The principal references to astronomy in the Bible, in accordance with what has been already stated, either arc traceable in chronology, or allude to the primitive observations of the Hebrews. On the first subject our knowledge is extremely slight, depending upon the necessities of the case, and a comparison with the usage of the people in later times, and is thus mainly inferential. There can he no doubt that the beginnings of the months were determined by the observation of the new moon, which long custom must have brought, as among the Arabs, to remarkable exactness. The year was essentially solar, since the most impor tant of the feasts were to be kept at particular periods of the agricultural year. There can be no reasonable doubt that the mode of adjustment in use in the rabbinical times, the addition of an inter calary month when the lunar year had fallen back so far in the seasons, was the ancient institution, for in no other manner could the solar and lunar reckonings be used without deviation from the laws relating to the times when the great feasts should be kept.
The passages illustrating the primitive observa tions of the Hebrews are mostly of a general cha racter, as the relation of Joseph's dream that the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to him (Gen. xxxvii. 9), where we have no certain indication of the heavenly bodies or asterisms intended under the last term ; or, as a remarkable place in the Song of Deborah : They fought from heaven ; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon' (Judg. v. co, 21), where the connection of the stars with the rainy season, as at least indi cating it at the times of their rising or setting, is alluded to, but no stars are specified. So again, throughout the Psalms, although mention is made of the grandeur and beauty of the heavens, and, a matter specially to he noted in these days, of the laws by which the Almighty Creator has fixed their order, yet there is no notice of stars by their names. In the book of Job, which, notwithstanding its allusions to Egypt, evidently mainly relates to the life of the desert (circumstances which favour the idea that Moses wrote it while in Midian), we have passages of a special character connected with astronomy. Thus, Job says of God: 'Which maketh 'Ash, Keseel, and Keemah, and the cham bers of the south' (ix. 9). And the LORD, speak ing of his mighty works, asks Job, Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Keemah, or loose the bands of Keseel ? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season ? or 'Aeesh with her sons, canst thou guide them' (xxxviii. 31, 32) ? The prophet Amos has a similar passage : he, be it remarked, was a herdman, and not an educated priest, for we read that he `was among the shep herds of Tekoa' (i. 1), and that when Amaziah the priest of Bethel called him a seer, and told him to go to Judah, there to eat bread and prophesy, he replied : I [was] no prophet, neither [was] I a prophet's son ; hut I [was] a herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit : And the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and the LORD said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel' (vii.
is). Here, again, we have an exceptional case, and astronomical knowledge is also distinctly connected with the pastoral life, as in Chaldaea of old. The pro phet speaks of God as [Him] that maketh Keemah and Keseel, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night' (v. S). We will now notice these terms, com mencing with Mazzaroth, the explanation of which will be useful in guiding us as to the rest.
I. Besides the mention of Mazzaroth, in Job, Mazzaloth, n*, are spoken of in the Second Book of Kings (xxiii. 5), as objects of idolatrous worship, where we read that Josiah put down them that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to Mazzaloth, and to all the host of heaven.' Here the LXX. has Acatoupcb0, and whether or not that be the true reading, there can be no doubt that the same objects as the Mazzaroth of the older book are in tended. Gesenius (Thes. s. v.) supposes, follow. ing most of the ancient interpreters, that this term means the signs of the zodiac, mentioning the Arabic word a station, and the term ' the sphere or hemisphere of towers,' applied to the zodiac, which, as Dr. Lee observes (Mao:slat. of yob in loc.), he incorrectly renders the circle of palaces.' He bolds, however, that the word means forewarners, presagers ;' but Dr. Lee, comparing the former Arabic word, is of opinion that it signifies mansions,' and there can be no doubt that such is the case, the words being radically identical, and the Arabs using the plural for the , or 'mansions of the moon.' Are we then to understand the twelve signs of the zodiac or the twenty-eight mansions of the moon ? The rabbins say the former, but we cannot prove the antiquity of the zodiac, Which, in Egypt at least, seems to be no older than the time of the Greek kings. The rabbins had lost much of the ancient knowledge of their people ; the Arabs, on the other hand, seem to have preserved unchanged the rude science of their forefathers. We prefer, there fore, to suppose that the mansions of the moon are intended ; and it may be noticed that, if their place in the passage of the Second Book of Kings may not be without significance. The worship of the mansions which would be stars or asterisms, presents no difficulty. The mansions of the moon with the Arabs were mostly asterisms, but some of them single stars. The pagan Arabs attributed rain and drought, etc., to them, and often prayed to them for rain. The Egyptian decans were stars or asterisms, and certainly connected with idolatry.