remission. Every creditor shall remit that which he hath
given on loan to his neighbour and to his brother, because
the remission of Yahwe has been proclaimed. . . . Beware
that there be not a wicked thought in thy heart, saying to
thee, The seventh year, the year of remission, is at hand ; and
that it make thee not to turn the eye of evil towards thy
brother, and thou give him nought/ &c. Here there is
clearly indicated a fixed and common period for the creditors
and debtors of the whole nation. This view is further con-
firmed by another ordinance also contained in Deuteronomy s ,
where it is prescribed that in the year of remission the read-
ing of the Law is to take place before the whole people «
The observance of the year of remission and of its septennial
cycle, would accordingly go back to "the date of Josiah king of
Judah, under whom (and, to be precise, in the eighteenth
year of his reign, 621 b. c), according to an old and very
probable opinion, the prophetic code of legislation contained
in Deuteronomy was proclaimed. In the epoch of Nehemiah
the seventh year of remission was in full operation 3 ; no traces
of it are found later, and it seems that it was abolished soon
after his date.
109. Repose of the Land : Sabbatic Yeai*. The institution
of a septennial repose of the land (also called the ' Sabbath
1 Dent. xv. 1-9. 9 Dent. xxxi. 10. 3 Neh. x. 31.
Septenary Periods 141
of the land/ or the ' Sabbatic Year ') seems to date back to
the first beginnings of the Mosaic law. It appears to have
been originally instituted either to secure the rest for the soil
which was necessary in an epoch when agriculture had not
advanced far, or for philanthropic objects. The First Code
says 1 : 'Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather
the fruits thereof; but in the seventh year thou shalt leave it
and abandon it, that the poor of thy people may eat thereof.
. . . The same shalt thou do with thy vineyard, and with thy
oliveyard/ It is, of course, to be understood that this repose
of the land was not to take place simultaneously over aH
properties, and not even over all parts of the same piece of
property: otherwise bad provision would have been made
for the philanthropic object of the institution, and the danger
would have arisen of starving the whole country once every
seven years. This law of the rest for the land, after being
vigorously enforced for some time, was afterwards irregularly
observed and finally abandoned altogether: Deuteronomy
makes no mention of it, nor does any prophet before the exile,
and it seems to have fallen into oblivion even in the time of
Ezra and Nehemiah 2 »
1 Exod. xxiii. 10, n. Some critics, among them Hupfeld, Reuss,
and Wellhausen, have concluded from the expression 'leave it (the
fruit) and abandon it,' that to abandon the fruit of the seventh year does
not necessarily involve that the land must be left uncultivated and the
vine unpruned. The earth would according to this view be cultivated
in the seventh year too and its fruit abandoned to the poor. This might
stand, did not the preceding verse say quite clearly: 'Six years thou
shalt sow thy land,* thus seeming to exclude sowing in the seventh year.
The words • repose of the land ' seem to decide the question.
, a Nehemiah (x. 31), enumerating the duties to which the people
solemnly binds itself in relation to its God, says: 'We will forgo
the seventh year and the exaction of every debt ' ; but is com-
pletely silent about the repose of the land. It has been wrongly
believed that this repose is included in the expression 'forgo the
seventh year 1 : but these words refer to the. remission of debts r and
142 Astronomy in the Old Testament
no. At a time which cannot well be accurately fixed, but
was in any case later than that of Nehemiah and earlier than
the final redaction of the Pentateuch and its consecration
as the Divine Law, there was inserted in the Pentateuch a
collection of provisions relating to this subject which are com-
pletely different from those sanctioned shortly before by Ezra
and sworn to by the people about 445 b.c. These new
rules are contained in Leviticus xxv, with some additions in
xxvii. Their effect is that the liberation of the Israelite slaves
and the remission of debts are to be settled no longer in every
seventh year but in every fiftieth year instead, that is, in
the Year of the Jubilee, in which there was also to take place
the simultaneous return of all properties acquired during the
preceding fifty years to their former owners. These provisions
remained a dead letter, as we shall see, and were never
carried into practice. On the other hand the old and almost
forgotten law of the septennial repose of the land was
revived with great effect and much severity 1 , almost in
the same terms as those used in the First Code, but with the
important difference that the year of rest was the same for
regulate the periodical return of this action. That the Sabbath of thtf
Land had long fallen into disuse at the time of Jeremiah can be gathered
from a passage of that prophet which is not found in his book but is
preserved in Chronicles, where, in reference to the destruction of
Jerusalem, it is said (2 Chron. xxxvi. 21) that it happened 'that the
word of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, until the land had been compensated
for its years of rest ; through all the time of its abandonment it rested,
to complete the seventy years.' Jeremiah, therefore, reproved the Jews
for having neglected the Sabbath of the Land, which the First Code had
ordained, and considered this to be one of the offences which called down
the Divine wrath upon Israel. The passage of Jeremiah is repeated in
almost identical terms in the twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus (w. 34,
35, 43), which seems to be partly taken from works by that prophet
which we no longer possess. It is instructive to compare Lev. xxvi. 4,
12, 17, 29, 33, 37 with Jer. v. 24, xxx. 22, xxi. 10, xix. 9, ix. 16,
xlvi. 12.
1 Lev. xxv. 2-7, 20-22,
Septenary Periods 143
the whole land of Israel. This ordinance, which might
appear to some absurd and tyrannical, was evidently intro-
duced in order to render it easier to provide for its observance.
The poor accordingly, to whom were reserved the spontaneous
fruits of the earth in the year of rest, could satisfy themselves
abundantly every seventh year, on condition, however, of
fasting throughout the six intervening years. The nation
was moreover subjected every seven years to the danger of
a general and terrible famine.
in. In the time before the exile, when the two king-
doms of Israel and Judah contained millions of inhabitants
living exclusively by agriculture, such a law would not have
been possible. In the small Jewish community established
after the exile in Jerusalem and in the villages round about,
surrounded by strangers who came every day to sell pro-
visions l , the enactment, though a sufficiently heavy burden,
was not so hard to carry out. It is a fact that it was imposed ;
and when the Torah (that is to say, the final and most
comprehensive code of Mosaism as we now have it) was con-
stituted in a definite manner, there appeared in it the order for
the septennial repose of the land, to be observed universally in
the seventh year, which was therefore called a ' Sabbatic Year/
It came into force and was faithfully observed down to the
destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 a.d. The
Sabbatic Year did not correspond to the sacerdotal year,
which began in spring, but to the civil year of the Syrians,
which had now come into use among the Jews, and whose
beginning coincided with the new moon of the seventh month,
generally falling in October. In this autumn the sowing was
omitted, and in the following spring and summer gathering
in was omitted. Under ordinary circumstances it was possible
to make the necessary arrangements for obviating the danger
of famine ; but in case of war, and especially of siege, the
1 Neh, x. 31, xiii. 16,
i44 Astronomy in the Old Testament
consequences of the Sabbatic Year made themselves felt on
more than one occasion. We have evidence of it in the first
Book of the Maccabees, where it is related that, when
Antiochus Eupator had occupied Bethsura, the inhabitants
had to leave the town as they had no more to eat, ' because
it was the Sabbath of the land/ and shortly afterwards that
famine was felt in Jerusalem 'because it was the seventh
year,' and those of the Gentiles who had come into Judaea
had consumed all the rest of the provisions in store 1 .
Josephus narrates in the same way that during the siege
laid by Herod to Jerusalem, the famine was aggra-
vated by reason of the Sabbatic Year then running its
course 9 .
112. The notices as to various returns of the Sabbatic
Year, which are found in the first Book of the Maccabees, in
the works of Josephus, and in the Jewish traditions of the
first centuries of our era, allow us to fix with some certainty
the date of some Sabbatic Years 3 * Thus, from a study of
the chronology employed in the first Book of the Maccabees,
the result has been reached that the Sabbatic Year corre-
sponding to the occupation of Bethsura by Antiochus Eupator
(to which we have alluded above) lasted from the autumn of
164 B.C. to the autumn of the following year 163 b.c. The
indications of Josephus as to the siege of Jerusalem effected
by Herod with the aid of the Romans under Sosius 4 , place
the capture of the city in the consulship of M. Agrippa and
Caninius Gallus ; hence it can be inferred that the Sabbatic
Year then in progress began with the autumn of 38 b.c and
1 1 Mace vi. 49, 53. 8 Josephus, Ant. xiv. 16.
1 The remarks which follow are mainly dependent upon the dis-
cussions and results published by Schiirer in the fourth edition of his
most learned work, Gesehichte des jlidischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu
Christie vol. i. pp. 32-8 [cp. Eng. tr. of earlier edition, I. i. 41].
* Josephus, Ant. xiv. 16.
Septenary Periods 145
ended with the autumn of 37 b.c. A third fixed point is
furnished by a Jewish tradition according to which the year
in which the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed by the
Romans had been preceded by a Sabbatic Year : that Sabbatic
Year accordingly lasted from the autumn of 68 a.d. to the
autumn of 69 a.d. 1
113. Comparing these dates together, we find that the
interval between the first and second of the Sabbatic Years in-
dicated is one of 126 years, or of eighteen times seven years ;
and that the interval between the second and third is one of
105 years, or of fifteen times seven years. We may conclude
from this that during the whole time comprised between the
revolt of the Maccabees and the destruction of Jerusalem
(and probably also for a certain time before the Maccabees)
the recurrence of the Sabbatic Year was rigorously and
regularly observed from seventh year to seventh year, without
any interruption. If therefore any one wishes to ascertain
whether a given year was a Sabbatic Year, he will be able to
do it easily by examining whether the interval between that
year and one of the three years above mentioned gives
a number divisible by seven. To put it generally, if n be
any whole number, we can say that the beginning of the
Sabbatic Years took place in the years 7 n -f- 3 before Christ
and in the years 7« + 5 after Christ, in autumn. For
instance, if »=o, it will follow that in the autumn of the year
3 b. c. a Sabbatic Year began, and so also in the autumn of
the year 5 a.d. And if n be given the value of all the whole
numbers successively {t\e. suppose 0=1, 2, 3, 4, . . . ),
any one who wishes can form a table of all the years before
and after Christ in the autumn of which a Sabbatic Year began.
The question may now be raised, whether the period
of the Sabbatic Year can be considered as a continuation of
the analogous period of remission which fell out of use
1 Jerusalem was taken by Titus in the summer of the year 70 a.d.
sch. L
146 Astronomy in the Old Testament
when the Sabbatic Year was instituted after the time of
Nehemiah? This is probable enough in itself; but positive
arguments and historical proofs cannot be adduced in support
of it. Neither in the Old Testament nor elsewhere can any
date be found which allows the years of remission to be
calculated in the way which we have been able to adopt for
the Sabbatical Years.
114. The Jubilee. Those legislators of Leviticus who
came after Ezra tried to substitute for the septennial period
of the year of liberty and for that of the year of remission,
both of which had been abolished, a period of fifty years
which was named the Jubilee because its beginning was
proclaimed in the autumn of the fiftieth year by uttering
with trumpets and horns called yobel, which were appro-
priated for this purpose, a cheerful musical sound 1 . The
arrangement of this cycle is defined as follows 9 : ' Thou
shalt number seven Sabbaths of years, that is, seven times
seven years, so that the space of the seven Sabbaths shall
be forty-nine years; and then shalt thou cause the sound
of the trumpet to come forth on the tenth day of the seventh
month, on the day of atonement, throughout all the country.
And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year in the land, and ye
shall proclaim liberty for all its inhabitants. It shall be
a Jubilee unto you, and each man shall return to his pos-
session and each man to his family. A Jubilee shall the
fiftieth year be unto you. Ye shall not sow, neither reap
that which groweth of itself, and ye shall not gather the
grapes- on the undressed vines. ... In selling or in buying
(a field) ye shall not deceive one another ; according to the
number of years that have passed since the Jubilee shall
1 As I am informed by a friend, yobel most probably meant a ram
(Joshua vi. 4-5) ; then it was applied to a rams horn nsed as a trumpet
(Exod. xix. 13: cp. R.V. margin).
g Lev. xxv. 8-42.
Septenary Periods 147
the price increase or diminish; because that which is sold
is the number of the crops (i.e. to the next Jubilee). Ye
may not sell the land for ever, because mine is the land^
and ye are guests and tenants (usufructuaries) with me. . . .
And when thy brother has grown poor and is sold to thee,
thou shalt not treat him like a slave; but as a workman,
as a temporary member of the house, shall he remain with
thee down to the Year of Jubilee ; then shall he depart
free, he and his children, and return to his own family and
to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servantSi
whom I have freed from the land of Egypt : they shall
not be sold as slaves.' As we see, the object of all these
rules is to reduce to a longer period, and so render less severe
and easier to observe, the septennial recurrences of the year of
liberty, and of the repose of the land, as prescribed in the
First Code and in Deuteronomy.
115. The year of liberty, which was originally intended
to be the seventh from the beginning of the term of servitude,
and from which the majority of slaves were once able to
profit, is now fixed for all without distinction in the Year of
Jubilee ; and herewith the hope of regaining liberty without
paying redemption money became for a great number of
them completely illusory. The year of remission seems to
have disappeared from the Code, and to have fallen out of use
after Nehemiah. There is no mention of it in the Jubilee
legislation of Lev. xxv and xxvii. As regards the Sabbath
repose of the land, it was certainly in appearance 1 an advantage
to landed proprietors to render the renovation of the soil rarer
by imposing it every fifty years instead of the original seven,
1 I say in appearance, because we are not well acquainted with the
conditions of agricultural land in Palestine at that time, or with
the system of cultivation employed. Experience has shown that, where
abundant and good manure is not available, repose becomes necessary at
intervals even shorter than seven years.
L 2
148 Astronomy in the Old Testament
but the benefit which the poor derived from it was clearly
diminished by the same amount. On the other hand, a great
benefit for the whole nation and an effect of moral and
social importance might have been produced by the return
of the estates to their old owners in the Year of Jubilee;
this would have had the result of preventing the impoverish-
ment of families and the excessive accumulation of the real
property of the country in the hands of one individual. By
making God the universal owner of all estates and of all
slaves, and reducing themselves to mere usufructuary occu-
pants for a limited time, the Israelites would have found
the means of preventing (up to a certain point) the excessive
inequality of fortunes, and would thus have provided a so-
lution of the great social problem which so much troubles
modern thinkers at the present day. In the mind of the legis-
lator the redemption of slaves was certainly strictly depen-
dent on the conception of the return of properties every
fifty years ; the repose of the land was undoubtedly meant
to render the passage from one cultivator to another easier.
But the interpretation of these rules in detail and, still more,
their prescribed coexistence with the Sabbatic Year, have
created serious difficulties about which it would not be proper
to be silent here.
116. In Leviticus the law of the Jubilee begins by saying:
* Thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years, that is, seven
times seven years, so that the space of the seven Sabbaths
of years shall be forty-nine years/ Here the phrase * Sabbath
of years' does not mean (as it could be interpreted) any
period of seven consecutive years, but that seventh year
which completes the week of seven years and is destined
for the repose of the land : in other words, the c Sabbath
of years ' is the Sabbatic Year, just as the Sabbath of days
is the Sabbath Day. Notice further that after counting
seven Sabbaths of years we ought to arrive at a total of
Septenary Periods 149
forty-nine years, and this could not be unless the 49th
year were itself a ' Sabbath of years/ After this Sabbath
one year will still remain, the fiftieth year of the cycle, which
will be the Jubilee Year : in other words, the first Jubilee
cycle will exceed by one year the seven weeks of years.
The result will be this: in consequence of the regular,
never interrupted progression of the Sabbatic Years from
seventh year to seventh year (see §§ 112, 113), the
arrangement of these years in the second Jubilee cycle will
no longer be that prescribed by Leviticus, and another
arrangement different again will take place in the third
Jubilee cycle, and so on in succeeding cycles. And only
for the first cycle will it be true that, when the seventh
Sabbatic year is finished, the total will amount to forty-nine
years.
117. Now, it would be possible to escape this difficulty
by assuming that by t Sabbaths of years ' (shabbtthoth shanitn)
we ought to understand not Sabbatic Years but mere periods
of seven years, within which the Sabbatic Year could occupy
the first, or the last, or any place. In this case the years
of the seven weeks of years would always be forty-nine,
and the Jubilee period would always be completed in the
following year, the fiftieth. Even if this interpretation be
admitted (and there is much to be said against it), all
difficulties would not be thereby removed. It is in fact
clear that, if the first Jubilee cycle begins with the first
year of the week of years, it will also end with the first
year. Again, the second Jubilee cycle will begin with the
second year of the week of years, and also end with
the second year. By continuing the calculation we see that
the third Jubilee cycle will begin with the third year of the
week of years and also end with the third year, and so on.
It thus results that the fiftieth year, that of the Jubilee, must
fall successively in all the seven years which compose the
150 Astronomy in the Old Testament
week of years. Sometimes, however, it will happen that
the Jubilee Year is immediately preceded or immediately
followed by the Sabbatic Year. And as the repose of the
land is obligatory in both years equally, the final result
will inevitably be that it will be necessary to allow the land
to rest for two consecutive years. The consequences can
easily be understood if we represent to our imagination
what Italy would become if two harvests of the land were
completely omitted, one after the other. They would have
been much more serious still among the Israelites in
Palestine, where the inhabitants lived almost entirely upon
the fruits of the earth, industrial occupations being certainly
very small in extent and commerce completely non-existent.
Ewald l has sought for a solution of this difficulty in a way
which appears to me to be entirely illusory, as he practically
assumes that the last week of years in >the Jubilee period
is a week of eight years : in other words, that the Sabbatic
Years throughout the period are the seventh, fourteenth,
twenty-first, twenty-eighth, thirty-fifth, forty-second, and
fiftieth. Another similar answer had been propounded by
the great scholar Moses Maimonides, with whose view
Ideler 2 also associates himself. Maimonides says: 'The
forty-ninth year is a Sabbatic Year, the fiftieth year is
a year of yobel ; the fifty-first forms the beginning of a
new week of years/ This interpretation places a repose
of the land in the forty-ninth and in the fiftieth year
of every period, thus aggravating the difficulty on which
we laid stress above in regard to the practice of allowing
the land to rest for two consecutive years. Both solutions
are also contrary to the law of the Sabbatic Year, which
supposes a regular and uniform interval of seven years,
as the law of the Sabbath Day supposes a regular
1 Ewald, Antiquities, p. 375. % Ideler, op. cit. i. pp. 503-4.
Septenary Periods 151
and uniform interval of seven days. Now it is quite certain
that during the existence of the second Temple this
regularity in the periods of the Sabbatic Year was con-
sistently observed, as has been proved above by his-
torical dates ranging from the epoch of the Maccabees
down to the destruction of the second Temple by the
Romans.
118. All these difficulties have their root in the fact that
the number fifty of the Years of the Jubilee cycle is not
exactly divisible by seven, the number of the years of the
Sabbatic cycle. It would easily be made to disappear if
one could interpret the text of the law in such a way as
to extract forty-nine years from it instead of fifty. Then
the Jubilee Year (that is to say, the forty-ninth year) would
also be a Sabbatic Year, and a more solemn Sabbatic Year
than the six others which had preceded it in the course
of the cycle. This expedient seems already to have pre-
sented itself very readily to the minds of some doctors of
the Jewish law. In fact the Book of Jubilees 1 , which is
held to have been composed not long before or after the
Christian era, arranges the whole chronology of the facts
contained in the Pentateuch according to Jubilees of forty-
nine years, whence it derives its name. And yet nearly
at the same time Philo and Josephus 2 were affirming that
the Jubilee period was one of fifty years. The period
of forty-nine years was also accepted by a certain Rabbi
Jehudah, who was persuaded, according to the statement in
the Talmud 3 , that the last Year of one Jubilee period was
1 See the translation of this book by Littmann, published in
Kautzsch, Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testa-
ments, vol. ii (Tubingen, 1900). [English translation by R. H.
Charles, London, 1902.]
a Quoted by Ideler, op. cit. i. p. 506.
3 Ideler, op. cit. i. p. 503, cites for this the tractate in the Talmud
called Erubin.
152 Astronomy in the Old Testament
to be counted as the first of the next Jubilee period; so
that the duration of the cycle remains one of fifty years
only in appearance but in reality is reduced to forty-nine,
the order of the Sabbatic Years continuing to be perfectly
preserved. The doctors of the school of the Geonim, which
was the first school after the redaction of the Talmud was
definitely^ closed *, agreed to this method of interpretation,
and cited a certain tradition according to which, after the
destruction of the first Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, the
years were no longer counted by Jubilee periods but only
by Sabbatic Years. They even constructed a system of
chronology according to these years, in relation to which
their solution is in complete harmony with the formulae
established above on the basis of historical dates. Among
modern chronologists, some of the most authoritative, such
as Scaliger and Petavius, have been in favour of a duration
of forty-nine years.
Yet there are objections to this opinion also, as it does
not accord well with the text of the law : that text indicates
too clearly the period of fifty years. That in the mind of
the legislator the duration was to be of fifty years and not
of forty-nine, can also be proved from the fact that he has
found it necessary (in Lev. xxv. n, 12) to enjoin the repose
of the land in the Jubilee Year. This would have been
totally unnecessary had the period been one of forty-nine years,
since the legislator could not have been ignorant that in this
case the Jubilee Year coincided with a Sabbatic Year, so
that there would be no occasion to make a special order for
the repose of the land.
119. Whichever of the two hypotheses (of fifty or forty-
nine years) one may incline to prefer, it is impossible to
arrive at a satisfactory interpretation. The reason lies in
the fact that in the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus two
1 Ideler, ibid.
Septenary Periods 153
systems of rules have been combined together, which are not
only different but actually irreconcilable with each other-*
the septennial system of the Sabbatic Year, and the Jubilee
system of fifty years. These two systems cannot be con-
sidered as forming part of one and the same legislation ; they
have a different origin, and were probably conceived by
different persons at different times. Their incompatibility
gives us the right to predict that if the one system
was put into practice at a given epoch, the other could
not have made way at the same time and must have
remained in the condition of a mere project This is what
really happened. Good historical evidence makes it quite
certain that the Sabbatic Year was introduced into the rites
of Judaism some time after Ezra and Nehemiah, and con-
tinued to be observed with the utmost regularity down to the
destruction of the second Temple ; while as to the actual
observance of the Jubilee we find the most complete silence
throughout, in the writers of all epochs.
120. The idea of the Jubilee, which is to be celebrated
after seven weeks of years, is manifestly derived by analogy
from that of the solemnity in spring, which (as we have said
above) was celebrated when the harvest was finished, after
seven weeks of days had elapsed from the offering of the
f omer y and actually on the fiftieth day 1 — a solemnity of
ancient institution which is already mentioned in the First
Code and again sanctioned by the law of Deuteronomy.
But neither in the First Code nor in Deuteronomy is any
allusion to be found to the Jubilee ; that is only alluded to
in the twenty-fifth and twenty-seventh chapters of Leviticus
and in one passage in Numbers 2 . The prophets were com-
1 See above : ch. viii. $ 96.
3 In Lev. xxv and xxvii the law of the Jubilee is propounded, and
its rules and exceptions are explained, in remarkably fall detail. We
have no other mention of the Jubilee in the Old Testament except in
154 Astronomy in the Old Testament
pletely ignorant of it; otherwise they would not have had
occasion to inveigh, as they do, against the accumulators
of large estates. Isaiah says (v. 8) : * Woe to those that join
house to house and add field to field, until all the space is
occupied and ye dwell alone as inhabitants of the land.'
Similarly Micah (ii. 2) : * Woe to those that desire fields and
seize them by violence, and desire houses and take them
away ; they oppress a man and his house, even a man and
his heritage/ But even during the period of the existence of
the second Temple there is no evidence attesting a single
celebration of the Jubilee ; and yet so memorable and so
extraordinary an event must have left some record of its
occurrence. It is true that some writers of that epoch allude
to the Jubilee, and we have already mentioned Josephus,
Philo, and the Book 0/ Jubilees, But these evidently derive
all their knowledge of it from Leviticus ; sufficient proof may
be found in their not agreeing as to the length of the period,
the first two authors putting it at fifty years, the third at
forty-nine. Josephus also {Ant. iii. 12), when speaking of
the Jubilee, shows himself to be ill-informed, and attributes
to Moses ordinances completely different from those which
we read in Leviticus. All this would be impossible if the
Jubilee had been a fact of experience for them, publicly
known and observed.
In what way, however, two such contradictory laws have
been combined together in the Priestly Code, and how they
came to find themselves associated and even amalgamated
together in one and the same chapter 1 , it is no longer
Num. xxx vi. 4, on the subject of the daughters of Zelophehad : allusion
is there made to the return of estates to their owners. In Exod. xix. 13
and Joshua vi. 4-6 the reference is only to the instrument called yobel
[see p. 146, note 1] : not to the period of the Jubilee, as some have
thought.
1 In Lev. xxv, verses 1-7 deal with the Sabbatic Year, 8-19 with the
Jubilee; 20-22 again refer to the Sabbatic Year, and from 23 onwards it
Septenary Periods 155
possible to know exactly. But certain facts ought not to be
omitted which are connected with this question.
121. The Priestly Code as it exists for us in the Penta-
teuch, although having its roots in the First Code, in
Deuteronomy, and in the ritual of Solomon's Temple, is
principally, as is well known, the result of manifold and
complicated legislative labour which took place during and
after the exile, over a tQtal period amounting perhaps to two
centuries. The great problem of reconstituting the nation
by adapting its ancient uses to new circumstances was
undoubtedly an object pursued with much zeal, and it gave
occasion for various proposed laws, some of which secured,
others did not secure, others again only secured for a certain
time, the favour of the public. We may cite in evidence
of this the experiment (a somewhat fantastic one, to speak
candidly) of a similarly suggested system of laws relating
chiefly to the Temple, to its personnel, and to rites, which
are preserved to our own times in the last nine chapters
of the Book of Ezekiel; not a few traces of this system
succeeded in making <their way, long afterwards, into the
Priestly Code. Another example of this process of forma-
tion may be found in the seventh chapter of Zechariah, where
we see clearly that certain .questions of ritual remained
unsettled in his time, and that certain practices were then
in use of which no sign is any longer to be found in the later
laws. To all these uncertainties the legislation of Ezra to
a certain extent put an end, when it was solemnly proclaimed
and sworn to by the people in 445 b. c. or a little later; not
so much so, however, but that new additions and modifica-
tions of great importance were supplementarily made, down
to the time (about 400 b. c. ?) when the Torah was finally
consecrated as a sacred and invariable Canon under the
is again the Jubilee. Here is shown the negligence of a compiler who
welds together heterogeneous or even contradictory materials.
156 Astronomy in the Old Testament
form of the existing Code of the Pentateuch. It is accord-
ingly no matter for surprise that the result should have been
a collection, which was not always well arranged, of laws
belonging to different epochs, sometimes even contradictory
one of another.
122. Returning now to the two laws contained in the 25th
chapter of Leviticus, we may observe that one of them,
relating to the Sabbatic Year, though sanctioned at so late a
date (§§ no and in), seems to have been proposed as early
as during the exile. It is declared, namely, very shortly
afterwards in the context (xxvi. 33-5), that in the time of the
exile * the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the time that it
shall remain desolate and that ye are in the country of your
enemies. ... It shall rest all the time that it shall stand
desert, because it rested not in your Sabbaths while ye dwelt
in it.' Only a prophet of the exile could speak in these
terms; and that prophet, if we accept the evidence of a
passage in Chronicles, would be no other than Jeremiah 1 .
The law of the Jubilee, reducing the liberation of
slaves and the repose of the land, to every fiftieth
year, produced a considerable alleviation of burdens.
It is accordingly not probable that it was conceived in
the fervour of ideas, and in the spirit of zeal, suitable
to the period of the exile, a time of hope and of expec-
tation, in which no duty seemed too severe for the
people to bind themselves to undertake in the restored Jeru-
salem. A law so practical and so well adapted to the
straitened circumstances in which the Israelite community
lived for a long time after Zerubbabel, was certainly proposed
after the return from exile.
Neither of the laws seems to have been contained in
the code of Ezra. In the oath imposed upon the people
during the solemn convocation 9 , mention is made only
1 2 Chron. xxxvi. ax. See above, p. 141, note a. 3 Neh. x. 31.
Septenary Periods 157
of the septennial remission of debts. We may conclude,
therefore, that neither law had been observed before, but
only expounded in books of older date, and that both were
introduced into the Priestly Code by its last compiler at a
time subsequent to Ezra. He seems to have had the
intention of combining in it, as in a corpus Juris, many
laws, ancient and modern, which came to his notice ; at any
rate those which did not conflict too manifestly with the
principal rules of Mosaism, even though they might be in
none too great harmony with them '.
123. In connexion with the Jubilee we may notice in
addition, on the ground of curiosity, that if the Jews had
fixed it at forty-nine years, not only would it have been
possible to arrange the Sabbatic Years in it conveniently, but
they would also have gained the advantage of being able
to use it for the regulation of the intercalary months, and for
determining the beginning of the year. The period of forty-
1 The ten chapters of Leviticus, xvii-xxvi (and thus, also, the laws of
the Sabbatic Year and of the Jubilee, along with them), together con-
stitute a unity which offers distinct characteristics from the rest of the
Priestly Code. Accordingly, various critics (Graf, Hupfeld, Reuss,
Wellhausen) would wish to recognize in them what is practically
a separate code, earlier than the Priestly Code, and amalgamated at a
later date with the other elements of the latter. If it be admitted that
the two laws of the Sabbatic Year and of the Jubilee were originally
included in this separate collection, the eclectic combination of these
contradictory elements would be due to its author and not to the
final editor of the Priestly Code. But Wellhausen's examination of
Lev. xxv (Composition des Hexateuchs, ed. 3, pp. 164-7) does not appear
to have led to decisive results. Wellhausen seems to favour the
idea that the collection in Lev. xvii-xxvi originally contained only
the law of the Sabbatic Year, and that the law of the Jubilee was
introduced into it later. The final results would not be materially
different from those expounded above in the text. All that is said
about the law of the Jubilee in Lev. xxvii, and the allusion to it in
Num. xxxvi. 4, seem to be additions made by the last editor of the
Priestly Code.
158 Astronomy in the Old Testament
nine years constitutes, in fact, an astronomical lunisolar cycle,
not so very much inferior in accuracy to the famous
Metonic cycle of nineteen years, and greatly superior to
the octaeteris. It is found by calculation that 606
lunations are nearly equal to forty-nine solar years, the luna-
tions falling short only by thirty-two hours 1 . This is
equivalent to saying that if the calendar be regulated, as
it was among the Jews, chiefly by observation of the
moon, the supposition that after 606 lunations forty-nine
years exactly have passed, would produce an error of only
thirty-two hours in regard to the position of the sun and the
course of the seasons — an error which could only become
appreciable in agricultural practice at the end of eight or ten
periods. Thus the foundations of a simple and practical
calendar are spontaneously offered, without reckoning the
utility which would be derived from a cycle of such length as
one of forty-nine years, for the computation of time and for
establishing the dates of events. But it may be regarded as
certain that the Israelites never had any notion of such
a way of regulating their Passover. So far as chronology is
concerned, it cannot be doubted that the habit of reckon-
ing times by weeks of years 2 , or by weeks of weeks of
years 9 , had its root, not in astronomical phenomena, but
simply in the superstitious veneration with which the Jews
(and not they only) have always regarded the number seven.
1 Supposing the solar year to consist of 365.2422 days, and a lunation
of 29.5306 days, we have this result :
49 years = 17896.86 days
606 lunations = 17895*54 days
Difference = 1*32 days
Notice that in forty-nine years the error of the Julian Calendar amounts
to 0-40 day.
* Dan. ix. 24-7.
3 As in the Bdok of Jubilees, where all the chronology of the
Pentateuch is arranged according to periods of forty-nine years.
Septenary Periods 159
It was out of respect for the number seven and for its square
forty-nine that, as late as the thirteenth century, the Jewish
authors of the Alphonsine Tables assigned 49,000 years as
the period for a complete revolution of the equinoctial points ;
while Hipparchus and Ptolemy had already calculated it
better at 36,000 years, and we know now that it is really
somewhat less than 26,000.
APPENDIX I
THE CONSTELLATION "IYUTHA' IN THE
SYRIAC WRITERS
In his TTiesaurus Syriacus (p. 2866), Payne Smith has
referred to the authorities which may be considered to prove
that 'Iyutha is the name given by the Syrians to the head of
the celestial Bull, formed by the large star Aldebaran and the
smaller Hyades round it. The most important of these
authorities is Barhebraeus or Gregory Abulfaraj (thirteenth
century), who asserts, in his astronomical work De ascension*
mentis, that 'Iyutha is a star of the first magnitude in the
Bull, adding that, together with four other smaller stars, it
forms the shape of the Greek letter A. That what he says
is true can be seen from the illustration of the Hyades given
on p. 57.
Another piece of evidence, which has the advantage of
being much older still, is contained in the passage cited from
the Talmud in a note on p. 58, where we are told that,
in a disputation held in the presence of the great teacher
Rabbi Jehuda (about 160 a.d.), some of the disputants said
that *Iyutha was the head of the Bull, while others identified
it with the tail of the Ram. Probably the two sides meant
the same thing under different names l .
1 We can give a plausible explanation of the manner in which the
tail of the Ram (represented in the sky by some small stars of the fourth
or fifth magnitude) comes to be introduced, by noticing that the word
roshj used here by the doctors of the Talmud in the sense caput (Tauri),
may also be understood in the sense iniiium. It is not impossible that
some of them took it as initium Tauri (beginning of the Bull) instead
of caput Tauri (head of the Bull). Now, since in the Zodiac the Bull
comes next after the Ram, the place where the Bull begins is the same
as that where the Ram finishes, and is exactly the spot where the tail of
the Ram is to be found. On this supposition, accordingly, we can
understand how the tail of the Ram was identified, not with the
beginning of the Bull, an error which would not have been serious, but
sch. M
162 Appendix I
It does not seem possible to doubt that 'Iyutha should be
understood to be the Hyades. There are, however, some
indications in Arabic and Syriac writers from which it has
been believed that another meaning can be drawn. It will
be well to transcribe them here, as they are found quoted
by Gesenius in his Thesaurus > p. 895 B.
Bar Ali : 'Iyutha est el-aiyuq^ una stellarum Tauri ;
secundum alios Orion. Bar Bahlul: * Iyutha in libro
Honaini el-'aiyuq, quae Stella Tauri est et Ghimel litterae
figuram refert, et post Pleiades currit : aliis Aldebaran. Lex.
Adl. : K Iyutha est 'aiyua, una stellarum : Orion vel Pleiades.
Firuzabadi: el-'aiyuq est Stella rutilans parva et lucida in
dextro latere Viae Lacteae, quae sequitur Pleiades, nunquam
praecedit. To these testimonies an Arabic version of the
Peshitta is to be added, where 'Iyutha is regularly translated
by el-aiyuq.
If we put these authorities together, and neglect the refer-
ences to Orion and the Pleiades, which certainly ought to be
excluded from consideration, we should arrive at the result
that 'Iyutha ought to be considered to be identical with
el-aiyuq of the Arabs. Now it is perfectly true that, in the
uranography of the Arabs, el-aiyuq is the name of the star
which the Greeks call m£, and we, following the Latin usage,
call Capella 1 ; but it is equally true that the writers cited
above meant by el-aiyuq another star, which is in fact Alde-
baran, or Aldebaran with the other Hyades. This will
become clear when the words of the authors in question have
been carefully examined.
They say that 'Iyutha is a star of the Bull, which is true of
Aldebaran, but not of Capella : that it is a red star, which
cannot be said of Capella, but is eminently true of Aldebaran :
that it is on the right of the Milky Way, and Aldebaran is on
the right while Capella is on the left: that it follows the
Pleiades in their daily course, and it is a special characteristic
of Aldebaran to follow the Pleiades very closely, a circum-
with the head of the Bull, which is quite wrong. The head of the Bull
and the tail of the Ram occupy different positions in the sky, and the
distance between them is about 20 degrees.
1 Ideler, Sternnamen, p. 92. From el-aiyuq has arisen by corruption
the name Alhayoth t sometimes used on our maps of the sky to
designate Capella.
Appendix L 163
Stance from which it is precisely Aldebaran too that is called
by the Arabs Tali al-nejm (' that which follows the Pleiades ')
or Hadi al-nejm ('that which pushes the Pleiades before it'):
finally, that % Iyutha imitates the shape and position of the
letter Gimel, which exactly fits the Hyades, as they represent
in their arrangement the shape of the letter g in the Cufic
alphabet and in the Estrangelo Syriac alphabet, namely ^-.
To this arrangement one of the writers cited (Bar Bahlul)
evidently refers, as can be seen by observing the figure of the
Hyades on p. 57. Rightly interpreted, these writers agree
with the rest in bearing witness to the identity of % Iyuiha
with Aldebaran and with the smaller Hyades; and it is no
longer possible to raise any doubt about this identity.
The Syriac version identifies 'Ash and 'Ayish with *Iyutha
in two passages of Job (ix. 9 and xxxviii. 32), but it uses
*Iyulha in Amos v. 8 to represent the Hebrew name Kesil^
which in other places it rightly renders by Gabbard (i.e..
Orion : see § 44). It would not, however, be lawful to infer
from this that 'Iyutha and Gabbard are the same, since the
same version in Job ix. 9 places these two names in succession
one after the other, as though they were two different con-
stellations. Accordingly, *Iyuiha in the Peshitta of Amos
v. 8 must be regarded as an error. Still more singular is
the use of this word in Job xv. 27, where there is certainly no
allusion to constellations.
APPENDIX II
KIMAH, C AYISH, MAZZAROTH
The present volume had already been entrusted to the
printers when, through the kindness of Professor Driver,
I was enabled to read an article by Professor Stern of
Gottingen on the constellations named in the Book of Job' 1 /
That article has led me to add some notes and reflections
to the account which I have already given of this subject in
chapters iv and v.
1 M. A. Stern, die Stembildtr in Hiob xxxviii. 31-2 (Geiger'a
Jiidische Zeitschrift x vol. iii [i 864-5], PP- 258-76).
M 2
164 Appendix II
Our attention is claimed in the first place by a passage in
the Talmud to which Stern refers (Rosh hashshanah, p. 11),
bearing on the meaning of the words Kimah and 'Aytsh.
Rabbi Joshua, in speaking of the Flood, says that the rain
began on the seventeenth day of the month Iyar, on which
Kimah is accustomed to rise in the morning, and the springs
begin to dry up. In consequence of the perverse behaviour
of men, God also changed the order of the universe : in place
of its morning rising, He caused Kimah to set in the morning,
and removed two stars from it : the springs swelled, and the
Flood took place. According to Rabbi Eliezer, these changes
took place on the seventeenth day of the month Marheshvan,
when Kimah is accustomed to set in the morning, and the
springs increase. God reversed the order of the universe :
Kimah rose on the morning of that day, and lost two stars.
The springs continued to increase, and the Flood took place l .
By interpreting these dates (the seventeenth Iyar and the
seventeenth Marheshvan) according to the Julian calendar,
Stern shows that they correspond exactly to the morning
rising and setting of the Pleiades. There cannot therefore
be any doubt that, among the Jews of the time of Rabbi
Joshua and Rabbi Eliezer (at the beginning of the second
century a.d.), the Pleiades were called Kimah ; and this is the
oldest evidence for this title next to that of the Septuagint*.
1 Stem, I.e., p. 273, where reasons are given for two corrections which
are necessary in order to render this story in the Talmud intelligible and
coherent. These corrections have been introduced in the text above.
2 I think it useful to add another consideration about Kimah. In the
Peshitta the names of the other Biblical constellations are all altered
and reduced to their Syriac equivalent : the name Kimah alone is kept
unchanged (under the form Kima) in all three places where it occurs.
This fact admits only of two explanations. Either we must suppose
that the authors of the version did not know the Syriac equivalent
of Kimah, and have therefore abstained from translating it, just as the
LXX had already done in the case of Mazzaroth ; or we must admit
that this constellation had the same name in Hebrew and in Syriac.
This second hypothesis seems the more probable. As a matter of fact
Kfmd is used throughout Syriac literature to represent the Pleiades, as
can be seen from the numerous quotations collected by Payne Smith
(Thes. Syr. p. 1723). This would certainly not have occurred if the
Syrians had originally called the Pleiades by another name. The
Romans, who originally called thern Vergiliae, never abandoned the use
of this name, except that, on rare occasions and especially in the poets,
they imitated the Greeks, and also used the term Pleiades.
Appendix II 165
In the same passage in the Talmud, the account of Rabbi
Joshua and Rabbi Eliezer is completed by saying that God,
after having taken two stars from Kimah and produced the
Flood, caused it to cease by taking away two stars from
'Ayzsh. In other words, after having diminished the drying
force of Kimah by taking away two of its stars and thus
producing the Flood, God caused the Flood to cease by taking
away two stars from 'Ayish and thus diminishing its rain-
producing force. Stern maintains it to be indubitable that
by this constellation 'Ayish, the bringer of rain, the Talmudists
meant to indicate the Hyades 1 ; and this appears no less
certain to us, after the discussion of 'Ayish in chapter iv.
We have, however, in this passage cited from the Talmud,
a new witness in favour of the identity of 'Ayish and the
Hyades. Further, if we combine this passage with another
cited in the note on p. 57, on the identity of 'Ash and the
Hyades, we conclude that the identity of % Ash and 'Ayish
was regarded as certain even by the most ancient Talmudists.
Professor Stern does not, however, allow himself to be
influenced by these testimonies of the ancient Rabbis: he
has formed for himself a system of the constellations in Job,
from which he deduces very different results. He lays down
as his starting-point, that, in the passage to which he pays
special attention (Job xxxviii. 31-2), the choice of the four
constellations and the order of their names are not adopted
by chance or without a rule. He has endeavoured to find
this rule, and in his interpretation he follows it with unbending
rigour. He remarks in the first place, following Otfried
Miiller, that four only out of the remarkable groups of stars
placed in the middle and southern regions of the sky have
given rise to important legends in the primitive mythology of
the Greeks: these four are the Dog (Sirius), Orion, the
Hyades, and the Pleiades. They are contiguous and form
a continuous belt in the sky, in which they follow according
to the order here given. Finally, it is noteworthy that all
these constellations, together with their dates of rising and
setting in relation to the sun, stood as signs, in the old Greek
rustic and meteorological calendar, for seasons in the year
which are important for certain agricultural labours, for the
1 Stern, /. c, p. 274.
i66 Appendix II
return of rain, of the unhealthy season, and of noxious states
of the atmosphere. Now, in Job xxxviii. 31-2, there are
just four constellations mentioned, and these are certainly
important ones, as their names occur elsewhere also in the
Bible : Kimah, Kesil, Mazzaroth, and 'Aytsh, The enumera-
tion of them is preceded by a series of meteorological indica-
tions (verses 22-30), and followed by a similar series (verses
34-8). To the influence of the heaven (that is, of the stars)
over the earth, a direct allusion is made immediately after the
passage in question (verse 33). From all this Stern concludes
that the author of the Book of Job selected these four con-
stellations, not so much because of their brightness, as
because of their connexion with atmospheric phenomena
and because they afforded indications of some important
phases of the seasons. For the rest, he tacitly assumes as
certain that these connexions and indications at the time of
the writer were the same as in Palestine, paying no attention
to difference of latitude and climate. He seems also to be
persuaded that Jews and Greeks must necessarily have judged
in the same way of these connexions and indications, and
that their astro-meteorological science was composed of the
same elements combined in an identical manner. As, there-
fore, the number of the constellations is four in both the
subjects of comparison, and as the order of names in Job is
held to be necessarily the same as that of the constellations
in the sky, it will be enough to assign to one of the names
the corresponding constellation, and all the rest is fixed.
Stern assumes with the majority of interpreters (as we have
also assumed in this book) that Kesil represents Orion. This
being granted, it is only necessary to write down the two
series in parallel columns, so as to bring Kesil and Orion
opposite each other; and this happens if we begin the one
series with Kimah, the other with Sirius, producing the result
Kima k=Smus i
Kesil = Orion,
Mazzaroth = Hyades,
*Ayi$Jv=- Pleiades.
Thus the system is complete in all its parts and all its con-
sequences. Stern proceeds to develop with great ability his
arguments in favour of each of the identifications which he
proposes.
Appendix II 167
In regard to the identification of Kimah with Sinus, he
cannot in reality find anything to say beyond the consideration
that, from the brilliant constellations named in Job, the most
brilliant star in the sky cannot be absent. For the rest, he
adds that the Jews might, like the Greeks, have recognized
in this constellation a dog — or even a mad and hence a
chained dog. So he succeeds also in giving on his hypothesis
a plausible interpretation of the disputed word mdanaddoth.
The identification of "Ayish and her children' with the
Pleiades has in its favour the popular simile for the Pleiades
of a hen and her chickens, which is widely diffused in the
west and seems to have been known in the east too. The
passage in the Targum which Stern cites on this subject 1
is worthy of note. Yet it cannot be denied that the expression
"Ayish and her children' is equally well adapted to Alde-
baran and the minor Hyades surrounding it. As for the
etymology suggested by Kimchi, deriving Ash from 'us ft, ' to
gather together/ this agrees excellently with a group of stars
like the Pleiades ; but we may observe that the Hyades are
no less striking as a group, and that the name Kimah, to
which the LXX, the Syriac writers, and the Talmudists bear
witness as an equivalent for the Pleiades, offers an equally
appropriate derivation from kum, in Arabic ' to heap up/ Stern
holds that the two names 'As ft and 'Ayish certainly refer to the
same constellation, but with this difference, that 'Ash repre-
sents the entire group of stars, and 'Ayish is a derivative from
it, to stand for the principal star of the group. In this way
he explains the fact that 'Ash is mentioned by itself, while
'Ayish appears accompanied by her children. The idea is in-
genious, and is as applicable to the Hyades as to the Pleiades.
For the Hyades, however, Stern has reserved the Biblical
name Mazzaroth or Mazzaloth. He derives this second form
from the root nazal, 'fluxit/ making Mazzaroth mean 'the
stars which cause (the waters) to flow/ or, in other words,
the stars that bring rain 2 . Now this was exactly the character
of the Hyades in the opinion of the Greeks and Romans,
amongst whom the evening setting of the Hyades was wont
to announce, about the middle of April, the beginning of the
1 Stern, /. c, p. 262.
9 [This root is only found in Joel iii. (iv.) 11, and is a very uncertain
one.]
168 Appendix II
spring rains and the season of equinoctial storms. Stem
tacitly assumes that, at the time when the Book of Job was
written, the same coincidence existed between these two
celestial and terrestrial phenomena. This I must deny.
The period of spring rains during the second half and end of
April, which gave to the Hyades such a bad reputation in
Greece and Rome, also occurred in Palestine, but commenced
a month and a half earlier, at the end of February or the
beginning of March, according to our present calendar, and
was wont to announce its arrival with great regularity every
year by a succession of cold, rainy days which were especially
harmful to the health of the old, and on that account are
called in Syria and Palestine eiyam el J agdiz i 'the days (of
death) of the old 1 .' Immediately after these days spring
begins, and throughout its course beneficent rains continue
at intervals, which bring the crops to maturity 2 . But at no
epoch of Jewish history was the commencement of the period
to which we refer marked by special phenomena connected
with the Hyades 8 . At the date when we may reasonably
suppose the Book of Job to have been written, the Hyades
and their evening setting announced in Palestine, not a rainy
season, but the return of summer and the beginning of
reaping-time in the fields.
But this is not the only difficulty. It is also necessary to
explain how the Jews at the time of Ahaz and Manasseh,
following the example of the Babylonians and Assyrians,
came to honour with special reverence, along with the sun
and moon, the Hyades also, in agreement with what is said
in 2 Kings xxiii. 5. An evidence of this special reverence is
found by Professor Stern in the astronomical representations
1 Riehm, Handworterbuch d. bibl. Alterthums, ed. I, p. 1763.
3 Riehm, /. c. These are the spring rains [A. V., R. V., ' latter rain '],
to which the Jews gave the name malkosh, to distinguish them from the
autumnal rains called moreh (Jer. v. 24; Deut. xi. 14) ; cp. p. 32 n.
3 At the beginning of the Christian era, on latitude 32 (that of
Jerusalem), the smaller Hyades disappeared in their evening setting about
April 16. In 750 B.C. the same phenomenon took place about April
6 : these dates are given according to the Gregorian style, which is
sufficiently close to the course of the sun for such questions. Aldebaran,
being a much more brilliant star, remained visible in the evening twilight
for a little longer and made its evening setting about three days later.
In this calculation I have supposed the arcus visionis to be 15 for the
minor Hyades and 12 for Aldebaran.
Appendix II 169
contained on many of the cylindrical seals which the soil of
Mesopotamia has preserved. On the upper part of the scene,
sculptured on the convex surface of these cylinders, the sun
and moon are seen figured, or sometimes also the moon
alone; in other cases the sun and moon are accompanied
by seven small disks which, according to all probability,
represent seven stars. The geometrical figure which they
form is not always the same. On some cylinders Stern has
recognized the shape of the letter V which is characteristic
of the Hyades, and he has found in this an evident sign of
the importance which this group of stars must have had in
the astral theology of the Babylonians. So then, along with
the worship of the moon and the sun, there would have
come from Babylonia to Jerusalem the worship of the
Hyades, that is, of Mazzaloth. And in these cylindrical seals
we should have a clear and simple illustration of the passage
in 2 Kings, where sun, moon, and Mazzaloth are found
associated together \
The works of Layard and Me*nant, which form the principal
sources for the study of these cylindrical seals, are not
accessible to me. But I have been able to collect from other
books a certain number of Assyrian and Babylonian astro-
nomical representations, partly sculptured on cylinders, partly
on larger and more important monuments, and sometimes of
known date. I have found the seven stars on thirteen of
these representations; but four out of this number I have
had to exclude, either as being imperfect or as presenting
some reason for doubt 2 . In two other cases I have seen
something like the shape of a V, to which Stern alludes —
a very narrow and elongated V, as is shown in (a) below s .
Six times I have found the seven stars arranged in two
1 Stem, /. c, } pp. 268-9.
a One of these four is the pillar of Esarhaddon found at Zenjirli, of
which we shall have to speak later. Two others are reproduced in
Babelon (Lenormant, Histoire ancienne de V Orient, ed. 9, iv. 195, v.
310) ; the fourth in Trans. Soc. Bibl. Archaeol. v. 642.
8 Babelon in Lenormant, op. cit. t v. 299 and 347. They are two
cylinders ; in both, the seven stars are accompanied by the moon and the
sun.
170 Appendix II
parallel lines, the upper line containing four, the lower three
stars, as is shown in (£). This arrangement is not only
found in two of the cylindrical seals which I have seen 1 ,
where it might be thought that the exceedingly small scale
had rendered an exact design difficult, but also,on four larger
monuments where the defect is not due to considerations of
space. We see it on three magnificent bas-reliefs of Nimrod,
which represent Asshurnazirpal in his chariot, ready for war
or for a lion hunt 2 . It is also drawn with absolute geometrical
precision on a curious bronze tablet of Assyrian origin, found
at Palmyra (and now in the Leclercq collection at Paris),
which contains a mythological representation of the universe 8 .
My impression is, therefore, that (3) ought to be regarded as
the normal or ritual arrangement of the seven stars, and that
(a) is derived from it by mere imperfection of drawing, which
is easily intelligible in such minute representations. In no
case, as it seems to me, can we see here the shape of the
Hyades, in which the branches of the V display a much
larger deviation from each other and form between them an
angle of about 60 degrees \
1 Lenormant-Babelon, op. cit. t v. 248 and 296. On both cylinders the
seven stars are accompanied by the astronomical triad, the moon, the sun,
and Venus.
2 Lenormant-Babelon, op.cit-^vr. 120, 155, and 376, where in all three
cases the seven stars are accompanied by the figures of the moon and of
Venus.
8 Published in the Paris Revue Arch4ologique ) 1879, p. 387, tab. 25;
also in Lenormant-Babelon, op. cit., pp. 292-3. It is also described by
D. Bassi, Mitologia Babilonese Assira, pp. 160-2. The seven stars are
here accompanied by the usual astronomical triad, but, contrary to the
ordinary usage, Venus occupies the first place and the moon the last.
The sun is represented according to the type used in Assyria. I ought
to mention the exceptional case presented by a cylinder published in
Proc. Soc. Bibl. Archaeol., 1897, p. 301, where the stars are arranged
almost like the Great Bear. Here too, however, is marked, though in
a different way, the division into two groups of four and three stars
respectively, which is rigorously observed in the cases of the normal type.
• The number of the Hyades also causes some difficulty. Stern
supposes that the shape of the V as we understand it is composed of Jive
stars (the number which the majority of the classical writers also admit
for the Hyades) ; and, to obtain the number seven, he is obliged to
prolong the two arms of the V to four times their true length, by
including in the Hyades the two distant stars and £ Tauri, which form
the points of the two horns of the Bull. But it is difficult to allow this,
as those two stars are between 18 and 20 degrees distant from the
Appendix II 171
Jensen and Zimmem 1 see in the group of the seven stars
a representation of the Pleiades. Long before, Layard 3 had
believed himself to recognize a certain likeness in the manner
of arrangement of the two. But the resemblance leaves
something to be desired; for the Pleiades visible to the
naked eye are only six, arranged in one rather irregular line of
four stars and another, nearly parallel to the first, of two. Of
the remaining telescopic stars the most brilliant, which might
complete the number seven for an exceedingly acute eye, is
quite outside the order formed by the six brighter stars which
are visible to the naked eye. It is true enough that the
Pleiades were of great use to the Babylonians, enabling them
to determine, by observing them on the first days of each
year, whether the year thus commenced ought to include
twelve or thirteen lunations. But this does not seem sufficient
to justify the constant association of the Pleiades with the
great divinities of the sky, Sin, SamaS, and I§tar.
Perhaps all the difficulties may be overcome by suggesting
the hypothesis that the fundamental conception of these
astronomical representations is very ancient, belonging to
a time when for the Babylonians (as can be proved to have
been the case for the Egyptians) the number of the minor
planets was seven rather than five: a date at which the
identity of Hesperus and Lucifer had not yet been determined,
and the further identity (which is much harder to establish)
of the morning and evening Mercury was not yet known, so
that each of these planets counted as two. The discovery
rest of the group, all of which is included in a diameter of less than
5 degrees. The truth is that, to an eye that is only moderately sharp
and attentive, the Hyades look like five stars only, one placed at the
apex of the V, two at the ends of the branches, and two at the middle
point of the branches. But a really sharp and attentive eye will not
hesitate to recognize that each of these two last stars (called by
astronomers 5 and $ Tauri) is composed of two stars, which are very
near together, the distance in 5 being 18', and in only 5'. This
explains why some ancient writers counted seven Hyades instead of five ;
and, to obtain the number seven, it is not necessary to increase the
constellation fourfold so as to reach the horn of the Bull. It is also
true that the seven Hyades, when defined thus, no longer present the
great likeness which Stern supposes with the Babylonian and Assyrian
designs of the seven stars.
1 Zimmern in KAT. 3 pp. 620-1. Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier,
p. 92.
2 Layard, Nineveh and its remains t ii. p. 447 j Stern, /. c, p. 268.
172 Appendix II
of the true number of the minor planets certainly dates
among the Babylonians from before the twelfth century b.c,
since (as has been already said in chapter v) the kudurru
or boundary stones of that time already show Venus as one
star, associated with the sun and the moon. When we con-
sider the matter in this light, we succeed in understanding
how, on monuments of extreme antiquity and earlier than the
twelfth century, the association of the sun and the moon
with seven planets is perfectly natural, and is in fact what we
ought to expect in preference to any other arrangement. In
this opinion we are confirmed by the division of the seven
stars into two lines of four and three. The four stars of the
upper line are evidently Venus and Mercury, each in its
morning and evening elongation, and each therefore treated
as two different stars. The three stars of the other line
correspond to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, whose phenomena
are, as is well known, widely different from those of the two
apparitions of Venus and of Mercury. It will not seem
difficult to admit that these representations then went on
being repeated (sometimes perhaps without their real meaning
being understood) and consecrated as religious symbols even
in much later times, when it is considered that in these
material things religions frequently preserve tenaciously the
forms of the past, even when those forms have lost, as
a whole or in part, their primitive significance. So seven
planets continued to figure along with the sun and the moon,
even when the true number five was known. And when the
worship of IStar had attained great pre-eminence (especially
in Assyria) and the triad of the three great celestial divinities,
Sin, Sama§, and I§tar, was formed, the seven planets continued
to figure together with it, although Venus was already repre-
sented by two of the minor stars.
As to the nature of the symbols of astronomical theology
set forth by the idolatrous kings of Judah for the veneration
of the Jews, we can form a conjecture by studying the very
complete astronomical representation which is cut on the
bas-relief placed at Zenjirli in Northern Syria in honour of
Esarhaddon king of Assyria, while Manasseh was reigning in
Jerusalem *. The field surrounding the king's head is com-
1 I have not seen this stone ; but I have under my eyes two excellent
photographic reproductions, both published by Bezold, one in his
Appendix II 173
pletely filled by sculptures of the most elaborate detail, and
contains in its central part four divinities, each supported by
an animal symbol. On the right of these stand, in the usual
order, the figures of the great astronomical triad, the moon,
the sun, and Venus, that of the sun designed according to
the type used in Assyria. On the other side are four small
disks, represented in the same way as the seven stars of the
cylindrical seals and of other monuments. The irregular
arrangement of these four disks and a bare space by their
side (which could hardly be seen on a representation
so crowded that all the figures are almost touching each
other), afford some ground for the suspicion that the disks
here too were originally seven in number and that three
of them were suppressed, perhaps by the sculptor of the
monument himself 1 . Whether, however, the number of the
disks was four from the first, or whether this number ought
to be looked upon as the result of a later correction, in either
case the reason is evident why it has been adopted in place
of the canonical number seven. We see here an attempt to
adapt the symbols venerated by antiquity to the notions of
positive astronomy, for which it was already a well-established
fact that, including the sun and the moon, the number of the
heavenly bodies, the interpreters of destiny and the basis of
all later astrology, was seven and no more. As the moon,
the sun, and Venus are already represented on the monument
as members of the great triad, four disks were enough to
represent the remaining planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and
Mercury. The number of four minor stars, instead of seven,
may be considered as a proof that the small disks on all
these monuments represent the minor planets and have
nothing to do with the Pleiades or the Hyades.
popular work Nineveh und Babylon (1903), the other in his lecture Die
babylonisch-assyrischen Keilinschrifien (1904). The two are inde-
pendent of each other ; they are taken under different conditions of light,
and the one serves to control and supplement the other. [See also Ball's
Light from the East> the Plate opposite p. 198.]
1 So far as I can judge from my photographs, the surface of this part
of the monument does not seem to have sustained any fracture or to
have undergone any corrosion. All the bas-relief appears to be in
a state of perfect preservation, and the exceedingly delicate figures near
it are intact. The conclusions in the text must in any case be accepted
with reserve, and subject to the condition that a careful examination of
the stone confirms what seems to result from the photographs.
174 Appendix II
We may conclude, with Professor Stem, that the Assyrio-
Babylonian astronomical representations give a clear and
simple illustration of the passage in 2 Kings xxiii. 5, where
the writer speaks of those who offered incense ' to Baal, to
the sun, to the moon, to Mazzaloth, and to all the host of
heaven/ Only we understand the matter in a somewhat
different way : first, because we believe that, not the Hyades;
but the planets are represented by the seven stars ; secondly j
because it seems necessary to distinguish between the various
classes of monuments. The first form of these representations,
which is found on the most ancient Babylonian cylinders
(or on those which are imitated from the most ancient);
corresponds to that most rudimentary stage of planetary
astronomy in which Venus and Mercury appeared as two
stars each : it only contains the sun, the moon, and the seven
minor planets. Compared with the Biblical text, these
cylinders would lead us to suppose that Mazzaloth were
simply the planets. But it does not seem a plausible pro-
ceeding to set that text side by side with monuments of so
much greater antiquity. The kudurru or boundary stones
dating from the twelfth century onwards already show a different
type ; the great astronomical triad occupies a prominent
place on them, but we do not find the seven stars there,
probably because the emblems of the planets belong to the
many points connected with these stones which are still
unexplained, and we have not yet learned to recognize them*
From the examination of these stones, we drew the conclusion
in chapter v that Mazzaloth might perhaps be Venus. This
interpretation seems to be confirmed by the bas-relief of
Esarhaddon, where, together with the great divinities of the
Assyrian Olympus (the Bdalim of the Bible), appear the
three members of the great astronomical triad, the sun, the
moon, and Venus (Mazzaloth), and the planets (' the host of
heaven '). The correspondence with the Biblical text is
complete, and is given by a monument which is contemporary
with the most flourishing period of idolatry in the kingdom
of Judah. The same inferences, and in a no less conclusive
form, are suggested by the bronze of Palmyra, mentioned
above, which seems to date from nearly the same age. On
the upper part of this most singular bas-relief there are
figured, first, four (celestial?) divinities surrounded by their
Appendix II 175
emblems. In attendance comes the great astronomical triad,
in the order — Venus, sun, moon — the sun being represented
according to the Assyrian type. Finally we have the seven
stars, very regularly arranged in their two lines, containing
four and three stars respectively. Here too there are Bdalim,
Mazzaloih, the sun, the moon, and the host of heaven. The
precedence given to Venus over the sun and moon indicates
a date when the worship of IStar prevailed among the
Assyrians over every other, and this brings us to the age of
Asshurbanipal, who is known to have been especially devoted
to the cultus of this goddess and who reigned for thirty years
contemporaneously with his vassal Manasseh, the idolatrous
king of Judah.
APPENDIX III
THE WEEK, AND THE WEEK OF WEEKS, AMONG
THE BABYLONIANS.
In a note to chapter ix (p. 132), I have briefly indicated
the results which can be drawn on this subject from the
numerous dates inscribed on the Babylonian tablets, and I
have applied this principle to the series of about 400 trans-
cribed by Boscawen (Trans. Soc. Bill. ArcJiaeol. vi. 47-77).
These dates, as I have been further able to prove, contain
some mistakes in writing, and the conclusions drawn from
them require some correction. This consideration has led
me to make a more extensive study on a more reliable basis,
namely, of the long series of Babylonian documents on tablets
preserved in the British Museum, published in their original
form, by Strassmaier \ The part of this collection which has
1 Babylonische Texte, von den Thontafeln des Britischen Museums
copirt tind autographirt von J. N. Strassmaier y S. J. : five volumes
containing the inscriptions of Nabonidos, Nebuchadnezzar II, Cyrus,
Cambyses, and Darius I respectively. The gap between Nebuchadnezzar
and Nabonidos has been filled by Evetts, Inscriptions of the reigns of
Evi/merodach, Nerigiissor, and Labor ossarchod^ in the same form as
that adopted by Strassmaier. The two short gaps of the reigns of
Smerdis and Nebuchadnezzar III remain to be supplied.
176
Appendix III
hitherto been edited contains 3,148 tablets, nearly all com-
mercial or civil deeds, and the dates contained in them run
from the year of Nebuchadnezzar II's accession to the throne
to the twenty-third year of Darius I (604-449 B.C.). In
some of these dates the day of the month is not given, in
many others it has been lost through the fracture or decay of
the tablets. Excluding both these classes (amounting to 384
in all) there remain 2,764 dates : if these are classified accord-
ing to the day of the month, the following is the result: —
Day of the
Number of
Day of the
Number o J
month. dates.
month.
dates.
i .... 76
xvii . . .
. 84
« ■
11 .
. 109
xviii . . .
. 67
iii
. 102
xix . . .
. 12
iv
. 84
xxi la/. . .
. 77
V
. 107
XX . . .
. 107
vi
. 93
xxi . . .
. 121
vii
. 100
xxii . . .
. 129
• ■ ■
Till
. • 105
xxiii . . ,
, . 68
ix
. 86
xxiv . . .
. 97
X
. . 120
XXV . .
, . 98
xi
. 86
xxvi . .
. - 85
xii
. 86
xxvii . . ,
, . 78
• • ■
XUl
• i 99
xxviii . .
• • 9i
xiv
. . 98
xxix . .
. . 51
XV
. . 114
xxx • .
. . 48
xvi
. . 87
3,764
If we divide the total 2,764 by 29*53 (the number of days
contained in a lunar month), we find that each day of the
month ought on an average to be given on 94 tablets.
As a matter of fact, many of the numbers on the second
column only vary slightly from this figure, showing a degree
of variation which can be attributed to accidental causes. But
there are some large deviations which cannot be explained in
this way. Among the considerations suggested by the ex-
amination of the preceding table, I shall only indicate those
which are connected with the subject of this Appendix.
I. Against the four days which are marked in the calen-
dars as dies nefasfi, the 7 th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days, we
find the numbers 100, 98, 121, 91 respectively: the first
three of these are above the average 94, and the last is
only slightly below it. The idea, therefore, that these days
Appendix HI 177
brought misfortune would seem to have had no practical
effect among the Babylonians of the time of Nebuchadnezzar
and of Darius I, and not to have prevented them from con-
cluding contracts or civil deeds of any kind. It would be
much less possible still to suppose that these days were a
real Sabbath, that is to say, a day of rest such as the Jews
had, and such as Christian countries still have. The division
of the month into four weeks was probably for religious
purposes only, and parallels for this can be found in the
rituals of Mazdeism and of the most ancient Buddhists. It
is in this sense only that it would be legitimate to speak of
a Babylonian week, at least during the time over which the
documents extend with which Strassmaier deals.
II. Mr. Pinches has recently discovered that the name
shapattu was given by the Babylonians to the 15th day of
the month 1 . The preceding table gives the number 114
for the 15th day, which far exceeds the average 94: in
this case again, therefore, it is clear that we cannot speak of
a day of rest or of cessation of business. Perhaps, as
Mr. Pinches observes, the word shapatlu refers to the position
or appearance of the moon at its full, and has nothing to do
with religious ritual or with human business 2 .
III. The 'week of weeks' falls on the 49th day after
each new moon: if the month be of thirty days, on the
19th day of the next month. This 19th day is marked
in the calendars as an umu limnu or dies nefastus. In
civil deeds and contracts the 19th day is nearly always
avoided, and it is very rarely written on tablets. In the
preceding table the 19th day of the month only occurs
twelve times. This should not, however, lead us to conclude
that deeds and contracts were not concluded on the 19th
day of the month. On this day the Babylonians attended to
business as on other days ; but they avoided the ill-omened
date 19 by generally writing instead of it xX'i-Za/, which
means 20-1 s . In the preceding table we must refer to the
1 Proe. Soe. Bibl, ArchaeoU xxvi. 51 and 162.
3 lb. xxvi. 55. [Cp. p. 132 above.]
3 Epping, in his remarkable studies on the Babylonian tablets, was
the first to recognize the fact that any number followed by the sign lal
is to be understood as a number to be subtracted or, to use an algebraical
term, as a negative quantity (Astronomisches aus Babylon, p. 11). Ac-
cordingly 1 lal is equivalent to — 1 ; and xxi lal must be interpreted as
SCH r N
178 Appendix 111
19th day of the month, not only the 12 dates marked by
the number 19, but also the 77 marked by xxi lal. In all,
therefore, we have 12+77 = 89 dates for the 19th day of
the month, and this only falls slightly below the average 94.
IV. The documents published by Strassmaier enable us
also to answer another question — whether the Babylonians
had any institution similar to the Hebrew Sabbath, according
to which they were obliged to abstain from all work at fixed
intervals of 7 days, independently of any consideration of the
moon's phases. This problem cannot be solved as simply
as the one already discussed. Yet the large quantity of
available documents allows us to give a certain answer. It
will be enough, without reproducing the calculations which
I have made, to say that the result, as might have been
expected, has been entirely on the negative side. An equally
negative result is produced if we suggest a period of 5 days
instead of a week of 7 days. It seems that the Babylonians
were not in the habit of interrupting their business affairs on
days fixed by the calendar. Not even during the great solem-
nities of the beginning of the year, which seem to have
extended from the 1st to the nth day of the month Nisan, can
a partial cessation of business be shown to have taken place.
Of the 2,764 documents dated by Strassmaier, 94 were
written on the first 1 1 days of Nisan. The average number
for 1 1 days taken from any part of the year would only be 83.
This arithmetical method of studying the large mass of
Babylonian documents may lead to other results also : but of
these, as they have no relation to the Jewish Sabbath, this is
not the place to speak. I shall only allow myself to add the
hope that the great work of Strassmaier may be completed and
extended as far as possible. The copious material already
collected in the British Museum can serve for this object, and
further means are furnished by new excavations, especially
by those which the Americans are now carrying on at Nippur.
xx.l lal (20 — 1) = 19. Boscawen read xxi lal as 2 1 throughout, and so
also did Strassmaier in the first volumes of his publication. But in the
last volume {Inscriptions of Darius I) he writes it correctly as 19.
So too does Evetts in his supplementary volume.
Oxford : Printed at the Clarendon Press by Horace Hart, M.A.
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