The Astronomy of the Bible - E. Walter Maunder (first e reader .TXT) 📗
- Author: E. Walter Maunder
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Stood the great giant, Algebar,
Orion, hunter of the beast!
His sword hung gleaming by his side,
And, on his arm, the lion's hide
Scattered across the midnight air
The golden radiance of its hair."
In accord with the form naturally suggested by the grouping of the stars, the Syrians have called the constellation Gabbārā; and the Arabs, Al Jabbār; and the Jews, Gibbōr. The brightest star of the constellation, the one in the left knee, now generally known as Rigel, is still occasionally called Algebar, a corruption of Al Jabbār, though one of the fainter stars near it now bears that name. The meaning in each case is "the giant," "the mighty one," "the great warrior," and no doubt from the first formation of the constellations, this, the most brilliant of all, was understood to set forth a warrior armed for the battle. There were gibbōrim before the Flood; we are told that after "the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men (gibbōrim) which were of old, men of renown."
But according to Jewish tradition, this constellation was appropriated to himself by a particular mighty man. We are told in Gen. x. that—
"Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one (gibbōr) in the earth."
and it is alleged that he, or his courtiers, in order to flatter him, gave his name to this constellation, just as thousands of years later the University of Leipzic proposed to call the belt stars of Orion, Stellæ Napoleonis, "the Constellation of Napoleon."[234:1]
There was at one time surprise felt, that, deeply as the name of Nimrod had impressed itself upon Eastern tradition, his name, as such, was "nowhere found in the extensive literature which has come down to us" from Babylon. It is now considered that the word, Nimrod, is simply a Hebrew variant of Merodach, "the well-known head of the Babylonian pantheon." He was probably "the first king of Babylonia or the first really great ruler of the country." It is significant, as Mr. T. G. Pinches points out, in his Old Testament in the Light of the Records from Assyria and Babylonia, that just as in Genesis it is stated that "the beginning of his (Nimrod's) kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh," so Merodach is stated, in the cuneiform records, to have built Babel and Erech and Niffer, which last is probably Calneh. The Hebrew scribes would seem to have altered the name of Merodach in two particulars: they dropped the last syllable, thus suggesting that the name was derived from Marad, "the rebellious one"; and they prefixed the syllable "Ni," just as "Nisroch" was written for "Assur." "From a linguistic point of view, therefore, the identification of Nimrod as a changed form of Merodach is fully justified."
ORION AND THE NEIGHBOURING CONSTELLATIONS.ToList
The attitude of Orion in the sky is a striking one. The warrior is represented as holding a club in the right hand, and a skin or shield in the left. His left foot is raised high as if he were climbing a steep ascent, he seems to be endeavouring to force his way up into the zodiac, and—as Longfellow expresses it—to be beating the forehead of the Bull. His right leg is not shown below the knee, for immediately beneath him is the little constellation of the Hare, by the early Arabs sometimes called, Al Kursiyy al Jabbār, "the Chair of the Giant," from its position. Behind Orion are the two Dogs, each constellation distinguished by a very brilliant star; the Greater Dog, by Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens; the Lesser Dog, by Procyon, i.e. the "Dog's Forerunner." Not far above Orion, on the shoulder of the Bull, is the little cluster of the Pleiades.
There are—as we have seen—only three passages where Kīmah, literally "the cluster" or "company,"—the group we know as the Pleiades,—is mentioned in Scripture; and in each case it is associated with Kĕsīl, "the fool,"—Orion. Several Greek poets give us the same association, likening the stars to "rock-pigeons, flying from the Hunter Orion." And Hesiod in his Works and Days writes—
When the Seven Virgins, and Orion, set:
Thus an advantage always shall appear,
In ev'ry labour of the various year.
If o'er your mind prevails the love of gain,
And tempts you to the dangers of the main,
Yet in her harbour safe the vessel keep,
When strong Orion chases to the deep
The Virgin stars."
There is a suggestion of intense irony in this position of Orion amongst the other constellations. He is trampling on the Hare—most timid of creatures; he is climbing up into the zodiac to chase the little company of the Pleiades—be they seven doves or seven maidens—and he is thwarted even in this unheroic attempt by the determined attitude of the guardian Bull.
A similar irony is seen in the Hebrew name for the constellation. The "mighty Hunter," the great hero whom the Babylonians had deified and made their supreme god, the Hebrews regarded as the "fool," the "impious rebel." Since Orion is Nimrod, that is Merodach, there is small wonder that Kĕsīl was not recognized as his name in Babylonia.[238:1]
The attitude of Orion—attempting to force his way upward into the zodiac—and the identification of Merodach with him, gives emphasis to Isaiah's reproach, many centuries later, against the king of Babylon, the successor of Merodach—
"Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High."
In the sight of the Hebrew prophets and poets, Merodach, in taking to himself this group of stars, published his shame and folly. He had ascended into heaven, but his glittering belt was only his fetter; he was bound and gibbeted in the sky like a captive, a rebel, and who could loose his bands?
In the thirteenth chapter of Isaiah we have the plural of kĕsīl—kĕsīlim. It is usually understood that we have here Orion, as the most splendid constellation in the sky, put for the constellations in general. But if we remember that kĕsīl stands for "Nimrod" or "Merodach," the first proud tyrant mentioned by name in Scripture, the particular significance of the allusion becomes evident—
"Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heavens and the constellations"—(that is the kĕsīlim, the Nimrods or Merodachs of the sky)—"thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible."
The strictly astronomical relations of Orion and the Pleiades seem to be hinted at in Amos and in Job—
"Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night."
In this passage the parallelism seems to be between the seven stars, the Pleiades, with sunrise, and Orion with sunset. Now at the time and place when the constellations were mapped out, the Pleiades were the immediate heralds of sunrise, shortly after the spring equinox, at the season which would correspond to the early part of April in our present calendar. The rising of Orion at sunset—his acronical rising—was early in December, about the time when the coldest season of the year begins. The astronomical meaning of the "bands of Orion" would therefore be the rigour in which the earth is held during the cold of winter.
It is possible that the two great stars which follow Orion, Sirius and Procyon, known to the ancients generally and to us to-day as "the Dogs," were by the Babylonians known as "the Bow-star" and "the Lance-star"; the weapons, that is to say, of Orion or Merodach. Jensen identifies Sirius with the Bow-star, but considers that the Lance-star was Antares; Hommel, however, identifies the Lance-star with Procyon. In the fifth tablet of the Babylonian Creation epic as translated by Dr. L. W. King, there is an interesting account of the placing of the Bow-star in the heavens. After Merodach had killed Tiamat—
76. They beheld the bow and how (its work) was accomplished.
77. They praised the work which he had done [ . . . ]
78. Then Anu raised [the . . . ] in the assembly of the gods.
79. He kissed the bow, (saying), 'It is [ . . . ]'!
80. And thus he named the names of the bow, (saying),
81. 'Long-wood shall be one name, and the second name [shall be . . . ],
82. And its third name shall be the Bow-star, in heaven [shall it . . . ]!'
83. Then he fixed a station for it."
Dr. Cheyne even considers that he has found a reference to these two stars in Job xxxviii. 36—
Or who hath given understanding to the heart (Bow-star)."
But this interpretation does not appear to have been generally accepted. The same high authority suggests that the astronomical allusions in Amos may have been inserted by a post-exilic editor, thus accounting for the occurrence of the same astronomical terms as are found in Job, which he assigns to the exilic or post-exilic period. This seems a dangerous expedient, as it might with equal reason be used in many other directions. Further, it entirely fails to explain the real difficulty that kīmah and kĕsīl have not been found as Babylonian constellation names, and that their astronomical signification had been lost by the time that the "Seventy" undertook their labours.
Quite apart from the fact that the Babylonians could not give the name of "Fool" to the representation in the sky of their supreme deity, the Hebrews and the Babylonians regarded the constellation in different ways. Several Assyriologists consider that the constellations, Orion and Cetus, represent the struggle between Merodach and Tiamat, and this conjecture is probably correct, so far as Babylonian ideas of the constellations are concerned, for Tiamat is expressly identified on a Babylonian tablet with a constellation near the ecliptic.[241:1] But this means that the myth originated in the star figures, and was the Babylonian interpretation of them. In this case, Cetus—that is Tiamat—must have been considered as a goddess, and as directly and immediately the ancestress of all the gods. Orion—Merodach—must have been likewise a god, the great-great-grandson of Tiamat, whom he destroys.
The Hebrew conception was altogether different. Neither Merodach, nor Tiamat, nor the constellations of Orion and Cetus, nor
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