The Astronomy of the Bible
by E. Walter Maunder · English · Gutenberg #28536 · 633,852 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Astronomy of the Bible
Author: E. Walter Maunder
Release date: April 8, 2009 [eBook #28536]
Most recently updated: January 4, 2021
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE ***
Produced by Curtis Weyant, Jeannie Howse, Lisa Reigel, and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by Case Western Reserve University
Preservation Department Digital Library)
Transcriber's Notes: Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been
left as in the original. Words italicized in the original are surrounded
by _underscores_. Characters superscripted in the original are enclosed
in {braces}. In this text, in words translated from Hebrew, ` represents
an aleph, and ' represents an ayin. Some typographical and punctuation
errors have been corrected. A complete list follows the text.
There are diacritic accents in the original. In this text, they are
represented as follows:
[=a] = "a" with a macron [)e] = "e" with a breve
[=e] = "e" with a macron [vs] = "s" with a caron
[=i] = "i" with a macron [vS] = "S" with a caron
[=o] = "o" with a macron [H.] = "H" with an underdot
[=u] = "u" with a macron [h.] = "h" with an underdot
THE ASTRONOMY
OF THE BIBLE
[Illustration: _From the Painting by Sir Edward Burne-Jones in the
Birmingham Art Gallery._
THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.
"We have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship Him."
[_Frontispiece._]
THE ASTRONOMY
OF THE BIBLE
AN ELEMENTARY COMMENTARY ON THE
ASTRONOMICAL REFERENCES
OF HOLY SCRIPTURE
BY
E. WALTER MAUNDER, F.R.A.S.
AUTHOR OF
'THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH: ITS HISTORY AND WORK,'
AND 'ASTRONOMY WITHOUT A TELESCOPE'
_WITH THIRTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS_
NEW YORK
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
To
MY WIFE
My helper in this Book
and in all things.
PREFACE
Why should an astronomer write a commentary on the Bible?
Because commentators as a rule are not astronomers, and therefore either
pass over the astronomical allusions of Scripture in silence, or else
annotate them in a way which, from a scientific point of view, leaves
much to be desired.
Astronomical allusions in the Bible, direct and indirect, are not few in
number, and, in order to bring out their full significance, need to be
treated astronomically. Astronomy further gives us the power of placing
ourselves to some degree in the position of the patriarchs and prophets
of old. We know that the same sun and moon, stars and planets, shine
upon us as shone upon Abraham and Moses, David and Isaiah. We can, if we
will, see the unchanging heavens with their eyes, and understand their
attitude towards them.
It is worth while for us so to do. For the immense advances in science,
made since the Canon of Holy Scripture was closed, and especially during
the last three hundred years, may enable us to realize the significance
of a most remarkable fact. Even in those early ages, when to all the
nations surrounding Israel the heavenly bodies were objects for
divination or idolatry, the attitude of the sacred writers toward them
was perfect in its sanity and truth.
Astronomy has a yet further part to play in Biblical study. The dating
of the several books of the Bible, and the relation of certain heathen
mythologies to the Scripture narratives of the world's earliest ages,
have received much attention of late years. Literary analysis has thrown
much light on these subjects, but hitherto any evidence that astronomy
could give has been almost wholly neglected; although, from the nature
of the case, such evidence, so far as it is available, must be most
decisive and exact.
I have endeavoured, in the present book, to make an astronomical
commentary on the Bible, in a manner that shall be both clear and
interesting to the general reader, dispensing as far as possible with
astronomical technicalities, since the principles concerned are, for the
most part, quite simple. I trust, also, that I have taken the first step
in a new inquiry which promises to give results of no small importance.
E. WALTER MAUNDER.
_St. John's, London, S.E._
_January 1908._
CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE HEAVENLY BODIES
CHAPTER I. THE HEBREW AND ASTRONOMY
Modern Astronomy--Astronomy in the Classical Age--The Canon of
Holy Scripture closed before the Classical Age--Character of the
Scriptural References to the Heavenly Bodies--Tradition of
Solomon's Eminence in Science--Attitude towards Nature of the
Sacred Writers--Plan of the Book 3
CHAPTER II. THE CREATION
Indian Eclipse of 1898--Contrast between the Heathen and
Scientific Attitudes--The Law of Causality--Inconsistent with
Polytheism--Faith in One God the Source to the Hebrews of
Intellectual Freedom--The First Words of Genesis the Charter of
the Physical Sciences--The Limitations of Science--"Explanations"
of the First Chapter of Genesis--Its Real Purposes--The Sabbath 12
CHAPTER III. THE DEEP
Babylonian Creation Myth--Tiamat, the Dragon of Chaos--Overcome
by Merodach--Similarity to the Scandinavian Myth--No Resemblance
to the Narrative in Genesis--Meanings of the Hebrew Word
_tehom_--Date of the Babylonian Creation Story 25
CHAPTER IV. THE FIRMAMENT
Twofold Application of the Hebrew Word _raqia`_--Its Etymological
Meaning--The Idea of Solidity introduced by the "Seventy"--Not
the Hebrew Idea--The "Foundations" of Heaven and Earth--The
"Canopy" of Heaven--The "Stories" of Heaven--Clouds and Rain--The
Atmospheric Circulation--Hebrew Appreciation even of the Terrible
in Nature--The "Balancings" and "Spreadings" of the Clouds--The
"Windows of Heaven"--Not Literal Sluice-gates--The Four
Winds--The Four Quarters--The Circle of the Earth--The Waters
under the Earth--The "Depths" 35
CHAPTER V. THE ORDINANCES OF THE HEAVENS
The Order of the Heavenly Movements--Daily Movement of the
Sun--Nightly Movements of the Stars--The "Host of Heaven"--
Symbolic of the Angelic Host--Morning Stars--The Scripture View
of the Heavenly Order 55
CHAPTER VI. THE SUN
The Double Purpose of the Two Great Heavenly Bodies--Symbolic Use
of the Sun as Light-giver--No Deification of the Sun or of
Light--Solar Idolatry in Israel--_Shemesh_ and _[H.]eres_--
Sun-spots--Light before the Sun--"Under the Sun"--The Circuit of
the Sun--Sunstroke--"Variableness"--Our present Knowledge of the
Sun--Sir William Herschel's Theory--Conflict between the Old
Science and the New--Galileo--A Question of Evidence--A Question
of Principle 63
CHAPTER VII. THE MOON
Importance of the Moon in Olden Times--Especially to the
Shepherd--Jewish Feasts at the Full Moon--The Harvest Moon--The
Hebrew Month a Natural one--Different Hebrew Words for Moon--
Moon-worship forbidden--"Similitudes" of the Moon--Worship of
Ashtoreth--No mention of Lunar Phases--The Moon "for Seasons" 79
CHAPTER VIII. THE STARS
Number of the Stars--"Magnitudes" of the Stars--Distances of the
Stars 95
CHAPTER IX. COMETS
Great Comets unexpected Visitors--Description of Comets--
Formation of the Tail--Possible References in Scripture to
Comets 103
CHAPTER X. METEORS
Aerolites--Diana of the Ephesians--Star-showers--The Leonid
Meteors--References in Scripture--The Aurora Borealis 111
CHAPTER XI. ECLIPSES OF THE SUN AND MOON
Vivid Impression produced by a Total Solar Eclipse--Eclipses not
Omens to the Hebrews--Eclipses visible in Ancient Palestine--
Explanation of Eclipses--The Saros--Scripture References to
Eclipses--The Corona--The Egyptian "Winged Disc"--The Babylonian
"Ring with Wings"--The Corona at Minimum 118
CHAPTER XII. SATURN AND ASTROLOGY
The "Seven Planets"--Possible Scripture References to Venus and
Jupiter--"Your God Remphan" probably Saturn--The Sabbath and
Saturn's Day--R. A. Proctor on the Names of the Days of the
Week--Order of the Planets--Alexandrian Origin of the Weekday
Names--The Relation of Astrology to Astronomy--Early Babylonian
Astrology--Hebrew Contempt for Divination 130
BOOK II
THE CONSTELLATIONS
CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN OF THE CONSTELLATIONS
The "Greek Sphere"--Aratus--St Paul's Sermon at Athens--The
Constellations of Ptolemy's Catalogue--References to the
Constellations in Hesiod and Homer--The Constellation Figures on
Greek Coins--And on Babylonian "Boundary-stones"--The Unmapped
Space in the South--Its Explanation--Precession--Date and Place
of the Origin of the Constellations--Significant Positions of the
Serpent Forms in the Constellations--The Four "Royal Stars"--The
Constellations earlier than the Old Testament 149
CHAPTER II. GENESIS AND THE CONSTELLATIONS
The Bow set in the Cloud--The Conflict with the Serpent--The Seed
of the Woman--The Cherubim--The "Mighty Hunter" 162
CHAPTER III. THE STORY OF THE DELUGE
Resemblance between the Babylonian and Genesis Deluge
Stories--The Deluge Stories in Genesis--Their Special
Features--The Babylonian Deluge Story--Question as to its
Date--Its Correspondence with both the Genesis Narratives--The
Constellation Deluge Picture--Its Correspondence with both the
Genesis Narratives--The Genesis Deluge Story independent of Star
Myth and Babylonian Legend 170
CHAPTER IV. THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL AND THE ZODIAC
Joseph's Dream--Alleged Association of the Zodiacal Figures with
the Tribes of Israel--The Standards of the Four Camps of
Israel--The Blessings of Jacob and Moses--The Prophecies of
Balaam--The Golden Calf--The Lion of Judah 186
CHAPTER V. LEVIATHAN
The Four Serpent-like Forms in the Constellations--Their
Significant Positions--The Dragon's Head and Tail--The
Symbols for the Nodes--The Dragon of Eclipse--Hindu Myth
of Eclipses--Leviathan--References to the Stellar Serpents
in Scripture--Rahab--Andromeda--"The Eyelids of the
Morning"--Poetry, Science, and Myth 196
CHAPTER VI. THE PLEIADES
Difficulty of Identification--The most Attractive
Constellations--_Kimah_--Not a Babylonian Star Name--A Pre-exilic
Hebrew Term--The Pleiades traditionally Seven--Mädler's
Suggestion--Pleiades associated in Tradition with the Rainy
Season--And with the Deluge--Their "Sweet Influences"--The Return
of Spring--The Pleiades in recent Photographs--Great Size and
Distance of the Cluster 213
CHAPTER VII. ORION
_Kesil_--Probably Orion--Appearance of the Constellation--
Identified in Jewish Tradition with Nimrod, who was probably
Merodach--Altitude of Orion in the Sky--_Kesilim_--The "Bands" of
Orion--The Bow-star and Lance-star, Orion's Dogs--Identification
of Tiamat with Cetus 231
CHAPTER VIII. MAZZAROTH
Probably the "Signs of the Zodiac"--Babylonian Creation
Story--Significance of its Astronomical References--Difference
between the "Signs" and the "Constellations" of the Zodiac--Date
of the Change--And of the Babylonian Creation Epic--Stages of
Astrology--Astrology Younger than Astronomy by 2000 Years--
_Mazzaroth_ and the "Chambers of the South"--_Mazzaloth_--The
Solar and Lunar Zodiacs--_Mazzaroth_ in his Season 243
CHAPTER IX. ARCTURUS
_`Ash_ and _`Ayish_--Uncertainty as to their Identification--
Probably the Great Bear--_Mezarim_--Probably another Name for the
Bears--"Canst thou guide the Bear?"--Proper Motions of the
Plough-stars--Estimated Distance 258
BOOK III
TIMES AND SEASONS
CHAPTER I. THE DAY AND ITS DIVISIONS
Rotation Period of Venus--Difficulty of the Time Problem on
Venus--The Sun and Stars as Time Measurers--The apparent Solar
Day the First in Use--It began at Sunset--Subdivisions of the Day
Interval--Between the Two Evenings--The Watches of the Night--The
12-hour Day and the 24-hour Day 269
CHAPTER II. THE SABBATH AND THE WEEK
The Week not an Astronomical Period--Different Weeks employed
by the Ancients--Four Origins assigned for the Week--The
Quarter-month--The Babylonian System--The Babylonian Sabbath not
a Rest Day--The Jewish Sabbath amongst the Romans--Alleged
Astrological Origin of the Week--Origin of the Week given in the
Bible 283
CHAPTER III. THE MONTH
The New Moon a Holy Day with the Hebrews--The Full Moons at the
Two Equinoxes also Holy Days--The Beginnings of the Months
determined from actual Observation--Rule for finding Easter--Names
of the Jewish Months--Phoenician and Babylonian Month Names--
Number of Days in the Month--Babylonian Dead Reckoning--Present
Jewish Calendar 293
CHAPTER IV. THE YEAR
The Jewish Year a Luni-solar one--Need for an Intercalary
Month--The Metonic Cycle--The Sidereal and Tropical Years--The
Hebrew a Tropical Year--Beginning near the Spring Equinox--Meaning
of "the End of the Year"--Early Babylonian Method of determining
the First Month--Capella as the Indicator Star--The Triad of
Stars--The Tropical Year in the Deluge Story 305
CHAPTER V. THE SABBATIC YEAR AND THE JUBILEE
Law of the Sabbatic Year--A Year of Rest and Release--The
Jubilee--Difficulties connected with the Sabbatic Year and the
Jubilee--The Sabbatic Year, an Agricultural one--Interval between
the Jubilees, Forty-nine Years, not Fifty--Forty-nine Years an
Astronomical Cycle 326
CHAPTER VI. THE CYCLES OF DANIEL
The Jubilee Cycle possessed only by the Hebrews--High Estimation
of Daniel and his Companions entertained by Nebuchadnezzar--Due
possibly to Daniel's Knowledge of Luni-solar Cycles--Cycles in
Daniel's Prophecy--2300 Years and 1260 Years as Astronomical
Cycles--Early Astronomical Progress of the Babylonians much
overrated--Yet their Real Achievements not Small--Limitations of
the Babylonian--Freedom of the Hebrew 337
BOOK IV
THREE ASTRONOMICAL MARVELS
CHAPTER I. JOSHUA'S LONG DAY
METHOD OF STUDYING THE RECORD--To be discussed as it stands--An
early Astronomical Observation. BEFORE THE BATTLE--Movements of
the Israelites--Reasons for the Gibeonites' Action--Rapid
Movements of all the Parties. DAY, HOUR, AND PLACE OF THE
MIRACLE--Indication of the Sun's Declination--Joshua was at
Gibeon--And at High Noon--On the 21st Day of the Fourth Month.
JOSHUA'S STRATEGY--Key to it in the Flight of the Amorites by the
Beth-horon Route--The Amorites defeated but not surrounded--King
David as a Strategist. THE MIRACLE--The Noon-day Heat, the great
Hindrance to the Israelites--Joshua desired the Heat to be
tempered--The Sun made to "be silent"--The Hailstorm--The March
to Makkedah--A Full Day's March in the Afternoon--"The Miracle"
not a Poetic Hyperbole--Exact Accord of the Poem and the Prose
Chronicle--The Record made at the Time--Their March, the
Israelites' Measure of Time 351
CHAPTER II. THE DIAL OF AHAZ
The Narrative--Suggested Explanations--The "Dial of Ahaz,"
probably a Staircase--Probable History and Position of the
Staircase--Significance of the Sign 385
CHAPTER III. THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM
The Narrative--No Astronomical Details given--Purpose of the
Scripture Narrative--Kepler's suggested Identification of the
Star--The New Star of 1572--Legend of the Well of Bethlehem--True
Significance of the Reticence of the Gospel Narrative 393
A TABLE OF SCRIPTURAL REFERENCE 401
INDEX 405
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM (_Burne-Jones_) _Frontispiece_
THE RAINBOW (_Rubens_) 2
MERODACH AND TIAMAT 25
CIRRUS AND CUMULI 47
A CORNER OF THE MILKY WAY 94
THE GREAT COMET OF 1843 102
FALL OF AN AEROLITE 110
METEORIC SHOWER OF 1799 115
THE ASSYRIAN 'RING WITH WINGS' 126
CORONA OF MINIMUM TYPE 127
ST. PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS (_Raphael_) 148
THE ANCIENT CONSTELLATIONS SOUTH OF THE ECLIPTIC 155
THE CELESTIAL SPHERE 156
THE MIDNIGHT CONSTELLATIONS OF SPRING, B.C. 2700 164
THE MIDNIGHT CONSTELLATIONS OF WINTER, B.C. 2700 165
OPHIUCHUS AND THE NEIGHBOURING CONSTELLATIONS 189
AQUARIUS AND THE NEIGHBOURING CONSTELLATIONS 192
HERCULES AND DRACO 197
HYDRA AND THE NEIGHBOURING CONSTELLATIONS 200
ANDROMEDA AND CETUS 207
STARS OF THE PLEIADES 219
INNER NEBULOSITIES OF THE PLEIADES 227
STARS OF ORION 232
ORION AND THE NEIGHBOURING CONSTELLATIONS 236
POSITION OF SPRING EQUINOX, B.C. 2700 246
POSITION OF SPRING EQUINOX, A.D. 1900 247
STARS OF THE PLOUGH, AS THE WINNOWING FAN 263
'BLOW UP THE TRUMPET IN THE NEW MOON' 268
POSITION OF THE NEW MOON AT THE EQUINOXES 316
BOUNDARY-STONE IN THE LOUVRE 318
WORSHIP OF THE SUN-GOD AT SIPPARA 322
'SUN, STAND THOU STILL UPON GIBEON, AND THOU MOON IN
THE VALLEY OF AJALON' 350
MAP OF SOUTHERN PALESTINE 357
BEARINGS OF THE RISING AND SETTING POINTS OF THE SUN
FROM GIBEON 363
[Illustration: _By permission of the Autotype Co. 74, New Oxford
Street, London W.C._
THE RAINBOW (_by Rubens_).
"The bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain."]
THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE
BOOK I
THE HEAVENLY BODIES
CHAPTER I
THE HEBREW AND ASTRONOMY
Modern astronomy began a little more than three centuries ago with the
invention of the telescope and Galileo's application of it to the study
of the heavenly bodies. This new instrument at once revealed to him the
mountains on the moon, the satellites of Jupiter, and the spots on the
sun, and brought the celestial bodies under observation in a way that no
one had dreamed of before. In our view to-day, the planets of the solar
system are worlds; we can examine their surfaces and judge wherein they
resemble or differ from our earth. To the ancients they were but points
of light; to us they are vast bodies that we have been able to measure
and to weigh. The telescope has enabled us also to penetrate deep into
outer space; we have learnt of other systems besides that of our own sun
and its dependents, many of them far more complex; clusters and clouds
of stars have been revealed to us, and mysterious nebulæ, which suggest
by their forms that they are systems of suns in the making. More lately
the invention of the spectroscope has informed us of the very elements
which go to the composition of these numberless stars, and we can
distinguish those which are in a similar condition to our sun from those
differing from him. And photography has recorded for us objects too
faint for mere sight to detect, even when aided by the most powerful
telescope; too detailed and intricate for the most skilful hand to
depict.
Galileo's friend and contemporary, Kepler, laid the foundations of
another department of modern astronomy at about the same time. He
studied the apparent movements of the planets until they yielded him
their secret so far that he was able to express them in three simple
laws, laws which, two generations later, Sir Isaac Newton demonstrated
to be the outcome of one grand and simple law of universal range, the
law of gravitation. Upon this law the marvellous mathematical conquests
of astronomy have been based.
All these wonderful results have been attained by the free exercise of
men's mental abilities, and it cannot be imagined that God would have
intervened to hamper their growth in intellectual power by revealing to
men facts and methods which it was within their own ability to discover
for themselves. Men's mental powers have developed by their exercise;
they would have been stunted had men been led to look to revelation
rather than to diligent effort for the satisfaction of their curiosity.
We therefore do not find any reference in the Bible to that which
modern astronomy has taught us. Yet it may be noted that some
expressions, appropriate at any time, have become much more appropriate,
much more forcible, in the light of our present-day knowledge.
The age of astronomy which preceded the Modern, and may be called the
Classical age, was almost as sharply defined in its beginning as its
successor. It lasted about two thousand years, and began with the
investigations into the movements of the planets made by some of the
early Greek mathematicians. Classical, like Modern astronomy, had its
two sides,--the instrumental and the mathematical. On the instrumental
side was the invention of graduated instruments for the determination of
the positions of the heavenly bodies; on the mathematical, the
development of geometry and trigonometry for the interpretation of those
positions when thus determined. Amongst the great names of this period
are those of Eudoxus of Knidus (B.C. 408-355), and Hipparchus of
Bithynia, who lived rather more than two centuries later. Under its
first leaders astronomy in the Classical age began to advance rapidly,
but it soon experienced a deadly blight. Men were not content to observe
the heavenly bodies for what they were; they endeavoured to make
them the sources of divination. The great school of Alexandria (founded
about 300 B.C.), the headquarters of astronomy, became invaded by
the spirit of astrology, the bastard science which has always
tried--parasite-like--to suck its life from astronomy. Thus from the
days of Claudius Ptolemy to the end of the Middle Ages the growth of
astronomy was arrested, and it bore but little fruit.
It will be noticed that the Classical age did not commence until about
the time of the completion of the last books of the Old Testament; so we
do not find any reference in Holy Scripture to the astronomical
achievements of that period, amongst which the first attempts to explain
the apparent motions of sun, moon, stars, and planets were the most
considerable.
We have a complete history of astronomy in the Modern and Classical
periods, but there was an earlier astronomy, not inconsiderable in
amount, of which no history is preserved. For when Eudoxus commenced his
labours, the length of the year had already been determined, the
equinoxes and solstices had been recognized, the ecliptic, the celestial
equator, and the poles of both great circles were known, and the five
principal planets were familiar objects. This Early astronomy must have
had its history, its stages of development, but we can only with
difficulty trace them out. It cannot have sprung into existence
full-grown any more than the other sciences; it must have started from
zero, and men must have slowly fought their way from one observation to
another, with gradually widening conceptions, before they could bring it
even to that stage of development in which it was when the observers of
the Museum of Alexandria began their work.
The books of the Old Testament were written at different times during
the progress of this Early age of astronomy. We should therefore
naturally expect to find the astronomical allusions written from the
standpoint of such scientific knowledge as had then been acquired. We
cannot for a moment expect that any supernatural revelation of purely
material facts would be imparted to the writers of sacred books, two or
three thousand years before the progress of science had brought those
facts to light, and we ought not to be surprised if expressions are
occasionally used which we should not ourselves use to-day, if we were
writing about the phenomena of nature from a technical point of view. It
must further be borne in mind that the astronomical references are not
numerous, that they occur mostly in poetic imagery, and that Holy
Scripture was not intended to give an account of the scientific
achievements, if any, of the Hebrews of old. Its purpose was wholly
different: it was religious, not scientific; it was meant to give
spiritual, not intellectual enlightenment.
An exceedingly valuable and interesting work has recently been brought
out by the most eminent of living Italian astronomers, Prof. G. V.
Schiaparelli, on this subject of "Astronomy in the Old Testament," to
which work I should like here to acknowledge my indebtedness. Yet I feel
that the avowed object of his book,[7:1]--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"--is open to this
criticism,--that sufficient material for carrying it out is not within
our reach. If we were to accept implicitly the argument from the silence
of Scripture, we should conclude that the Hebrews--though their calendar
was essentially a lunar one, based upon the actual observation of the
new moon--had never noticed that the moon changed its apparent form as
the month wore on, for there is no mention in the Bible of the lunar
phases.
The references to the heavenly bodies in Scripture are not numerous, and
deal with them either as time-measurers or as subjects for devout
allusion, poetic simile, or symbolic use. But there is one
characteristic of all these references to the phenomena of Nature, that
may not be ignored. None of the ancients ever approached the great
Hebrew writers in spiritual elevation; none equalled them in poetic
sublimity; and few, if any, surpassed them in keenness of observation,
or in quick sympathy with every work of the Creator.
These characteristics imply a natural fitness of the Hebrews for
successful scientific work, and we should have a right to believe that
under propitious circumstances they would have shown a pre-eminence in
the field of physical research as striking as is the superiority of
their religious conceptions over those of the surrounding nations. We
cannot, of course, conceive of the average Jew as an Isaiah, any more
than we can conceive of the average Englishman as a Shakespeare, yet the
one man, like the other, is an index of the advancement and capacity of
his race; nor could Isaiah's writings have been preserved, more than
those of Shakespeare, without a true appreciation of them on the part of
many of his countrymen.
But the necessary conditions for any great scientific development were
lacking to Israel. A small nation, planted between powerful and
aggressive empires, their history was for the most part the record of a
struggle for bare existence; and after three or four centuries of the
unequal conflict, first the one and then the other of the two sister
kingdoms was overwhelmed. There was but little opportunity during these
years of storm and stress for men to indulge in any curious searchings
into the secrets of nature.
Once only was there a long interval of prosperity and peace; viz. from
the time that David had consolidated the kingdom to the time when it
suffered disruption under his grandson, Rehoboam; and it is significant
that tradition has ascribed to Solomon and to his times just such a
scientific activity as the ability and temperament of the Hebrew race
would lead us to expect it to display when the conditions should be
favourable for it.
Thus, in the fourth chapter of the First Book of Kings, not only are the
attainments of Solomon himself described, but other men, contemporaries
either of his father David or himself, are referred to, as distinguished
in the same direction, though to a less degree.
"And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much,
and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the
seashore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the
children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For
he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman,
and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in
all nations round about. And he spake three thousand proverbs:
and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees,
from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop
that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and
of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came
of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of
the earth, which had heard of his wisdom."
The tradition of his great eminence in scientific research is also
preserved in the words put into his mouth in the Book of the Wisdom of
Solomon, now included in the Apocrypha.
"For" (God) "Himself gave me an unerring knowledge of the
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 alternations of the solstices and the
changes of seasons, the circuits of years and the positions"
(_margin_, constellations) "of stars; the natures of living
creatures and the ragings of wild beasts, the violences of
winds and the thoughts of men, the diversities of plants and
the virtues of roots: all things that are either secret or
manifest I learned, for she that is the artificer of all
things taught me, even Wisdom."
Two great names have impressed themselves upon every part of the
East:--the one, that of Solomon the son of David, as the master of every
secret source of knowledge; and the other that of Alexander the Great,
as the mightiest of conquerors. It is not unreasonable to believe that
the traditions respecting the first have been founded upon as real a
basis of actual achievement as those respecting the second.
But to such scientific achievements we have no express allusion in
Scripture, other than is afforded us by the two quotations just made.
Natural objects, natural phenomena are not referred to for their own
sake. Every thought leads up to God or to man's relation to Him.
Nature, as a whole and in its every aspect and detail, is the handiwork
of Jehovah: that is the truth which the heavens are always
declaring;--and it is His power, His wisdom, and His goodness to man
which it is sought to illustrate, when the beauty or wonder of natural
objects is described.
"When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers,
The moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained;
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?"
The first purpose, therefore, of the following study of the astronomy of
the Bible is,--not to reconstruct the astronomy of the Hebrews, a task
for which the material is manifestly incomplete,--but to examine such
astronomical allusions as occur with respect to their appropriateness to
the lesson which the writer desired to teach. Following this, it will be
of interest to examine what connection can be traced between the Old
Testament Scriptures and the Constellations; the arrangement of the
stars into constellations having been the chief astronomical work
effected during the centuries when those Scriptures were severally
composed. The use made of the heavenly bodies as time-measurers amongst
the Hebrews will form a third division of the subject; whilst there are
two or three incidents in the history of Israel which appear to call for
examination from an astronomical point of view, and may suitably be
treated in a fourth and concluding section.
FOOTNOTES:
[7:1] _Astronomy in the Old Testament_, p. 12.
CHAPTER II
THE CREATION
A few years ago a great eclipse of the sun, seen as total along a broad
belt of country right across India, drew thither astronomers from the
very ends of the earth. Not only did many English observers travel
thither, but the United States of America in the far west, and Japan in
the far east sent their contingents, and the entire length of country
covered by the path of the shadow was dotted with the temporary
observatories set up by the men of science.
It was a wonderful sight that was vouchsafed to these travellers in
pursuit of knowledge. In a sky of unbroken purity, undimmed even for a
moment by haze or cloud, there shone down the fierce Indian sun.
Gradually a dark mysterious circle invaded its lower edge, and covered
its brightness; coolness replaced the burning heat; slowly the dark
covering crept on; slowly the sunlight diminished until at length the
whole of the sun's disc was hidden. Then in a moment a wonderful
starlike form flashed out, a noble form of glowing silver light on the
deep purple-coloured sky.
There was, however, no time for the astronomers to devote to admiration
of the beauty of the scene, or indulgence in rhapsodies. Two short
minutes alone were allotted them to note all that was happening, to take
all their photographs, to ask all the questions, and obtain all the
answers for which this strange veiling of the sun, and still stranger
unveiling of his halo-like surroundings, gave opportunity. It was two
minutes of intensest strain, of hurried though orderly work; and then a
sudden rush of sunlight put an end to all. The mysterious vision had
withdrawn itself; the colour rushed back to the landscape, so
corpse-like whilst in the shadow; the black veil slid rapidly from off
the sun; the heat returned to the air; the eclipse was over.
But the astronomers from distant lands were not the only people engaged
in watching the eclipse. At their work, they could hear the sound of a
great multitude, a sound of weeping and wailing, a people dismayed at
the distress of their god.
It was so at every point along the shadow track, but especially where
that track met the course of the sacred river. Along a hundred roads the
pilgrims had poured in unceasing streams towards Holy Mother Gunga;
towards Benares, the sacred city; towards Buxar, where the eclipse was
central at the river bank. It is always meritorious--so the Hindoo
holds--to bathe in that sacred river, but such a time as this, when the
sun is in eclipse, is the most propitious moment of all for such
lustration.
Could there be a greater contrast than that offered between the millions
trembling and dismayed at the signs of heaven, and the little companies
who had come for thousands of miles over land and sea, rejoicing in the
brief chance that was given them for learning a little more of the
secrets of the wonders of Nature?
The contrast between the heathen and the scientists was in both their
spiritual and their intellectual standpoint, and, as we shall see later,
the intellectual contrast is a result of the spiritual. The heathen idea
is that the orbs of heaven are divine, or at least that each expresses a
divinity. This does not in itself seem an unnatural idea when we
consider the great benefits that come to us through the instrumentality
of the sun and moon. It is the sun that morning by morning rolls back
the darkness, and brings light and warmth and returning life to men; it
is the sun that rouses the earth after her winter sleep and quickens
vegetation. It is the moon that has power over the great world of
waters, whose pulse beats in some kind of mysterious obedience to her
will.
Natural, then, has it been for men to go further, and to suppose that
not only is power lodged in these, and in the other members of the
heavenly host, but that it is living, intelligent, personal power; that
these shining orbs are beings, or the manifestations of beings; exalted,
mighty, immortal;--that they are gods.
But if these are gods, then it is sacrilegious, it is profane, to treat
them as mere "things"; to observe them minutely in the microscope or
telescope; to dissect them, as it were, in the spectroscope; to identify
their elements in the laboratory; to be curious about their properties,
influences, relations, and actions on each other.
And if these are gods, there are many gods, not One God. And if there
are many gods, there are many laws, not one law. Thus scientific
observations cannot be reconciled with polytheism, for scientific
observations demand the assumption of one universal law. The wise king
expressed this law thus:--
"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be." The actual
language of science, as expressed by Professor Thiele, a leading
Continental astronomer, states that--
"Everything that exists, and everything that happens, exists
or happens as a necessary consequence of a previous state of
things. If a state of things is repeated in every detail, it
must lead to exactly the same consequences. Any difference
between the results of causes that are in part the same, must
be explainable by some difference in the other part of the
causes."[15:1]
The law stated in the above words has been called the Law of
Causality. It "cannot be proved, but must be believed; in the
same way as we believe the fundamental assumptions of
religion, with which it is closely and intimately connected.
The law of causality forces itself upon our belief. It may be
denied in theory, but not in practice. Any person who denies
it, will, if he is watchful enough, catch himself constantly
asking himself, if no one else, why _this_ has happened, and
not _that_. But in that very question he bears witness to the
law of causality. If we are consistently to deny the law of
causality, we must repudiate all observation, and particularly
all prediction based on past experience, as useless and
misleading.
"If we could imagine for an instant that the same complete
combination of causes could have a definite number of
different consequences, however small that number might be,
and that among these the occurrence of the actual consequence
was, in the old sense of the word, accidental, no observation
would ever be of any particular value."[16:1]
So long as men hold, as a practical faith, that the results which attend
their efforts depend upon whether Jupiter is awake and active, or
Neptune is taking an unfair advantage of his brother's sleep; upon
whether Diana is bending her silver bow for the battle, or flying
weeping and discomfited because Juno has boxed her ears--so long is it
useless for them to make or consult observations.
But, as Professor Thiele goes on to say--
"If the law of causality is acknowledged to be an assumption
which always holds good, then every observation gives us a
revelation which, when correctly appraised and compared with
others, teaches us the laws by which God rules the world."
By what means have the modern scientists arrived at a position so
different from that of the heathen? It cannot have been by any process
of natural evolution that the intellectual standpoint which has made
scientific observation possible should be derived from the spiritual
standpoint of polytheism which rendered all scientific observation not
only profane but useless.
In the old days the heathen in general regarded the heavenly host and
the heavenly bodies as the heathen do to-day. But by one nation, the
Hebrews, the truth that--
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth"
was preserved in the first words of their Sacred Book. That nation
declared--
"All the gods of the people are idols: but the Lord made the
heavens."
For that same nation the watchword was--
"Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord."
From these words the Hebrews not only learned a great spiritual truth,
but derived intellectual freedom. For by these words they were taught
that all the host of heaven and of earth were created things--merely
"things," not divinities--and not only that, but that the Creator was
One God, not many gods; that there was but one law-giver; and that
therefore there could be no conflict of laws. These first words of
Genesis, then, may be called the charter of all the physical sciences,
for by them is conferred freedom from all the bonds of unscientific
superstition, and by them also do men know that consistent law holds
throughout the whole universe. It is the intellectual freedom of the
Hebrew that the scientist of to-day inherits. He may not indeed be able
to rise to the spiritual standpoint of the Hebrew, and consciously
acknowledge that--
"Thou, even Thou, art Lord alone; Thou hast made heaven, the
heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all
things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein,
and Thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven
worshippeth Thee."
But he must at least unconsciously assent to it, for it is on the first
great fundamental assumption of religion as stated in the first words of
Genesis, that the fundamental assumption of all his scientific reasoning
depends.
Scientific reasoning and scientific observation can only hold good so
long and in so far as the Law of Causality holds good. We must assume a
pre-existing state of affairs which has given rise to the observed
effect; we must assume that this observed effect is itself antecedent to
a subsequent state of affairs. Science therefore cannot go back to the
absolute beginnings of things, or forward to the absolute ends of
things. It cannot reason about the way matter and energy came into
existence, or how they might cease to exist; it cannot reason about time
or space, as such, but only in the relations of these to phenomena that
can be observed. It does not deal with things themselves, but only with
the relations between things. Science indeed can only consider the
universe as a great machine which is in "going order," and it concerns
itself with the relations which some parts of the machine bear to other
parts, and with the laws and manner of the "going" of the machine in
those parts. The relations of the various parts, one to the other, and
the way in which they work together, may afford some idea of the design
and purpose of the machine, but it can give no information as to how the
material of which it is composed came into existence, nor as to the
method by which it was originally constructed. Once started, the
machine comes under the scrutiny of science, but the actual starting
lies outside its scope.
Men therefore cannot find out for themselves how the worlds were
originally made, how the worlds were first moved, or how the spirit of
man was first formed within him; and this, not merely because these
beginnings of things were of necessity outside his experience, but also
because beginnings, as such, must lie outside the law by which he
reasons.
By no process of research, therefore, could man find out for himself the
facts that are stated in the first chapter of Genesis. They must have
been revealed. Science cannot inquire into them for the purpose of
checking their accuracy; it must accept them, as it accepts the
fundamental law that governs its own working, without the possibility of
proof.
And this is what has been revealed to man:--that the heaven and the
earth were not self-existent from all eternity, but were in their first
beginning created by God. As the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews
expresses it: "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed
by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of
things which do appear." And a further fact was revealed that man could
not have found out for himself; viz. that this creation was made and
finished in six Divine actings, comprised in what the narrative
denominates "days." It has not been revealed whether the duration of
these "days" can be expressed in any astronomical units of time.
Since under these conditions science can afford no information, it is
not to be wondered at that the hypotheses that have been framed from
time to time to "explain" the first chapter of Genesis, or to express it
in scientific terms, are not wholly satisfactory. At one time the
chapter was interpreted to mean that the entire universe was called into
existence about 6,000 years ago, in six days of twenty-four hours each.
Later it was recognized that both geology and astronomy seemed to
indicate the existence of matter for untold millions of years instead of
some six thousand. It was then pointed out that, so far as the narrative
was concerned, there might have been a period of almost unlimited
duration between its first verse and its fourth; and it was suggested
that the six days of creation were six days of twenty-four hours each,
in which, after some great cataclysm, 6,000 years ago, the face of the
earth was renewed and replenished for the habitation of man, the
preceding geological ages being left entirely unnoticed. Some writers
have confined the cataclysm and renewal to a small portion of the
earth's surface--to "Eden," and its neighbourhood. Other commentators
have laid stress on the truth revealed in Scripture that "one day is
with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day," and
have urged the argument that the six days of creation were really vast
periods of time, during which the earth's geological changes and the
evolution of its varied forms of life were running their course. Others,
again, have urged that the six days of creation were six literal days,
but instead of being consecutive were separated by long ages. And yet
again, as no man was present during the creation period, it has been
suggested that the Divine revelation of it was given to Moses or some
other inspired prophet in six successive visions or dreams, which
constituted the "six days" in which the chief facts of creation were set
forth.
All such hypotheses are based on the assumption that the opening
chapters of Genesis are intended to reveal to man certain physical
details in the material history of this planet; to be in fact a little
compendium of the geological and zoological history of the world, and so
a suitable introduction to the history of the early days of mankind
which followed it.
It is surely more reasonable to conclude that there was no purpose
whatever of teaching us anything about the physical relationships of
land and sea, of tree and plant, of bird and fish; it seems, indeed,
scarcely conceivable that it should have been the Divine intention so to
supply the ages with a condensed manual of the physical sciences. What
useful purpose could it have served? What man would have been the wiser
or better for it? Who could have understood it until the time when men,
by their own intellectual strivings, had attained sufficient knowledge
of their physical surroundings to do without such a revelation at all?
But although the opening chapters of Genesis were not designed to teach
the Hebrew certain physical facts of nature, they gave him the knowledge
that he might lawfully study nature. For he learnt from them that nature
has no power nor vitality of its own; that sun, and sea, and cloud, and
wind are not separate deities, nor the expression of deities that they
are but "things," however glorious and admirable; that they are the
handiwork of God; and--
"The works of the Lord are great,
Sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.
His work is honour and majesty;
And His righteousness endureth for ever.
He hath made His wonderful works to be remembered."
What, then, is the significance of the detailed account given us of the
works effected on the successive days of creation? Why are we told that
light was made on the first day, the firmament on the second, dry land
on the third, and so on? Probably for two reasons. First, that the
rehearsal, as in a catalogue, of the leading classes of natural objects,
might give definiteness and precision to the teaching that each and all
were creatures, things made by the word of God. The bald statement that
the heaven and the earth were made by God might still have left room for
the imagination that the powers of nature were co-eternal with God, or
were at least subordinate divinities; or that other powers than God had
worked up into the present order the materials He had created. The
detailed account makes it clear that not only was the universe in
general created by God, but that there was no part of it that was not
fashioned by Him.
The next purpose was to set a seal of sanctity upon the Sabbath. In the
second chapter of Genesis we read--
"On the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and
He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had
made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it:
because that in it He had rested from all His work which God
created and made."
In this we get the institution of the _week_, the first ordinance
imposed by God upon man. For in the fourth of the ten commandments which
God gave through Moses, it is said--
"The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it
thou shalt not do any work. . . . For in six days the Lord
made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and
rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath
day, and hallowed it."
And again, when the tabernacle was being builded, it was commanded--
"The children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the
sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual
covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel
for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and
on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed."
God made the sun, moon, and stars, and appointed them "for signs, and
for seasons, and for days, and years." The sun marks out the days; the
moon by her changes makes the months; the sun and the stars mark out the
seasons and the years. These were divisions of time which man would
naturally adopt. But there is not an exact number of days in the month,
nor an exact number of days or months in the year. Still less does the
period of seven days fit precisely into month or season or year; the
week is marked out by no phase of the moon, by no fixed relation between
the sun, the moon, or the stars. It is not a division of time that man
would naturally adopt for himself; it runs across all the natural
divisions of time.
What are the six days of creative work, and the seventh day--the
Sabbath--of creative rest? They are not days of man, they are days of
God; and our days of work and rest, our week with its Sabbath, can only
be the figure and shadow of that week of God; something by which we may
gain some faint apprehension of its realities, not that by which we can
comprehend and measure it.
Our week, therefore, is God's own direct appointment to us; and His
revelation that He fulfilled the work of creation in six acts or stages,
dignifies and exalts the toil of the labouring man, with his six days of
effort and one of rest, into an emblem of the creative work of God.
FOOTNOTES:
[15:1] T. N. Thiele, Director of the Copenhagen Observatory, _Theory of
Observations_, p. 1.
[16:1] T. N. Thiele, Director of the Copenhagen Observatory, _Theory of
Observations_, p. 1.
[Illustration: MERODACH AND TIAMAT.
[_To face p. 25._
Sculpture from the Palace of Assur-nazir-pel, King of Assyria. Now in
the British Museum. Damaged by fire. Supposed to represent the defeat of
Tiamat by Merodach.]
CHAPTER III
THE DEEP
The second verse of Genesis states, "And the earth was without form and
void [_i. e._ waste and empty] and darkness was upon the face of the
deep." The word _teh[=o]m_, here translated _deep_, has been used to
support the theory that the Hebrews derived their Creation story from
one which, when exiles in Babylon, they heard from their conquerors. If
this theory were substantiated, it would have such an important bearing
upon the subject of the attitude of the inspired writers towards the
objects of nature, that a little space must be spared for its
examination.
The purpose of the first chapter of Genesis is to tell us that--
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
From it we learn that the universe and all the parts that make it
up--all the different forms of energy, all the different forms of
matter--are neither deities themselves, nor their embodiments and
expressions, nor the work of conflicting deities. From it we learn that
the universe is not self-existent, nor even (as the pantheist thinks of
it) the expression of one vague, impersonal and unconscious, but
all-pervading influence. It was not self-made; it did not exist from all
eternity. It is not God, for God made it.
But the problem of its origin has exercised the minds of many nations
beside the Hebrews, and an especial interest attaches to the solution
arrived at by those nations who were near neighbours of the Hebrews and
came of the same great Semitic stock.
From the nature of the case, accounts of the origin of the world cannot
proceed from experience, or be the result of scientific experiment. They
cannot form items of history, or arise from tradition. There are only
two possible sources for them; one, Divine revelation; the other, the
invention of men.
The account current amongst the Babylonians has been preserved to us by
the Syrian writer Damascius, who gives it as follows:--
"But the Babylonians, like the rest of the Barbarians, pass
over in silence the one principle of the Universe, and they
constitute two, Tavthê and Apasôn, making Apasôn the husband
of Tavthê, and denominating her "the mother of the gods." And
from these proceeds an only-begotten son, Mumis, which, I
conceive, is no other than the intelligible world proceeding
from the two principles. From them also another progeny is
derived, Lakhê and Lakhos; and again a third, Kissarê and
Assôros, from which last three others proceed, Anos and
Illinos and Aos. And of Aos and Dakhê is born a son called
Bêlos, who, they say, is the fabricator of the world."[26:1]
The actual story, thus summarized by Damascius, was discovered by Mr.
George Smith, in the form of a long epic poem, on a series of tablets,
brought from the royal library of Kouyunjik, or Nineveh, and he
published them in 1875, in his book on _The Chaldean Account of
Genesis_. None of the tablets were perfect; and of some only very small
portions remain. But portions of other copies of the poem have been
discovered in other localities, and it has been found possible to piece
together satisfactorily a considerable section, so that a fair idea of
the general scope of the poem has been given to us.
It opens with the introduction of a being, Tiamtu--the Tavthê of the
account of Damascius,--who is regarded as the primeval mother of all
things.
"When on high the heavens were unnamed,
Beneath the earth bore not a name:
The primeval ocean was their producer;
Mummu Tiamtu was she who begot the whole of them.
Their waters in one united themselves, and
The plains were not outlined, marshes were not to be seen.
When none of the gods had come forth,
They bore no name, the fates (had not been determined)
There were produced the gods (all of them)."[27:1]
The genealogy of the gods follows, and after a gap in the story, Tiamat,
or Tiamtu, is represented as preparing for battle, "She who created
everything . . . produced giant serpents." She chose one of the gods,
Kingu, to be her husband and the general of her forces, and delivered to
him the tablets of fate.
The second tablet shows the god An[vs]ar, angered at the threatening
attitude of Tiamat, and sending his son Anu to speak soothingly to her
and calm her rage. But first Anu and then another god turned back
baffled, and finally Merodach, the son of Ea, was asked to become the
champion of the gods. Merodach gladly consented, but made good terms for
himself. The gods were to assist him in every possible way by entrusting
all their powers to him, and were to acknowledge him as first and chief
of all. The gods in their extremity were nothing loth. They feasted
Merodach and, when swollen with wine, endued him with all magical
powers, and hailed him--
"Merodach, thou art he who is our avenger,
(Over) the whole universe have we given thee the kingdom."[28:1]
At first the sight of his terrible enemy caused even Merodach to falter,
but plucking up courage he advanced to meet her, caught her in his net,
and, forcing an evil wind into her open mouth--
"He made the evil wind enter so that she could not close her lips.
The violence of the winds tortured her stomach, and
her heart was prostrated and her mouth was twisted.
He swung the club, he shattered her stomach;
he cut out her entrails; he over-mastered (her) heart;
he bound her and ended her life.
He threw down her corpse; he stood upon it."[28:2]
The battle over and the enemy slain, Merodach considered how to dispose
of the corpse.
"He strengthens his mind, he forms a clever plan,
And he stripped her of her skin like a fish, according to his
plan."[28:3]
Of one half of the corpse of Tiamat he formed the earth, and of the
other half, the heavens. He then proceded to furnish the heavens and the
earth with their respective equipments; the details of this work
occupying apparently the fifth, sixth, and seventh tablets of the
series.
Under ordinary circumstances such a legend as the foregoing would not
have attracted much attention. It is as barbarous and unintelligent as
any myth of Zulu or Fijian. Strictly speaking, it is not a Creation myth
at all. Tiamat and her serpent-brood and the gods are all existent
before Merodach commences his work, and all that the god effects is a
reconstruction of the world. The method of this reconstruction possesses
no features superior to those of the Creation myths of other barbarous
nations. Our own Scandinavian ancestors had a similar one, the setting
of which was certainly not inferior to the grotesque battle of Merodach
with Tiamat. The prose Edda tells us that the first man, Bur, was the
father of Bör, who was in turn the father of Odin and his two brothers
Vili and Ve. These sons of Bör slew Ymir, the old frost giant.
"They dragged the body of Ymir into the middle of Ginnungagap,
and of it formed the earth. From Ymir's blood they made the
sea and waters; from his flesh, the land; from his bones, the
mountains; and his teeth and jaws, together with some bits of
broken bones, served them to make the stones and pebbles."
It will be seen that there is a remarkable likeness between the
Babylonian and Scandinavian myths in the central and essential feature
of each, viz. the way in which the world is supposed to have been built
up by the gods from the fragments of the anatomy of a huge primæval
monster. Yet it is not urged that there is any direct genetic connection
between the two; that the Babylonians either taught their legend to the
Scandinavians or learnt it from them.
Under ordinary circumstances it would hardly have occurred to any one to
try to derive the monotheistic narrative of Gen. i. from either of these
pagan myths, crowded as they are with uncouth and barbarous details. But
it happened that Mr. George Smith, who brought to light the Assyrian
Creation tablets, brought also to light a Babylonian account of the
Flood, which had a large number of features in common with the narrative
of Gen. vi.-ix. The actual resemblance between the two Deluge narratives
has caused a resemblance to be imagined between the two Creation
narratives. It has been well brought out in some of the later comments
of Assyriologists that, so far from there being any resemblance in the
Babylonian legend to the narrative in Genesis, the two accounts differ
_in toto_. Mr. T. G. Pinches, for example, points out that in the
Babylonian account there is--
"No direct statement of the creation of the heavens and the
earth;
"No systematic division of the things created into groups and
classes, such as is found in Genesis;
"No reference to the Days of Creation;
"No appearance of the Deity as the first and only cause of the
existence of things."[30:1]
Indeed, in the Babylonian account, "the heavens and the earth are
represented as existing, though in a chaotic form, from the first."
Yet on this purely imaginary resemblance between the Biblical and
Babylonian Creation narratives the legend has been founded "that the
introductory chapters of the Book of Genesis present to us the Hebrew
version of a mythology common to many of the Semitic peoples." And the
legend has been yet further developed, until writers of the standing of
Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch have claimed that the Genesis narrative was
_borrowed_ from the Babylonian, though "the priestly scholar who
composed Genesis, chapter i. endeavoured of course to remove all
possible mythological features of this Creation story."[31:1]
If the Hebrew priest did borrow from the Babylonian myth, what was it
that he borrowed? Not the existence of sea and land, of sun and moon, of
plants and animals, of birds and beasts and fishes. For surely the
Hebrew may be credited with knowing this much of himself, without any
need for a transportation to Babylon to learn it. "In writing an account
of the Creation, statements as to what are the things created must of
necessity be inserted,"[31:2] whenever, wherever, and by whomsoever that
account is written.
What else, then, is there common to the two accounts? _Tiamat_ is the
name given to the Babylonian mother of the universe, the dragon of the
deep; and in Genesis it is written that "darkness was upon the face of
the _deep_ (_teh[=o]m_)."
Here, and here only, is a point of possible connection; but if it be
evidence of a connection, what kind of a connection does it imply? It
implies that the Babylonian based his barbarous myth upon the Hebrew
narrative. There is no other possible way of interpreting the
connection,--if connection there be.
The Hebrew word would seem to mean, etymologically, "_surges_,"
"_storm-tossed waters_,"--"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy
waterspouts." Our word "_deep_" is apt to give us the idea of
stillness--we have the proverb, "Still waters run deep,"--whereas in
some instances _teh[=o]m_ is used in Scripture of waters which were
certainly shallow, as, for instance, those passed through by Israel at
the Red Sea:--
"Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath He cast into the sea:
his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The
_depths_ have covered them."
In other passages the words used in our Authorized Version, "_deep_" or
"_depths_," give the correct signification.
But deep waters, or waters in commotion, are in either case natural
objects. We get the word _teh[=o]m_ used continually in Scripture in a
perfectly matter-of-fact way, where there is no possibility of
personification or myth being intended. Tiamat, on the contrary, the
Babylonian dragon of the waters, is a mythological personification. Now
the natural object must come first. It never yet has been the case that
a nation has gained its knowledge of a perfectly common natural object
by de-mythologizing one of the mythological personifications of another
nation. The Israelites did not learn about _teh[=o]m_, the surging water
of the Red Sea, that rolled over the Egyptians in their sight, from any
Babylonian fable of a dragon of the waters, read by their descendants
hundreds of years later.
Yet further, the Babylonian account of Creation is comparatively late;
the Hebrew account, as certainly, comparatively early. It is not merely
that the actual cuneiform tablets are of date about 700 B.C., coming as
they do from the Kouyunjik mound, the ruins of the palace of Sennacherib
and Assurbanipal, built about that date. The poem itself, as Prof. Sayce
has pointed out, indicates, by the peculiar pre-eminence given in it to
Merodach, that it is of late composition. It was late in the history of
Babylon that Merodach was adopted as the supreme deity. The astronomical
references in the poem are more conclusive still, for, as will be shown
later on, they point to a development of astronomy that cannot be dated
earlier than 700 B.C.
On the other hand, the first chapter of Genesis was composed very early.
The references to the heavenly bodies in verse 16 bear the marks of the
most primitive condition possible of astronomy. The heavenly bodies are
simply the greater light, the lesser light, and the stars--the last
being introduced quite parenthetically. It is the simplest reference to
the heavenly bodies that is made in Scripture, or that, indeed, could be
made.
There may well have been Babylonians who held higher conceptions of God
and nature than those given in the Tiamat myth. It is certain that very
many Hebrews fell short of the teaching conveyed in the first chapter of
Genesis. But the fact remains that the one nation preserved the Tiamat
myth, the other the narrative of Genesis, and each counted its own
Creation story sacred. We can only rightly judge the two nations by what
they valued. Thus judged, the Hebrew nation stands as high above the
Babylonian in intelligence, as well as in faith, as the first chapter of
Genesis is above the Tiamat myth.
FOOTNOTES:
[26:1] _Records of the Past_, vol. i. p. 124.
[27:1] _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records of
Assyria and Babylonia_, by T. G. Pinches, p. 16.
[28:1] _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records of
Assyria and Babylonia_, by T. G. Pinches, p. 16.
[28:2] _Records of the Past_, vol. i. p. 140.
[28:3] _Ibid._ p. 142.
[30:1] _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records of
Assyria and Babylonia_, by T. G. Pinches, p. 49.
[31:1] _Babel and Bible_, Johns' translation, pp. 36 and 37.
[31:2] _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records of
Assyria and Babylonia_, by T. G. Pinches, p. 48.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRMAMENT
The sixth verse of the first chapter of Genesis presents a difficulty as
to the precise meaning of the principal word, viz. that translated
_firmament_.
"And God said, Let there be a _r[=a]qi[=a]`_ in the midst of
the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And
God made the _r[=a]qi[=a]`_, and divided the waters which were
under the _r[=a]qi[=a]`_ from the waters which were above the
_r[=a]qi[=a]`_: and it was so. And God called the
_r[=a]qi[=a]`_ _Shamayim_. And the evening and the morning
were the second day."
It is, of course, perfectly clear that by the word _r[=a]qi[=a]`_ in the
preceding passage it is the atmosphere that is alluded to. But later on
in the chapter the word is used in a slightly different connection. "God
said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven."
As we look upward from the earth, we look through a twofold medium. Near
the earth we have our atmosphere; above that there is inter-stellar
space, void of anything, so far as we know, except the Ether. We are not
able to detect any line of demarcation where our atmosphere ends, and
the outer void begins. Both therefore are equally spoken of as "the
firmament"; and yet there is a difference between the two. The lower
supports the clouds; in the upper are set the two great lights and the
stars. The upper, therefore, is emphatically _reqi[=a]` hasshamayim_,
"the firmament of heaven," of the "uplifted." It is "in the face
of"--that is, "before," or "under the eyes of," "beneath,"--this higher
expanse that the fowls of the air fly to and fro.
The firmament, then, is that which Tennyson sings of as "the central
blue," the seeming vault of the sky, which we can consider as at any
height above us that we please. The clouds are above it in one sense;
yet in another, sun, moon and stars, which are clearly far higher than
the clouds, are set in it.
There is no question therefore as to what is referred to by the word
"firmament"; but there is a question as to the etymological meaning of
the word, and associated with that, a question as to how the Hebrews
themselves conceived of the celestial vault.
The word _r[=a]qi[=a]`_, translated "firmament," properly signifies "an
expanse," or "extension," something stretched or beaten out. The verb
from which this noun is derived is often used in Scripture, both as
referring to the heavens and in other connections. Thus in Job xxxvii.
18, the question is asked, "Canst thou with Him _spread out_ the sky,
which is strong as a molten mirror?" Eleazar, the priest, after the
rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram took the brazen censers of the
rebels, and they were "_made broad_ plates for a covering of the altar."
The goldsmith described by Isaiah as making an idol, "_spreadeth it
over_ with gold"; whilst Jeremiah says, "silver _spread_ into plates is
brought from Tarshish." Again, in Psalm cxxxvi., in the account of
creation we have the same word used with reference to the earth, "To him
that _stretched out_ the earth above the waters." In this and in many
other passages the idea of extension is clearly that which the word is
intended to convey. But the Seventy, in making the Greek Version of the
Old Testament, were naturally influenced by the views of astronomical
science then held in Alexandria, the centre of Greek astronomy. Here,
and at this time, the doctrine of the crystalline spheres--a
misunderstanding of the mathematical researches of Eudoxus and
others--held currency. These spheres were supposed to be a succession of
perfectly transparent and invisible solid shells, in which the sun,
moon, and planets were severally placed. The Seventy no doubt considered
that in rendering _r[=a]qi[=a]`_, by _stere[=o]ma_, i. e. firmament,
thus conveying the idea of a solid structure, they were speaking the
last word of up-to-date science.
There should be no reluctance in ascribing to the Hebrews an erroneous
scientific conception if there is any evidence that they held it. We
cannot too clearly realize that the writers of the Scriptures were not
supernaturally inspired to give correct technical scientific
descriptions; and supposing they had been so inspired, we must bear in
mind that we should often consider those descriptions wrong just in
proportion to their correctness, for the very sufficient reason that not
even our own science of to-day has yet reached finality in all things.
There should be no reluctance in ascribing to the Hebrews an erroneous
scientific conception if there is any evidence that they held it. In
this case, there is no such evidence; indeed, there is strong evidence
to the contrary.
The Hebrew word _r[=a]qi[=a]`_, as already shown, really signifies
"extension," just as the word for heaven, _shamayim_ means the
"uplifted." In these two words, therefore, significant respectively of a
surface and of height, there is a recognition of the "three
dimensions,"--in other words, of Space.
When we wish to refer to super-terrestrial space, we have two
expressions in modern English by which to describe it: we can speak of
"the vault of heaven," or of "the canopy of heaven." "The vault of
heaven" is most used, it has indeed been recently adopted as the title
of a scientific work by a well-known astronomer. But the word _vault_
certainly gives the suggestion of a solid structure; whilst the word
_canopy_ calls up the idea of a slighter covering, probably of some
textile fabric.
The reasons for thinking that the Hebrews did not consider the
"firmament" a solid structure are, first, that the word does not
necessarily convey that meaning; next, that the attitude of the Hebrew
mind towards nature was not such as to require this idea. The question,
"What holds up the waters above the firmament?" would not have troubled
them. It would have been sufficient for them, as for the writer to the
Hebrews, to consider that God was "upholding all things by the word of
His power," and they would not have troubled about the machinery. But
besides this, there are many passages in Scripture, some occurring in
the earliest books, which expressly speak of the clouds as carrying the
water; so that the expressions placing waters "above the firmament," or
"above the heavens," can mean no more than "in the clouds." Indeed, as
we shall see, quite a clear account is given of the atmospheric
circulation, such as could hardly be mended by a modern poet.
It is true that David sang that "the _foundations_ of heaven moved and
shook, because He was wroth," and Job says that "the _pillars_ of heaven
tremble and are astonished at His reproof." But not only are the
references to foundations and pillars evidently intended merely as
poetic imagery, but they are also used much more frequently of the
earth, and yet at the same time Job expressly points out that God
"stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth
upon nothing." The Hebrew formed no ideas like those of the Hindus, who
thought the earth supported by elephants, the elephants by a tortoise,
the tortoise by a snake.
In Scripture, in most cases the word "earth" (_eretz_) does not mean the
solid mass of this our planet, but only its surface; the "dry land" as
opposed to the "seas"; the countries, the dwelling place of man and
beast. The "pillars" or "foundations" of the earth in this sense are the
great systems of the rocks, and these were conceived of as directly
supported by the power of God, without any need of intermediary
structures. The Hebrew clearly recognized that it is the will of God
alone that keeps the whole secure.
Thus Hannah sang--
"The pillars of the earth are the Lord's,
And He hath set the world upon them."
And Asaph represents the Lord as saying:--
"The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved:
I bear up the pillars of it."
Yet again, just as we speak of "the celestial canopy," so Psalm civ.
describes the Lord as He "who stretchest out the heavens like a
curtain," and Isaiah gives the image in a fuller form,--"that stretcheth
out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell
in." The same expression of "stretching out the heavens" is repeatedly
used in Isaiah; it is indeed one of his typical phrases. Here, beyond
question, extension, spreading out, is the idea sought to be conveyed,
not that of solidity.
The prophet Amos uses yet another parallel. "It is He that buildeth His
stories in the heaven." While Isaiah speaks of the entire stellar
universe as the tent or pavilion of Jehovah, Amos likens the height of
the heavens as the steps up to His throne; the "stories" are the
"ascent," as Moses speaks of the "ascent of Akrabbim," and David makes
"the ascent" of the Mount of Olives. The Hebrews cannot have regarded
the heavens as, literally, both staircase and reservoir.
The firmament, _i. e._ the atmosphere, is spoken of as dividing between
the waters that are under the firmament, _i. e._ oceans, seas, rivers,
etc., from the waters that are above the firmament, _i. e._ the masses
of water vapour carried by the atmosphere, seen in the clouds, and
condensing from them as rain. We get the very same expression as this of
the "waters which were above" in the Psalm of Praise:--
"Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens,
And ye waters that be above the heavens;"
and again in the Song of the Three Children:--
"O all ye waters that be above the heaven, bless ye the Lord."
In the later books of the Bible the subject of the circulation of water
through the atmosphere is referred to much more fully. Twice over the
prophet Amos describes Jehovah as "He that calleth for the waters of the
sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth." This is not
merely a reference to the tides, for the Preacher in the book of
Ecclesiastes expressly points out that "all the rivers run into the sea,
yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come,
thither they return again"; and Isaiah seems to employ something of the
same thought:
"For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and
returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it
bring forth and bud, and giveth seed to the sower and bread to
the eater."
Schiaparelli indeed argues that this very passage from Isaiah "expressly
excludes any idea of an atmospheric circulation of waters"[41:1] on the
ground that the water so falling is thought to be transmuted into seeds
and fruits. But surely the image is as true as it is beautiful! The rain
is absorbed by vegetation, and is transmuted into seeds and fruit, and
it would go hard to say that the same particles of rain are again
evaporated and taken up afresh into the clouds. Besides, if we complete
the quotation we find that what is stated is that the rain does not
return _until_ it has accomplished its purpose:--
"So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it
shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that
which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I
sent it."
Elihu describes the process of evaporation precisely:--
"Behold, God is great, and we know Him not;
The number of His years is unsearchable.
For He draweth up the drops of water,
Which distil in rain from His vapour:
Which the skies pour down
And drop upon man abundantly."
Throughout the books of Holy Scripture, the connection between the
clouds and the rain is clearly borne in mind. Deborah says in her song
"the clouds dropped water." In the Psalms there are many references. In
lxxvii. 17, "The clouds poured out water;" in cxlvii. 8, "Who covereth
the heaven with clouds, Who prepareth rain for the earth." Proverbs xvi.
15, "His favour is as a cloud of the latter rain." The Preacher says
that "clouds return after the rain"; and Isaiah, "I will also command
the clouds that they rain no rain upon it"; and Jude, "Clouds they are
without water, carried about of winds."
The clouds, too, were not conceived as being heavy. Nahum says that "the
clouds are the dust of His feet," and Isaiah speaks of "a cloud of dew
in the heat of harvest." The Preacher clearly understood that "the
waters above" were not pent in by solid barriers; that they were
carried by the clouds; for "if the clouds be full of rain, they empty
themselves upon the earth." And Job says of Jehovah, "He bindeth up the
waters in His thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them;" and,
later, Jehovah Himself asks:--
"Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds,
That abundance of waters may cover thee?
* * * * *
Who can number the clouds by wisdom,
Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven?"
The Hebrews, therefore, were quite aware that the waters of the sea were
drawn up into the atmosphere by evaporation, and were carried by it in
the form of clouds. No doubt their knowledge in this respect, as in
others, was the growth of time. But there is no need to suppose that,
even in the earlier stages of their development, the Hebrews thought of
the "waters that be above the heavens" as contained in a literal cistern
overhead. Still less is there reason to adopt Prof. Schiaparelli's
strange deduction: "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 firmament, a space
where are the storehouses of rain, hail, and snow."[43:1] There seems to
be nowhere in Scripture the slightest hint or suggestion of any such
second vault; certainly not in the beautiful passage to which Prof.
Schiaparelli is here referring.
"Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
And as for darkness, where is the place thereof;
That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof,
And that thou shouldst discern the paths to the house thereof.
* * * * *
Hast thou entered the treasuries of the snow,
Or hast thou seen the treasuries of the hail,
Which I have reserved against the time of trouble,
Against the day of battle and war?
By what way is the light parted,
Or the east wind scattered upon the earth?
Who hath cleft a channel for the water-flood,
Or a way for the lightning of the thunder;
* * * * *
Hath the rain a father?
Or who hath begotten the drops of dew?
Out of whose womb came the ice?
And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?"
The Song of David, Psalm xviii., clearly shows that its writer held no
fantasy of a solidly built cistern of waters in the sky, but thought of
the "dark waters" in the heavens, as identical with the "thick clouds."
The passage is worth quoting at some length, not merely as supplying a
magnificent word picture of a storm, but as showing the free and
courageous spirit of the Hebrew poet, a spirit more emancipated than can
be found in any other nation of antiquity. It was not only the gentler
aspect of nature that attracted him; even for its most terrible, he had
a sympathy, rising, under the influence of his strong faith in God, into
positive exultation in it.
"In my distress I called upon the Lord,
And cried unto my God:
He heard my voice out of His temple,
And my cry before Him came into His ears.
Then the earth shook and trembled,
The foundations also of the mountains moved
And were shaken, because He was wroth.
There went up a smoke out of His nostrils,
And fire out of His mouth devoured:
Coals were kindled by it.
He bowed the heavens also, and came down;
And thick darkness was under His feet.
And He rode upon a cherub, and did fly:
Yea, He flew swiftly upon the wings of the wind.
He made darkness His hiding place,
His pavilion round about Him;
Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.
At the brightness before Him His thick clouds passed,
Hailstones and coals of fire.
The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
And the Most High uttered His voice;
Hailstones and coals of fire.
And He sent out His arrows, and scattered them;
Yea lightnings manifold, and discomfited them.
Then the channels of waters appeared,
And the foundations of the world were laid bare,
At Thy rebuke, O Lord,
At the blast of the breath of Thy nostrils.
He sent from on high, He took me;
He drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy,
And from them that hated me, for they were too mighty for me."
Two other passages point to the circulation of water vapour upward from
the earth before its descent as rain; one in the prophecy of Jeremiah,
the other, almost identical with it, in Psalm cxxxv. 7: "When He
uttereth His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and He
causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; He maketh
lightnings for the rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of His
treasuries." Here we get a hint of a close observing of nature among
the Hebrews. For by the foreshortening that clouds undergo in the
distance, they inevitably appear to form chiefly on the horizon, "at the
ends of the earth," whence they move upwards towards the zenith.
A further reference to clouds reveals not observation only but acute
reflection, though it leaves the mystery without solution. "Dost thou
know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of Him Which is
perfect in knowledge?" There is a deep mystery here, which science is
far from having completely solved, how it is that the clouds float, each
in its own place, at its own level; each perfectly "balanced" in the
thin air.
"That mist which lies in the morning so softly in the valley,
level and white, through which the tops of the trees rise as
if through an inundation--why is _it_ so heavy? and why does
it lie so low, being yet so thin and frail that it will melt
away utterly into splendour of morning, when the sun has shone
on it but a few moments more? Those colossal pyramids, huge
and firm, with outlines as of rocks, and strength to bear the
beating of the high sun full on their fiery flanks--why are
_they_ so light--their bases high over our heads, high over
the heads of Alps? why will these melt away, not as the sun
rises, but as he descends, and leave the stars of twilight
clear, while the valley vapour gains again upon the earth like
a shroud?"[46:1]
The fact of the "balancing" has been brought home to us during the past
hundred years very vividly by the progress of aërial navigation.
Balloons are objects too familiar even to our children to cause them any
surprise, and every one knows how instantly a balloon, when in the
air, rises up higher if a few pounds of ballast are thrown out, or sinks
if a little of the gas is allowed to escape. We know of no balancing
more delicate than this, of a body floating in the air.
[Illustration: CIRRUS FROM SOUTH KENSINGTON, 1906, MAY 29.]
[Illustration: CUMULI FROM TUNBRIDGE WELLS, 1906, MAY 20.
(Photographs of clouds, taken by Dr. W. J. S. Lockyer.)
"Dost thou know the balancing of the clouds?"]
"The spreadings of the clouds," mentioned by Elihu are of the same
nature as their "balancings," but the expression is less remarkable. The
"spreading" is a thing manifest to all, but it required the mind both of
a poet and a man of science to appreciate that such spreading involved a
delicate poising of each cloud in its place.
The heavy rain which fell at the time of the Deluge is indeed spoken of
as if it were water let out of a reservoir by its floodgates,--"the
windows of heaven were opened;" but it seems to show some dulness on the
part of an objector to argue that this expression involves the idea of a
literal stone built reservoir with its sluices. Those who have actually
seen tropical rain in full violence will find the Scriptural phrase not
merely appropriate but almost inevitable. The rain does indeed fall like
hitherto pent-up waters rushing forth at the opening of a sluice, and it
seems unreasonable to try to place too literal an interpretation upon so
suitable a simile.
There is the less reason to insist upon this very matter-of-fact
rendering of the "windows of heaven," that in two out of the three
connections in which it occurs, the expression is certainly used
metaphorically. On the occasion of the famine in the city of Samaria,
Elisha prophesied that--
"To-morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be
sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in
the gate of Samaria. Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned
answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the Lord would
make windows in heaven, might this thing be?"
So again Malachi exhorted the Jews after the Return from Babylon:--
"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may
be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the
Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven,
and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room
enough to receive it."
In neither case can the "windows of heaven" have been meant by the
speaker to convey the idea of the sluice-gates of an actual,
solidly-built reservoir in the sky.
One other cloud fact--their dissipation as the sun rises high in the
heavens--is noticed in one of the most tender and pathetic passages in
all the prophetic Scriptures. The Lord, by the mouth of Hosea, is
mourning over the instability of His people. "O Ephraim, what shall I do
unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? For your goodness is as a
morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away."
The winds of heaven were considered as four in number, corresponding to
our own four "cardinal points." Thus the great horn of Daniel's he-goat
was broken and succeeded by four notable horns toward the four winds of
heaven; as the empire of Alexander the Great was divided amongst his
four generals. In Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones the prophet prays,
"Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain;" and
Jeremiah foretells that "the four winds from the four quarters of
heaven" shall be brought upon Elam, and scatter its outcasts into every
nation.
The circulation of the winds is clearly set forth by the Preacher in the
Book of Ecclesiastes.
"The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the
north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth
again according to his circuits."
Of the four quarters, the Hebrews reckoned the east as first. It was to
the east that they supposed themselves always looking. The chief word
for east, therefore, _kedem_, means "that which is before," "the front";
and the word next in use is, naturally, _mizrach_, the rising of the
sun. The west is, as naturally, _meb[=o] hasshemesh_, the going down of
the sun; but as the Mediterranean Sea lay to the westward of Palestine
"the sea" (_yam_) is frequently put instead of that point of the
compass. With the east in front, the south becomes the right, and the
north the left. The south also was _negeb_, the desert, since the desert
shut in Palestine to the south, as the sea to the west. In opposition to
_tsaphon_, the dark or hidden north, the south is _darom_, the bright
and sunny region.
The phrase "four corners of the earth" does not imply that the Hebrews
thought of the earth as square. Several expressions on the contrary show
that they thought of it as circular. The Lord "sitteth upon the circle
of the earth," and in another passage the same form is applied to the
ocean. "He set a compass (_margin_ circle) upon the face of the depth."
This circle is no doubt the circle of the visible horizon, within which
earth and sea are spread out apparently as a plain; above it "the vault
of heaven" (Job xxii. 14; R.V. _margin_) is arched. There does not
appear to be allusion, anywhere in Scripture, to the spherical form of
the earth.
The Hebrew knowledge of the extent of the terrestrial plain was of
course very limited, but it would seem that, like many other nations of
antiquity, they supposed that the ocean occupied the outer part of the
circle surrounding the land which was in the centre. This may be
inferred from Job's statement--
"He hath described a boundary upon the face of the waters,
Unto the confines of light and darkness."
The boundary of the world is represented as being "described," or more
properly "circumscribed," drawn as a circle, upon the ocean. This ocean
is considered as essentially one, exactly as by actual exploration we
now know it to be;--"Let the waters under the heaven be gathered
together unto one place;"--all the oceans and seas communicate.
Beneath the earth there are the waters. The Lord hath founded the world
"upon the seas, and established it upon the floods," and (Psalm cxxxvi.
6) "stretched out the earth above the waters." This for the most part
means simply that the water surface lies lower than the land surface.
But there are waters,--other than those of the ocean,--which are, in a
strict sense, beneath the earth; the subterranean waters, which though
in the very substance of the earth, and existing there in an altogether
different way from the great masses of water we see upon the surface,
form a water system, which may legitimately be termed a kind of ocean
underground. From these subterranean waters our springs issue forth, and
it is these waters we tap in our wells. Of the cedar in Lebanon Ezekiel
spoke: "The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her
rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers
(_margin_, conduits) unto all the trees of the field." The "deep,"
_teh[=o]m_, applies therefore, not merely to the restless waters of the
ocean, but to these unseen waters as well; and means, not merely
"surging waters," but depths of any kind. When in the great Deluge the
floodgates of heaven were opened, these "fountains of the great deep
were broken up" as well. And later both fountains and windows were
"stopped." So the Lord asks Job, "Hast thou entered into the springs of
the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?" and in
Proverbs it is said of the Lord, "By His knowledge the depths are broken
up, and the clouds drop down the dew."
The tides upon the sea-coast of Palestine are very slight, but some have
seen a reference to them in Jer. v. 22 where the Lord says, I "have
placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it
cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can
they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it." More
probably the idea to be conveyed is merely that of the restraint of the
sea to its proper basin, as in the passage where the Lord asks Job, "Who
shut up the sea with doors when it brake forth, as if it had issued out
of the womb?" And the writer of Proverbs sums all up:--
"When He prepared the heavens I [Wisdom] was there: when He
set a compass upon the face of the depth: when He established
the clouds above: when He strengthened the fountains of the
deep: when He gave to the sea His decree, that the waters
should not pass His commandment: when He appointed the
foundations of the earth."
FOOTNOTES:
[41:1] _Astronomy in the Old Testament_, p. 33 note.
[43:1] _Astronomy in the Old Testament_, p. 32.
[46:1] Ruskin, _Modern Painters_, part vii. chap. i.
CHAPTER V
THE ORDINANCES OF THE HEAVENS
As has been already pointed out, the astronomical references in
Scripture are not numerous, and probably give but an inadequate idea of
the actual degree of progress attained by the Hebrews in astronomical
science. Yet it is clear, even from the record which we have, that there
was one great astronomical fact which they had observed, and that it had
made a deep impression upon them.
That fact was the sublime Order of the heavenly movements. First amongst
these was the order of the daily progress of the sun; rising in the east
and moving slowly, majestically, and resistlessly upward to the
meridian,--the "midst" or "bisection" of heaven, of Josh. x. 13,--and
then passing downwards as smoothly and unfalteringly to his setting in
the west.
This motion of the sun inspires the simile employed by the Psalmist in
the astronomical psalm, the nineteenth. He sings--
"The heavens declare the glory of God.
* * * * *
In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun,
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
And rejoiceth as a strong man to run his course.
His going forth is from the end of the heaven,
And his circuit unto the ends of it:
And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof."
The night revealed another Order, in its way more majestic still. As the
twilight faded away the bright and silent watchers of the heavens
mustered each in his place. And each, like the sun during the day, was
moving, slowly, majestically, resistlessly, "without haste, without
rest." Each had its appointed place, its appointed path. Some moved in
small circles in the north; some rose in the east, and swept in long
curves over towards their setting in the west, some scarcely lifted
themselves above the southern horizon. But each one kept its own place.
None jostled another, or hurried in advance, or lagged behind. It is no
wonder that as the multitude of the stars was observed, and the unbroken
order of their going, that the simile suggested itself of an army on the
march--"the host of heaven." And the sight of the unbroken order of
these bright celestial orbs suggested a comparison with the unseen army
of exalted beings, the angels; the army or host of heaven in another
sense, marshalled, like the stars, in perfect obedience to the Divine
will. So in the vision of Micaiah, the son of Imlah, the "host of
heaven" are the thousands of attendant spirits waiting around the throne
of God to fulfil His bidding.
"I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of
heaven standing by him on His right hand and on His left."
But more frequently it is the starry, not the angelic, army to which
reference is made.
So Jeremiah prophesies--
"As the host of heaven cannot be numbered,
Neither the sand of the sea measured:
So will I multiply the seed of David My servant,
And the Levites that minister unto Me."
The prophets of Israel recognized clearly, that the starry host of
heaven and the angelic host were distinct; that the first, in their
brightness, order, and obedience formed fitting comparison for the
second; but that both were created beings; neither were divinities.
The heathen nations around recognized also the hosts both of the stars
and of spiritual beings, but the first they took as the manifestations
of the second, whom they counted as divinities. There was often a great
confusion between the two, and the observance or worship of the first
could not be kept distinguished from the recognition or worship of the
other; the very ideogram for a god was an 8-rayed star.
The Hebrews were warned again and again lest, confusing in their minds
these two great hosts of stars and angels, they should deem the one the
divine manifestation of the other, the divinity, not accounting them
both fellow-servants, the handiwork of God.
Thus, in the wilderness, the Lord commands them through Moses--
"Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves, . . . lest thou
lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun,
and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven,
shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the
Lord thy God hath divided [distributed] unto all nations under
the whole heaven."
But the one celestial army continually suggests the other, and the two
are placed in the closest parallelism when reference is made to the time
when the foundations of the earth were fastened, and the corner stone
thereof was laid,
"When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy."
So when Deborah sings of the deliverance which the Lord gave to Israel
at the battle of the Kishon, she puts the stars for the angelic legions
that she feels assured were engaged in warring in their support.
"They fought from heaven;
The stars in their courses fought against Sisera."
The "courses" of the stars are the paths which they appear to follow as
they move round the pole of the heavens as the night proceeds, whilst
the stars themselves stand for the heavenly helpers who, unseen, had
mingled in the battle and discomforted the squadrons of Sisera's
war-chariots. It almost reads as if to Deborah had been vouchsafed such
a vision as Elisha prayed might be given to his servant:--
"Therefore sent the King of Syria thither horses, and
chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and
compassed the city about.
"And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and
gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with
horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my
master! how shall we do?
"And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more
than they that be with them.
"And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray Thee, open his
eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the
young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of
horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."
The solemn procession of the starry host through the long night--the
rising in the east, the southing, and the setting in the west--is not
the only ordered movement of the stars of heaven that may be recognized.
As night by night brightens to its dawn, if we watch the eastern horizon
and note what stars are the last to rise above it before the growing
daylight overpowers the feeble stellar rays, then we see that some
bright star, invisible on the preceding mornings, shines out for a few
moments low down in the glimmer of the dawn. As morning succeeds morning
it rises earlier, until at last it mounts when it is yet dark, and some
other star takes its place as the herald of the rising sun. We recognize
to-day this "heliacal rising" of the stars. Though we do not make use of
it in our system of time-measuring, it played an important part in the
calendar-making of the ancients. Such heralds of the rising sun were
called "morning stars" by the Hebrews, and they used them "for seasons"
and "for years." One star or constellation of stars would herald by its
"heliacal rising" the beginning of spring, another the coming of winter;
the time to plough, the time to sow, the time of the rains, would all be
indicated by the successive "morning stars" as they appeared. And after
an interval of three hundred and sixty-five or three hundred and
sixty-six days the same star would again show itself as a morning star
for a second time, marking out the year, whilst the other morning stars
would follow, each in its due season. So we read in Job, that God led
"forth the Mazzaroth in their season."
This wonderful procession of the midnight sky is not known and admired
by those who live in walled cities and ceiled houses, as it is by those
who live in the open, in the wilderness. It is not therefore to be
wondered at, that we find praise of these "works of the Lord . . .
sought out of all them that have pleasure therein," mostly amongst the
shepherds, the herdsmen, the wanderers in the open--in the words and
prophecies of Job, of Jacob, Moses, David and Amos.
The thought that each new day, beginning with a new outburst of light,
was, in its degree, a kind of new creation, an emblem of the original
act by which the world was brought into being, renders appropriate and
beautiful the ascription of the term "morning stars" to those "sons of
God," the angels. As the stars in the eastern sky are poetically thought
of as "singing together" to herald the creation of each new day, so in
the verses already quoted from the Book of Job, the angels of God are
represented as shouting for joy when the foundations of the earth were
laid.
The "morning star" again stands as the type and earnest of that new
creation which God has promised to His servants. The epistle to Thyatira
concludes with the promise--"He that overcometh, and keepeth my works
unto the end, . . . I will give him the morning star."
The brightest of these heralds of the sun is the planet Venus, and such
a "morning star" for power, glory, and magnificence, the king of
Babylon had once been; like one of the angels of God. But as addressed
in Isaiah's prophecy, he has been brought down to Sheol:--
"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
morning!. . . For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend
into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God
. . . I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be
like the most High."
But the "morning star" is taken as a higher type, even of our Lord
Himself, and of His future coming in glory. St. Peter bids the
disciples, to whom he writes, take heed unto the word of prophecy as
unto a lamp shining in a dark place "until the day dawn, and the Day
star arise in your hearts." In almost the last words of the Bible, the
Lord uses the same image Himself:--
"I, Jesus, have sent Mine angel to testify unto you these
things in the Churches. I am the root and the offspring of
David, the bright and morning star."
In the sublime and ordered movements of the various heavenly bodies, the
Hebrews recognized the ordinances of God. The point of view always taken
in Scripture is the theo-centric one; the relation sought to be brought
out is not the relation of thing to thing--which is the objective of
physical science--but the relation of creature to Creator. We have no
means of knowing whether they made attempt to find any mechanical
explanation of the movements; such inquiry would lie entirely outside
the scope of the books of Holy Scripture, and other ancient Hebrew
literature has not been transmitted to us.
The lesson which the Psalmists and the Prophets desired to teach was
not the daily rotation of the earth upon its axis, nor its yearly
revolution round the sun, but that--
"If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord,
then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation
before Me for ever."
In the Bible all intermediate steps are omitted, and the result is
linked immediately to the first Cause. God Himself is the theme, and
trust in Him the lesson.
"Lift up your eyes on high, and see Who hath created these,
That bringeth out their host by number: He calleth them all by
name; by the greatness of His might, and for that He is strong
in power, not one is lacking.
"Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is
hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed away from my God.
Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard? the everlasting God,
the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not,
neither is weary; there is no searching of His understanding.
He giveth power to the faint; and to him that hath no might He
increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon
the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with
wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall
walk, and not faint."
CHAPTER VI
THE SUN
"And God said Let there be lights in the firmament of the
heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for
signs, and for seasons and for days, and years: and let them
be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light
upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights;
the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to
rule the night: He made the stars also. And God set them in
the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and
to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the
light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the
evening and the morning were the fourth day."
A double purpose for the two great heavenly bodies is indicated
here,--first, the obvious one of giving light; next, that of time
measurement. These, from the human and practical point of view, are the
two main services which the sun and moon render to us, and naturally
sufficed for the object that the writer had before him. There is no
evidence that he had any idea that the moon simply shone by reflecting
the light of the sun; still less that the sun was a light for worlds
other than our own; but if he had known these facts we can hardly
suppose that he would have mentioned them; there would have been no
purpose to be served by so doing.
But it is remarkable that no reference is made either to the
incalculable benefits conferred by the action of the sun in ripening the
fruits of the earth, or to the services of the moon as a time-measurer,
in dividing off the months. Both these actions are clearly indicated
later on in the Scriptures, where Moses, in the blessing which he
pronounced upon the tribe of Joseph, prayed that his land might be
blessed "for the precious things of the fruits of the sun," so that we
may take their omission here, together with the omission of all mention
of the planets, and the slight parenthetical reference to the stars, as
indicating that this chapter was composed at an exceedingly early date.
The chief purpose of the sun is to give light; it "rules" or regulates
the day and "divides the light from the darkness." As such it is the
appropriate emblem of God Himself, Who "is Light, and in Him is no
darkness at all." These images are frequently repeated in the
Scriptures, and it is only possible to give a few instances. David
sings, "The Lord is my light and my salvation." "The Lord shall be unto
thee an everlasting light," is the promise made to Zion. St. John
expressly uses the term of the Son of God, our Lord: "That was the true
Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Whilst the
more concrete emblem is used as often. In the eighty-fourth psalm, the
psalm of pilgrimage, we read, "The Lord God is a sun and shield;"
Malachi predicts that "the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with
healing in His wings," and St James, with the same thought of the sun in
his mind, speaks of God as "the Father of lights."
But in none of these or the other parallel passages is there the
remotest approach to any deification of the sun, or even of that most
ethereal of influences, light itself. Both are creatures, both are made
by God; they are things and things only, and are not even the shrines of
a deity. They may be used as emblems of God in some of His attributes;
they do not even furnish any indication of His special presence, for He
is equally present where sun and light are not. "The darkness hideth not
from Thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light
are both alike to Thee."
The worship of the sun and of other heavenly bodies is one of the sins
most unsparingly denounced in Scripture. It was one of the first
warnings of the Book of Deuteronomy that Israel as a people were to take
heed "lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the
sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest
be driven to worship them and serve them," and the utter overthrow of
the nation was foretold should they break this law. And as for the
nation, so for the individual, any "man or woman that hath wrought
wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing His
covenant and hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them,
either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven" was when
convicted of working "such abomination" unsparingly to be put to death.
Yet with all this, sun-worship prevailed in Israel again and again. Two
of the reforming kings of Judah, Asa and Josiah, found it necessary to
take away "the sun-images;" indeed, the latter king found that the
horses and chariots which his predecessors, Manasseh and Amon, had
dedicated to sun worship were kept at the very entrance to the temple.
In spite of his reformation, however, the evil spread until the final
corruption of Jerusalem was shown in vision to Ezekiel, "Seventy men of
the ancients"--that is the complete Sanhedrim--offered incense to
creeping things and abominable beasts; the women wept for Tammuz,
probably the sun-god in his decline to winter death; and deepest
apostasy of all, five and twenty men, the high-priest, and the chief
priests of the twenty-four courses, "with their backs toward the temple
of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the
sun toward the east." The entire nation, as represented in its chief
members in State, Society, and Church, was apostate, and its ruin
followed. Five years more and the temple was burned and Jerusalem
destroyed, and in captivity and exile the nation learned to abhor the
idolatry that had brought about its overthrow.
Four words are translated "sun" in our Authorized Version. Of these one,
used Job xxxi. 26, should really be "light," as in the margin--"If I
beheld the light when it shined,"--though the sun is obviously meant.
The second word is one used in poetry chiefly in conjunction with a
poetical word for the moon, and refers to the sun's warmth, as the other
does to the whiteness of the moon. Thus the Bride in the Song of Solomon
is described as "fair as the moon, clear as the sun." The third word
has given use to some ambiguity. In the eighth chapter of Judges in the
Authorized Version, it is stated that "Gideon, the son of Joash,
returned from the battle before the sun was up," but in the Revised
Version that he "returned from the battle from the ascent of Heres."
There was a mount [H.]eres, a mount of the sun, in the portion of the
Danites held by the Amorites, but that cannot have been the [H.]eres of
Gideon. Still the probability is that a mount sacred to the sun is meant
here as well as in the reference to the Danites; though _[h.]eres_ as
meaning the sun itself occurs in the story of Samson's riddle, for the
men of the city gave him the answer to it which they had extorted from
his wife, "before the sun (_[h.]eres_) went down." _Shemesh_, the
_Samas_ of the Babylonians, is the usual word for the sun; and we find
it in Beth-shemesh, the "house of the sun," a Levitical city within the
tribe of Judah, the scene of the return of the ark after its captivity
amongst the Philistines. There was another Beth-shemesh in Naphtali on
the borders of Issachar, and Jeremiah prophesies that Nebuchadnezzar
"shall break also the images of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of
Egypt," probably the obelisks of the sun in On, or Heliopolis. It was
from this city that Joseph, when vizier of Egypt, took his wife, the
daughter of the high priest there. The images of the sun, and of Baal as
the sun-god, seem to have been obelisks or pillars of stone, and hence
had to be "broken down"; whilst the Asherah, the "groves" of the
Authorized Version, the images of Ashtoreth as the moon-goddess, were
wooden pillars, to be "cut" or "hewn down."
Another "city of the sun" in the land of Egypt is also mentioned by
Isaiah, in his prophecy of the conversion and restoration of the
Egyptians. "Five cities in the land of Egypt shall speak the language of
Canaan, and swear to the Lord of hosts; one shall be called The city of
destruction;" lit. of _[H.]eres_, or of the sun. It was upon the
strength of this text that Onias, the son of Onias the high priest,
appealed to Ptolemy Philometer to be allowed to build a temple to
Jehovah in the prefecture of Heliopolis (the city of the sun), and
obtained his permission to do so, B.C. 149.[68:1]
The epithet applied to the sun in Cant. vi. already quoted, "Clear as
the sun," may be taken as equivalent to "spotless." That is its ordinary
appearance to the naked eye, though from time to time--far more
frequently than most persons have any idea--there are spots upon the sun
sufficiently large to be seen without any optical assistance. Thus in
the twenty years from 1882 to 1901 inclusive, such a phenomenon occurred
on the average once in each week. No reference to the existence of
sun-spots occurs in Scripture. Nor is this surprising, for it would not
have fallen within the purpose of Scripture to record such a fact. But
it is surprising that whilst the Chinese detected their occasional
appearance, there is no distinct account of such an observation given
either on Babylonian tablets or by classical or mediæval writers.
The achievement of the Chinese in this direction is very notable, for
the difficulty of looking directly at the sun, under ordinary
circumstances is so great, and the very largest sunspots are so small as
compared with the entire disc, that it argues great perseverance in
watching such appearances on the part of the Chinese, for them to have
assured themselves that they were not due to very small distant clouds
in our own atmosphere.
It has often been the subject of comment that light is mentioned in Gen.
i. as having been created on the first day, but the sun not until the
fourth. The order is entirely appropriate from an astronomical point of
view, for we know that our sun is not the only source of light, since it
is but one out of millions of stars, many of which greatly exceed it in
splendour. Further, most astronomers consider that our solar system
existed as a luminous nebula long ages before the sun was formed as a
central condensation.
But the true explanation of the creation of light being put first is
probably this--that there might be no imagining that, though gross solid
bodies, like earth and sea, sun and moon might require a Creator, yet
something so ethereal and all-pervading as light was self-existent, and
by its own nature, eternal. This was a truth that needed to be stated
first. God is light, but light is not God.
The other references to the sun in Scripture do not call for much
comment. Its apparent unchangeableness qualifies it for use as an
expression for eternal duration, as in the seventy-second, the Royal,
Psalm, "They shall fear Thee as long as the sun and moon endure;" and
again, "His name shall endure for ever: His name shall be continued as
long as the sun." And again, in the eighty-ninth Psalm, it is said of
David: "His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before
Me."
The daily course of the sun from beyond the eastern horizon to beyond
the western gives the widest expression for the compass of the whole
earth. "The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the
earth, from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof." "From
the rising of the sun, unto the going down of the same, the Lord's name
is to be praised." The sun's rays penetrate everywhere. "His going forth
is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and
there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." Whilst in the Book of
Ecclesiastes, the melancholy words of the Preacher revert over and over
again to that which is done "under the sun." "What profit hath a man of
all his labour which he taketh under the sun?"
It should be noted that this same Book of Ecclesiastes shows a much
clearer idea of the sun's daily apparent motion than was held by many of
the writers of antiquity. There is, of course, nowhere in Scripture any
mention of the rotation of the earth on its axis as the mechanical
explanation of the sun's daily apparent motion; any more than we should
refer to it ourselves to-day except when writing from a purely technical
point of view. As said already, the Hebrews had probably not discovered
this explanation, and would certainly have not gone out of their way to
mention it in any of their Scriptures if they had.
One passage of great beauty has sometimes been quoted as if it contained
a reference to the earth's rotation, but when carefully examined it is
seen to be dealing simply with the apparent motion of the sun in the
course of the year and of the day.
"Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days;
And caused the dayspring to know his place;
That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,
That the wicked might be shaken out of it?
It is turned as clay to the seal;
And they stand as a garment."
The earth appears to be spoken of as being "turned" to the sun, the
dayspring; and this, we know, takes place, morning by morning, in
consequence of the diurnal rotation. But the last two lines are better
rendered in the Revised Version--
"It is changed as clay under the seal;
And _all things_ stand forth as a garment."
The ancient seals were cylinders, rolled over the clay, which, formless
before, took upon it the desired relief as the seal passed over it. So a
garment, laid aside and folded up during the night, is shapeless, but
once again takes form when the wearer puts it on. And the earth,
formless in the darkness, gains shape and colour and relief with the
impress upon it of the morning light.
It is quite clear that the Hebrews did not suppose that it was a new sun
that came up from the east each morning, as did Xenophanes and the
Epicureans amongst the Greeks. It was the same sun throughout. Nor is
there any idea of his hiding himself behind a mysterious mountain during
the night. "The sun," the Preacher tells us, "ariseth and the sun goeth
down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." The Hebrew was quite
aware that the earth was unsupported in space, for he knew that the Lord
"stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth
upon nothing." There was therefore nothing to hinder the sun passing
freely under the earth from west to east, and thus making his path, not
a mere march onward ending in his dissolution at sunset, but a complete
"circuit," as noted by the writer of the nineteenth Psalm.
The fierceness of the sun's heat in Palestine rendered sun-stroke a
serious danger. The little son of the Shunammite was probably so smitten
as he watched his father at work with the reapers. So the promise is
given to God's people more than once: "The sun shall not smite thee by
day." "They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun
smite them." The martyrs who pass through the great tribulation "shall
hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on
them, nor any heat."
There are fewer references in Scripture to the vivifying effects of
sunlight upon vegetation than we might have expected. The explanation is
possibly to be found in the terrible perversion men had made of the
benefits which came to them by means of this action of sunlight, by
using them as an excuse for plunging into all kinds of nature-worship.
Yet there are one or two allusions not without interest. As already
mentioned, "the precious fruits brought forth by the sun" were promised
to the tribe of Joseph, whilst the great modern discovery that nearly
every form of terrestrial energy is derived ultimately from the energy
of the sun's rays gives a most striking appropriateness to the imagery
made use of by St. James.
"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and
cometh down from the Father of Lights, with Whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning."
God, that is to say, is the true Sun, the true Origin of all Lights, the
true bestower of every good and perfect gift. The word rendered
"variableness," is a technical word, used by ourselves in modern English
as "parallax," and employed in the Septuagint Version to denote the
revolutions of the heavenly bodies, described in the thirty-eighth
chapter of the book of Job, as "the ordinances of the heavens." With the
natural sun, therefore, there is "variableness," that is to say, real or
apparent change of place; there is none with God. Neither is there with
Him any darkness of eclipse; any "shadow" caused as in the case of the
material sun, by the "turning" of earth and moon in their orbits. The
knowledge of "the alternations of the turning of the sun," described in
the Book of Wisdom as a feature of the learning of Solomon, was a
knowledge of the laws of this "variableness" and "turning"; especially
of the "turning" of its rising and setting points at the two solstices;
and St. James may well have had that passage in his mind when he wrote.
For Science deals with the knowledge of things that change, as they
change, and of their changes, but Faith with the knowledge of Him that
abideth for ever, and it is to this higher knowledge that St. James
wished to point his readers.
Science deals with the knowledge of things that change, as they change
and of their changes. The physical facts that we have learned in the
last years about that changeful body the sun are briefly these:--
Its core or inner nucleus is not accessible to observation, its nature
and constitution being a mere matter of inference. The "photosphere" is
a shell of incandescent cloud surrounding the nucleus, but the depth, or
thickness of this shell is quite unknown. The outer surface--which we
see--of the photosphere is certainly pretty sharply defined, though very
irregular, rising at points into whiter aggregations, called "faculæ,"
and perhaps depressed at other places in the dark "spots." Immediately
above the photosphere lies the "reversing layer" in which are found the
substances which give rise to the gaps in the sun's spectrum--the
Fraunhofer lines. Above the "reversing layer" lies the scarlet
"chromosphere" with "prominences" of various forms and dimensions rising
high above the solar surface; and over, and embracing all, is the
"corona," with its mysterious petal-like forms and rod-like rays.
The great body of the sun is gaseous, though it is impossible for us to
conceive of the condition of the gaseous core, subjected, as it is, at
once to temperature and pressure both enormously great. Probably it is a
gas so viscous that it would resist motion as pitch or putty does. Nor
do we know much of the nature of either the sun-spots or the solar
corona. Both seem to be produced by causes which lie within the sun;
both undergo changes that are periodical and connected with each other.
They exercise some influence upon the earth's magnetism, but whether
this influence extends to terrestrial weather, to rainfall and storms,
is still a matter of controversy.
The sun itself is distant from the earth in the mean, about 92,885,000
miles, but this distance varies between January and June by 3,100,000
miles. The diameter of the sun is 866,400 miles, but perhaps this is
variable to the extent of some hundreds of miles. It would contain
1,305,000 times the bulk of the earth, but its mean density is but
one-quarter that of the earth. The force of gravity at its surface is
27-1/2 times that at the surface of the earth, and it rotates on its
axis in about 25 days. But the sun's surface does not appear to rotate
as a whole, so this time of rotating varies by as much as two days if we
consider a region on the sun's equator or at a distance from it of 45°.
The intensity of sunlight at the surface of the sun is about 190,000
times that of a candle-flame, and the effective temperature of the solar
surface is eight or ten thousand degrees centigrade.
Such are some of the facts about the sun that are received, or, as it
would be technically expressed, "adopted" to-day. Doubtless a very few
years will find them altered and rendered more accurate as observations
accumulate. In a few hundred years, knowledge of the constitution of the
sun may have so increased that these data and suggestions may seem so
erroneous as to be absurd. It is little more than a century since one of
the greatest of astronomers, Sir William Herschel, contended that the
central globe of the sun might be a habitable world, sheltered from the
blazing photosphere by a layer of cool non-luminous clouds. Such an
hypothesis was not incompatible with what was then known of the
constitution of the heavenly bodies, though it is incompatible with what
we know now. It was simply a matter on which more evidence was to be
accumulated, and the holding of such a view does not, and did not,
detract from the scientific status of Sir William Herschel.
The hypotheses of science require continual restatement in the light of
new evidence, and, as to the weight and interpretation to be given to
such evidence, there is continual conflict--if it may so be
called--between the old and the new science, between the science that is
established and the science that is being established. It is by this
conflict that knowledge is rendered sure.
Such a conflict took place rather more than 300 years ago at the opening
of the Modern Era of astronomy. It was a conflict between two schools of
science--between the disciples of Aristotle and Claudius Ptolemy on the
one hand and the disciples of Copernicus on the other. It has often been
represented as a conflict between religion and science, whereas that
which happened was that the representatives of the older school of
science made use of the powers of the Church to persecute the newer
school as represented by Galileo. That persecution was no doubt a
flagrant abuse of authority, but it should be impossible at the present
day for any one to claim a theological standing for either theory,
whether Copernican or Ptolemaic.
So long as evidence sufficient to demonstrate the Copernican hypothesis
was not forthcoming, it was possible for a man to hold the Ptolemaic,
without detracting from his scientific position, just as it is thought
no discredit to Sir William Herschel that he held his curious idea of a
cool sun under the conditions of knowledge of a hundred years ago. Even
at the present day, we habitually use the Ptolemaic phraseology. Not
only do we speak of "sunrise" and "sunset," but astronomers in strictly
technical papers use the expression, "acceleration of the sun's motion"
when "acceleration of the earth's motion" is meant.
The question as to whether the earth goes round the sun or the sun goes
round the earth has been decided by the accumulation of evidence. It was
a question for evidence to decide. It was an open question so long as
the evidence available was not sufficient to decide it. It was perfectly
possible at one time for a scientific or a religious man to hold either
view. Neither view interfered with his fundamental standing or with his
mental attitude towards either sun or earth. In this respect--important
as the question is in itself--it might be said to be a mere detail,
almost a matter of indifference.
But it is not a mere detail, a matter of indifference to either
scientist or religious man, as to what the sun and earth _are_--whether
he can treat them as things that can be weighed, measured, compared,
analyzed, as, a few pages back, we have shown has been done, or whether,
as one of the chief astrologers of to-day puts it, he--
"Believes that the sun is the body of the Logos of this solar
system, 'in Him we live and move and have our being.' The
planets are his angels, being modifications in the
consciousness of the Logos,"
and that the sun
"Stands as Power, having Love and Will united."
The difference between these two points of view is fundamental, and one
of root principle. The foundation, the common foundation on which both
the believer and the scientist build, is threatened by this false
science and false religion. The calling, the very existence of both is
assailed, and they must stand or fall together. The believer in one God
cannot acknowledge a Sun-god, a Solar Logos, these planetary angels; the
astronomer cannot admit the intrusion of planetary influences that obey
no known laws, and the supposed effects of which are in no way
proportional to the supposed causes. The Law of Causality does not run
within the borders of astrology.
It is the old antithesis restated of the Hebrew and the heathen. The
believer in one God and the scientist alike derive their heritage from
the Hebrew, whilst the modern astrologer claims that the astrology of
to-day is once more a revelation of the Chaldean and Assyrian religions.
But polytheism--whether in its gross form of many gods, of planetary
angels, or in the more subtle form of pantheism,--is the very negation
of sane religion; and astrology is the negation of sane astronomy.
"For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the
world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that
are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are
without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they
glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became
vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was
darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image
made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted
beasts, and creeping things."
FOOTNOTES:
[68:1] Josephus, _Antiquities_, XIII. iii. 1.
CHAPTER VII
THE MOON
"The balmy moon of blessed Israel
Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine:
All night the splintered crags that wall the dell
With spires of silver shine."
So, in Tennyson's words, sang Jephthah's daughter, as she recalled the
days of her mourning before she accomplished her self-sacrifice.
It is hard for modern dwellers in towns to realize the immense
importance of the moon to the people of old. "The night cometh when no
man can work" fitly describes their condition when she was absent. In
sub-tropical countries like Palestine, twilight is short, and, the sun
once set, deep darkness soon covers everything. Such artificial lights
as men then had would now be deemed very inefficient. There was little
opportunity, when once darkness had fallen, for either work or
enjoyment.
But, when the moon was up, how very different was the case. Then men
might say--
"This night, methinks, is but the daylight sick;
It looks a little paler: 'tis a day,
Such as the day is when the sun is hid."
In the long moonlit nights, travelling was easy and safe; the labours
of the field and house could still be carried on; the friendly feast
need not be interrupted. But of all men, the shepherd would most rejoice
at this season; all his toils, all his dangers were immeasurably
lightened during the nights near the full. As in the beautiful rendering
which Tennyson has given us of one of the finest passages in the
_Iliad_--
"In heaven the stars about the moon
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
And every height comes out, and jutting peak
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
Break open to their highest, and all the stars
Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart."
A large proportion of the people of Israel, long after their settlement
in Palestine, maintained the habits of their forefathers, and led the
shepherd's life. To them, therefore, the full of the moon must have been
of special importance; yet there is no single reference in Scripture to
this phase as such; nor indeed to any change of the moon's apparent
figure. In two cases in our Revised Version we do indeed find the
expression "at the full moon," but if we compare these passages with the
Authorized Version, we find them there rendered "in the time appointed,"
or "at the day appointed." This latter appears to be the literal
meaning, though there can be no question, as is seen by a comparison
with the Syriac, that the period of the full moon is referred to. No
doubt it was because travelling was so much more safe and easy than in
the moonless nights, that the two great spring and autumn festivals of
the Jews were held at the full moon. Indeed, the latter feast, when the
Israelites "camped out" for a week "in booths," was held at the time of
the "harvest moon." The phenomenon of the "harvest moon" may be briefly
explained as follows. At the autumnal equinox, when the sun is crossing
from the north side of the equator to the south, the full moon is
crossing from the south side of the equator to the north. It is thus
higher in the sky, when it souths, on each succeeding night, and is
therefore up for a greater length of time. This counterbalances to a
considerable extent its movement eastward amongst the stars, so that,
for several nights in succession, it rises almost at sundown. These
nights of the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel was rejoicing over
the ingathered fruits, each family in its tent or arbour of green
boughs, were therefore the fullest of moonlight in the year.[81:1]
Modern civilization has almost shut us off from the heavens, at least in
our great towns and cities. These offer many conveniences, but they
remove us from not a few of the beauties which nature has to offer. And
so it comes that, taking the population as a whole, there is perhaps
less practically known of astronomy in England to-day than there was
under the Plantagenets. A very few are astronomers, professional and
amateur, and know immeasurably more than our forefathers did of the
science. Then there is a large, more or less cultured, public that know
something of the science at secondhand through books. But the great
majority know nothing of the heavenly bodies except of the sun; they
need to "look in the almanack" to "find out moonshine." But to simpler
peoples the difference between the "light half" of the month, from the
first quarter to the last quarter through the full of the moon, and the
"dark half," from the last quarter to the first quarter, through new, is
very great. Indian astronomers so divide the month to this day.
In one passage of Holy Scripture, the description which Isaiah gives of
the "City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel," there is a
reference to the dark part of the month.
"Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon
(literally "month") withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be
thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be
ended."
The parallelism expressed in the verse lies between the darkness of
night whilst the sun is below the horizon, and the special darkness of
those nights when the moon, being near conjunction with the sun, is
absent from the sky during the greater part or whole of the night hours,
and has but a small portion of her disc illuminated. Just as half the
day is dark because the sun has withdrawn itself, so half the nights of
the month are dark because the moon has withdrawn itself.
The Hebrew month was a natural one, determined by actual observation of
the new moon. They used three words in their references to the moon, the
first of which, _chodesh_, derived from a root meaning "to be new,"
indicates the fact that the new moon, as actually observed, governed
their calendar. The word therefore signifies the new moon--the day of
the new moon: and thus a month; that is, a lunar month beginning at the
new moon. This is the Hebrew word used in the Deluge story in the
seventh chapter of Genesis; and in all references to feasts depending on
a day in the month. As when the Lord spake to Moses, saying, "Also in
the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings
of your months, ye shall blow with your trumpets over your burnt
offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings." And again
in the Psalm of Asaph to the chief musician upon Gittith: "Blow up the
trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast
day." This is the word also that Isaiah uses in describing the bravery
of the daughters of Zion, "the tinkling ornaments about their feet, and
their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the
bracelets." "The round tires" were not discs, like the full moon, but
were round like the crescent.
Generally speaking, _chodesh_ is employed where either reference is made
to the shape or newness of the crescent moon, or where "month" is used
in any precise way. This is the word for "month" employed throughout by
the prophet Ezekiel, who is so precise in the dating of his prophecies.
When the moon is mentioned as the lesser light of heaven, without
particular reference to its form, or when a month is mentioned as a
somewhat indefinite period of time, then the Hebrew word _yar[=e]ach_,
is used. Here the word has the root meaning of "paleness"; it is the
"silver moon."
_Yar[=e]ach_ is the word always used where the moon is classed among the
heavenly bodies; as when Joseph dreamed of the sun, the moon, and the
eleven constellations; or in Jer. viii. 2, where the Lord says that they
shall bring out the bones of the kings, princes, priests, prophets, and
inhabitants of Jerusalem, "and they shall spread them before the sun,
and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom
they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have
sought, and whom they have worshipped."
The same word is used for the moon in its character of "making
ordinances." Thus we have it several times in the Psalms: "He (the Lord)
appointed the moon for seasons." "His seed shall endure for ever, and
his throne as the sun before Me. It shall be established for ever as the
moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven." And again: "The moon and
stars rule by night;" whilst Jeremiah says, "Thus saith the Lord, Which
giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of
the stars for a light by night."
In all passages where reference seems to be made to the darkening or
withdrawing of the moon's light (Eccl. xii. 2; Isa. xiii. 10; Ezek.
xxxii. 7; Joel ii. 10, 31, and iii. 15; and Hab. iii. 11) the word
_yar[=e]ach_ is employed. A slight variant of the same word indicates
the month when viewed as a period of time not quite defined, and not in
the strict sense of a lunar month. This is the term used in Exod. ii. 2,
for the three months that the mother of Moses hid him when she saw that
he was a goodly child; by Moses, in his prophecy for Joseph, of "Blessed
of the Lord be his land . . . for the precious fruits brought forth by
the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the months." Such a
"full month of days" did Shallum the son of Jabesh reign in Samaria in
the nine and thirtieth year of Uzziah, king of Judah. Such also were the
twelve months of warning given to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
before his madness fell upon him. The same word is once used for a true
lunar month, viz. in Ezra vi. 15, when the building of the "house was
finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year
of the reign of Darius the king." In all other references to the months
derived from the Babylonians, such as the "month Chisleu" in Neh. i. 1,
the term _chodesh_ is used, since these, like the Hebrew months, were
defined by the observation of the new moon; but for the Tyrian months,
Zif, Bul, Ethanim, we find the term _yerach_ in three out of the four
instances.
In three instances a third word is used poetically to express the moon.
This is _lebanah_, which has the meaning of whiteness. In Song of Sol.
vi. 10, it is asked--
"Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the
moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?"
Isaiah also says--
"Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when
the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem,
and before His ancients gloriously."
And yet again--
"Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the
sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light
of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach
of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound."
It may not be without significance that each of these three passages,
wherein the moon is denominated by its name of whiteness or purity,
looks forward prophetically to the same great event, pictured yet more
clearly in the Revelation--
"And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as
the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty
thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent
reigneth.
"Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him: for the
marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself
ready.
"And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine
linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the
righteousness of saints."
_Chodesh_ and _yar[=e]ach_ are masculine words; _lebanah_ is feminine.
But nowhere throughout the Old Testament is the moon personified, and in
only one instance is it used figuratively to represent a person. This is
in the case of Jacob's reading of Joseph's dream, already referred to,
where he said--
"Behold I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and
the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me."
And his father quickly rebuked him, saying--
"What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy
mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to
thee to the earth?"
Here Jacob understands that the moon (_yar[=e]ach_) stands for a woman,
his wife. But in Mesopotamia, whence his grandfather Abraham had come
out, Sin, the moon-god, was held to be a male god, high indeed among the
deities at that time, and superior even to Samas, the sun-god. Terah,
the father of Abraham, was held by Jewish tradition to have been an
especial worshipper of the moon-god, whose great temple was in Haran,
where he dwelt.
Wherever the land of Uz may have been, at whatever period Job may have
lived, there and then it was an iniquity to worship the moon or the
moon-god. In his final defence to his friends, when the "three men
ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes," Job,
justifying his life, said--
"If I beheld the sun when it shined,
Or the moon walking in brightness;
And my heart hath been secretly enticed,
And my mouth hath kissed my hand:
This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judges:
For I should have lied to God that is above."
The Hebrews, too, were forbidden to worship the sun, the moon, or the
stars, the host of heaven, and disobeyed the commandment both early and
late in their history. When Moses spake unto all Israel on this side
Jordan in the wilderness in the plain over against the Red Sea, he said
to them--
"The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye
heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only
ye heard a voice. . . . Take ye therefore good heed unto
yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that
the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire:
"Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the
similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female. . . .
And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou
seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host
of heaven, shouldst be driven to worship them, and serve them,
which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the
whole heaven."
We know what the "similitude" of the sun and the moon were like among
the surrounding nations. We see their "hieroglyphs" on numberless seals
and images from the ruins of Nineveh or Babylon. That of the sun was
first a rayed star or disc, later a figure, rayed and winged. That of
the moon was a crescent, one lying on its back, like a bowl or cup, the
actual attitude of the new moon at the beginning of the new year. Just
such moon similitudes did the soldiers of Gideon take from off the
camels of Zebah and Zalmunna; just such were the "round tires like the
moon" that Isaiah condemns among the bravery of the daughters of Zion.
The similitude or token of Ashtoreth, the paramount goddess of the
Zidonians, was the _ashera_, the "grove" of the Authorized Version,
probably in most cases merely a wooden pillar. This goddess, "the
abomination of the Zidonians," was a moon-goddess, concerning whom
Eusebius preserves a statement by the Phoenician historian,
Sanchoniathon, that her images had the head of an ox. In the wars in
the days of Abraham we find Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with
him, smiting the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, that is, in the
Ashtoreths "of the horns." It is impossible to decide at this date
whether the horns which gave the distinctive title to this shrine of
Ashtoreth owed their origin to the horns of the animal merged in the
goddess, or to the horns of the crescent moon, with which she was to
some extent identified. Possibly there was always a confusion between
the two in the minds of her worshippers. The cult of Ashtoreth was
spread not only among the Hebrews, but throughout the whole plain of
Mesopotamia. In the times of the Judges, and in the days of Samuel, we
find continually the statement that the people "served Baalim and
Ashtaroth"--the plurals of Baal and Ashtoreth--these representing the
sun and moon, and reigning as king and queen in heaven. When the
Philistines fought with Saul at Mount Gilboa, and he was slain, they
stripped off his armour and put it "in the house of Ashtaroth." Yet
later we find that Solomon loved strange women of the Zidonians, who
turned his heart after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and he
built a high place for her on the right hand of the Mount of Olives,
which remained for some three and a half centuries, until Josiah, the
king, defiled it. Nevertheless, the worship of Ashtoreth continued, and
the prophet Jeremiah describes her cult:--
"The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire,
and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of
heaven."
This was done in the cities of Judah and streets of Jerusalem, but the
Jews carried the cult with them even when they fled into Egypt, and
whilst there they answered Jeremiah--
"We will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our
own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to
pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and
our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of
Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty
of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left
off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out
drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have
been consumed by the sword and by the famine."
_Ashtoreth_, according to Pinches[90:1] is evidently a lengthening of
the name of the Assyrio-Babylonian goddess I[vs]tar, and the Babylonian
legend of the Descent of I[vs]tar may well have been a myth founded on
the varying phases of the moon. But it must be remembered that, though
Ashtoreth or I[vs]tar might be the queen of heaven, the moon was not
necessarily the only aspect in which her worshippers recognized her. In
others, the planet Venus may have been chosen as her representative; in
others the constellation Taurus, at one time the leader of the Zodiac;
in others, yet again, the actual form of a material bull or cow.
The Hebrews recognized the great superiority in brightness of the sun
over the moon, as testified in their names of the "greater" and "lesser"
lights, and in such passages as that already quoted from Isaiah (xxx.
26). The word here used for moon is the poetic one, _lebanah_. Of course
no argument can be founded on the parallelism employed so as to lead to
the conclusion that the Hebrews considered that the solar light exceeded
the lunar by only seven times, instead of the 600,000 times indicated by
modern photometric measurement.
In only one instance in Scripture--that already quoted of the moon
withdrawing itself--is there even an allusion to the changing phases of
the moon, other than that implied in the frequent references to the new
moons. The appointment of certain feasts to be held on the fifteenth day
of the month is a confirmation of the supposition that their months were
truly lunar, for then the moon is fully lighted, and rides the sky the
whole night long from sunset to sunrise. It is clear, therefore, that
the Hebrews, not only noticed the phases of the moon, but made regular
use of them. Yet, if we adopted the argument from silence, we should
suppose that they had never observed its changes of shape, for there is
no direct allusion to them in Scripture. We cannot, therefore, argue
from silence as to whether or no they had divined the cause of those
changes, namely that the moon shines by reflecting the light of the sun.
Nor are there any references to the markings on the moon. It is quite
obvious to the naked eye that there are grey stains upon her silver
surface, that these grey stains are always there, most of them forming a
chain which curves through the upper hemisphere. Of the bright parts of
the moon, some shine out with greater lustre than others, particularly
one spot in the lower left-hand quadrant, not far from the edge of the
full disc. The edges of the moon gleam more brightly as a rule than the
central parts. All this was apparent to the Hebrews of old, as it is to
our unassisted sight to-day.
The moon's influence in raising the tides is naturally not mentioned.
The Hebrews were not a seafaring race, nor are the tides on the coast of
Palestine pronounced enough to draw much attention. One influence is
ascribed to the moon; an influence still obscure, or even disputed. For
the promise that--
"The sun shall not smite thee by day,
Nor the moon by night,"
quite obvious in its application to the sun, with the moon seems to
refer to its supposed influence on certain diseases and in causing
"moon-blindness."
The chief function of the moon, as indicated in Scripture, is to
regulate the calendar, and mark out the times for the days of solemnity.
In the words of the 104th Psalm:--
"He (God) appointed the moon for seasons:
The sun knoweth his going down.
Thou makest darkness, and it is night;
Wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.
The young lions roar after their prey,
And seek their meat from God.
The sun ariseth, they get them away,
And lay them down in their dens.
Man goeth forth unto his work
And to his labour until the evening.
O Lord, how manifold are Thy works!
In wisdom hast Thou made them all:
The earth is full of Thy riches."
FOOTNOTES:
[81:1] How the little children must have revelled in that yearly
holiday!
[90:1] T. G. Pinches, _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical
Records of Assyria and Babylonia_, p. 278.
[Illustration: A CORNER OF THE MILKY WAY.
The "America Nebula": photographed by Dr. Max Wolf, at Heidelberg.]
CHAPTER VIII
THE STARS
The stars and the heaven, whose host they are, were used by the Hebrew
writers to express the superlatives of number, of height, and of
expanse. To an observer, watching the heavens at any particular time and
place, not more than some two thousand stars are separately visible to
the unassisted sight. But it was evident to the Hebrew, as it is to any
one to-day, that the stars separately visible do not by any means make
up their whole number. On clear nights the whole vault of heaven seems
covered with a tapestry or curtain the pattern of which is formed of
patches of various intensities of light, and sprinkled upon this
patterned curtain are the brighter stars that may be separately seen.
The most striking feature in the pattern is the Milky Way, and it may be
easily discerned that its texture is made up of innumerable minute
points of light, a granulation, of which some of the grains are set more
closely together, forming the more brilliant patches, and some more
loosely, giving the darker shades. The mind easily conceives that the
minute points of light whose aggregations make up the varying pattern of
the Milky Way, though too small to be individually seen, are also
stars, differing perhaps from the stars of the Pleiades or the Bears
only in their greater distance or smaller size. It was of all these that
the Lord said to Abram--
"Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able
to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be."
The first catalogue of the stars of which we have record was that of
Hipparchus in 129 B.C. It contained 1,025 stars, and Ptolemy brought
this catalogue up to date in the Almagest of 137 A.D. Tycho Brahé in
1602 made a catalogue of 777 stars, and Kepler republished this in 1627,
and increased the number to 1,005. These were before the invention of
the telescope, and consequently contained only naked-eye stars. Since
astronomers have been able to sound the heavens more deeply, catalogues
have increased in size and number. Flamsteed, the first Astronomer
Royal, made one of 3,310 stars; from the observations of Bradley, the
third, a yet more famous catalogue has been compiled. In our own day
more than three hundred thousand stars have been catalogued in the Bonn
Durchmusterung; and the great International Photographic Chart of the
Heavens will probably show not less than fifty millions of stars, and in
this it has limited itself to stars exceeding the fourteenth magnitude
in brightness, thus leaving out of its pages many millions of stars that
are visible through our more powerful telescopes.
So when Abraham, Moses, Job or Jeremiah speaks of the host of heaven
that cannot be numbered, it does not mean simply that these men had but
small powers of numeration. To us,--who can count beyond that which we
can conceive,--as to the Psalmist, it is a sign of infinite power,
wisdom and knowledge that "He telleth the number of the stars; He
calleth them all by their names."
Isaiah describes the Lord as "He that sitteth upon the circle of the
earth, . . . that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth
them out as a tent to dwell in." And many others of the prophets use the
same simile of a curtain which we have seen to be so appropriate to the
appearance of the starry sky. Nowhere, however, have we any indication
whether or not they considered the stars were all set _on_ this curtain,
that is to say were all at the same distance from us. We now know that
they are not equidistant from us, but this we largely base on the fact
that the stars are of very different orders of brightness, and we judge
that, on an average, the fainter a star appears, the further is it
distant from us. To the Hebrews, as to us, it was evident that the stars
differ in magnitude, and the writer of the Epistle to the Corinthians
expressed this when he wrote--
"There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon,
and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from
another star in glory."
The ancient Greek astronomers divided the stars according to their
brightness into six classes, or six "magnitudes," to use the modern
technical term. The average star of any particular magnitude gives about
two and a half times as much light as the average star of the next
magnitude. More exactly, the average first magnitude star gives one
hundred times the light of the average star of the sixth magnitude.
In a few instances we have been able to measure, in the very roughest
degree, the distances of stars; not a hundred stars have their
parallaxes known, and these have all been measured in the course of the
last century. And so far away are these stars, even the nearest of them,
that we do not express their distance from us in millions of miles; we
express it in the time that their light takes in travelling from them to
us. Now it takes light only one second to traverse 186,300 miles, and
yet it requires four and a third years for the light from the nearest
star to reach us. This is a star of the first magnitude, Alpha in the
constellation of the Centaur. The next nearest star is a faint one of
between the seventh and eighth magnitudes, and its light takes seven
years to come. From a sixth magnitude star in the constellation of the
Swan, the light requires eight years; and from Sirius, the brightest
star in the heavens, light requires eight and a half years. These four
stars are the nearest to us; from no other star, that we know of, does
light take less than ten years to travel; from the majority of those
whose distance we have succeeded in measuring, the light takes at least
twenty years.
To get some conception of what a "light-year" means, let us remember
that light could travel right round the earth at its equator seven times
in the space of a single second, and that there are 31,556,925 seconds
in a year. Light then could girdle the earth a thousand million times
whilst it comes from Alpha Centauri. Or we may put it another way. The
distance from Alpha Centauri exceeds the equator of the earth by as much
as this exceeds an inch and a half; or by as much as the distance from
London to Manchester exceeds the hundredth of an inch.
Of all the rest of the innumerable stars, as far as actual measurement
is concerned, for us, as for the Hebrews, they might all actually lie on
the texture of a curtain, at practically the same distance from us.
We have measured the distances of but a very few stars; the rest--as
every one of them was for the Hebrew--are at a greater distance than any
effort of ours can reach, be our telescopes ever so great and powerful,
our measuring instruments ever so precise and delicate. For them, as for
us, the heaven of stars is "for height," for a height which is beyond
measure and therefore the only fitting image for the immensity of God.
So Zophar the Naamathite said--
"Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do?"
and Eliphaz the Temanite reiterated still more strongly--
"Is not God in the height of heaven?
And behold the height of the stars, how high they are."
God Himself is represented as using the expanse of heaven as a measure
of the greatness of his fidelity and mercy. The prophet Jeremiah
writes--
"Thus saith the Lord; if Heaven above can be measured, and the
foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also
cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done,
saith the Lord."
As if he were using the figure of a great cross, whose height was that
of the heavens, whose arms stretched from east to west, David testifies
of the same mercy and forgiveness:--
"For as the heaven is high above the earth,
So great is His mercy toward them that fear Him.
As far as the east is from the west,
So far hath He removed our transgressions from us."
[Illustration: THE GREAT COMET OF 1843.
"Running like a road through the constellations" (_see_ p. 105).]
CHAPTER IX
COMETS
Great comets are almost always unexpected visitors. There is only one
great comet that we know has been seen more than once, and expect with
reasonable certainty to see again. This is Halley's comet, which has
been returning to a near approach to the sun at somewhat irregular
intervals of seventy-five to seventy-eight years during the last
centuries: indeed, it is possible that it was this comet that was
coincident with the invasion of England by William the Conqueror.
There are other small comets that are also regular inhabitants of the
solar system; but, as with Halley's comet, so with these, two
circumstances are to be borne in mind. First, that each successive
revolution round the sun involves an increasing degradation of their
brightness, since there is a manifest waste of their material at each
near approach to the sun; until at length the comet is seen no more, not
because it has left the warm precincts of the sun for the outer
darkness, but because it has spent its substance. Halley's comet was not
as brilliant or as impressive in 1835 as it was in 1759: in 1910 it may
have become degraded to an appearance of quite the second order.
Next, we have no knowledge, no evidence, that any of these comets have
always been members of the solar family. Some of them, indeed, we know
were adopted into it by the influence of one or other of the greater
planets: Uranus we know is responsible for the introduction of one,
Jupiter of a considerable number. The vast majority of comets, great or
small, seem to blunder into the solar system anyhow, anywhere, from any
direction: they come within the attractive influence of the sun; obey
his laws whilst within that influence; make one close approach to him,
passing rapidly across our sky; and then depart in an orbit which will
never bring them to his neighbourhood again. Some chance of direction,
some compelling influence of a planet that it may have approached, so
modified the path of Halley's comet when it first entered the solar
system, that it has remained a member ever since, and may so remain
until it has ceased to be a comet at all.
It follows, therefore, that, as to the number of great comets that may
be seen in any age, we can scarcely even apply the laws of probability.
During the last couple of thousand years, since chronicles have been
abundant, we know that many great comets have been seen. We may suppose,
therefore, that during the preceding age, that in which the Scriptures
were written, there were also many great comets seen, but we do not
know. And most emphatically we are not able to say, from our knowledge
of comets themselves and of their motions, that in the days of this or
that writer a comet was flaming in the sky.
If a comet had been observed in those ages we might not recognize the
description of it. Thus in the fourth year of the 101st Olympiad, the
Greeks were startled by a celestial portent. They did not draw fine
distinctions, and posterity might have remained ignorant that the
terrifying object was possibly a comet, had not Aristotle, who saw it as
a boy at Stagira, left a rather more scientifically worded description
of it. It flared up from the sunset sky with a narrow definite tail
running "like a road through the constellations." In recent times the
great comet of 1843 may be mentioned as having exactly such an
appearance.
So we cannot expect to find in the Scriptures definite and precise
descriptions that we can recognize as those of comets. At the most we
may find some expressions, some descriptions, that to us may seem
appropriate to the forms and appearances of these objects, and we may
therefore infer that the appearance of a comet may have suggested these
descriptions or expressions.
The head of a great comet is brilliant, sometimes starlike. But its tail
often takes on the most impressive appearance. Donati's comet, in 1858,
assumed the most varied shapes--sometimes its tail was broad, with one
bright and curving edge, the other fainter and finer, the whole making
up a stupendous semi-circular blade-like object. Later, the tail was
shaped like a scimitar, and later again, it assumed a duplex form.
Though the bulk of comets is huge, they contain extraordinarily little
substance. Their heads must contain some solid matter, but it is
probably in the form of a loose aggregation of stones enveloped in
vaporous material. There is some reason to suppose that comets are apt
to shed some of these stones as they travel along their paths, for the
orbits of the meteors that cause some of our greatest "star showers" are
coincident with the paths of comets that have been observed.
But it is not only by shedding its loose stones that a comet diminishes
its bulk; it loses also through its tail. As the comet gets close to the
sun its head becomes heated, and throws off concentric envelopes, much
of which consists of matter in an extremely fine state of division. Now
it has been shown that the radiations of the sun have the power of
repelling matter, whilst the sun itself attracts by its gravitational
force. But there is a difference in the action of the two forces. The
light-pressure varies with the surface of the particle upon which it is
exercised; the gravitational attraction varies with the mass or volume.
If we consider the behaviour of very small particles, it follows that
the attraction due to gravitation (depending on the volume of the
particle) will diminish more rapidly than the repulsion due to
light-pressure (depending on the surface of the particle), as we
decrease continually the size of the particle, since its volume
diminishes more rapidly than its surface. A limit therefore will be
reached below which the repulsion will become greater than the
attraction. Thus for particles less than the 1/25000 part of an inch in
diameter the repulsion of the sun is greater than its attraction.
Particles in the outer envelope of the comet below this size will be
driven away in a continuous stream, and will form that thin, luminous
fog which we see as the comet's tail.
We cannot tell whether such objects as these were present to the mind of
Joel when he spoke of "blood and fire and pillars of smoke"; possibly
these metaphors are better explained by a sand- or thunder-storm,
especially when we consider that the Hebrew expression for the "pillars
of smoke" indicates a resemblance to a palm-tree, as in the spreading
out of the head of a sand- or thunder-cloud in the sky. The suggestion
has been made,--following the closing lines of _Paradise Lost_ (for
Milton is responsible for many of our interpretations of Scripture)
"High in front advanced,
The brandished sword of God before them blazed,
Fierce as a comet,"
--that a comet was indeed the "flaming sword which turned every way, to
keep the way of the tree of life." There is less improbability in the
suggestion made by several writers that, when the pestilence wasted
Jerusalem, and David offered up the sacrifice of intercession in the
threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, the king may have seen, in the
scimitar-like tail of a comet such as Donati's, God's "minister,"--"a
flame of fire,"--"the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the
heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem."
The late R. A. Proctor describes the wanderings of a comet thus:--
"A comet is seen in the far distant depths of space as a
faint and scarcely discernible speck. It draws nearer and
nearer with continually increasing velocity, growing
continually larger and brighter. Faster and faster it rushes
on until it makes its nearest approach to our sun, and then,
sweeping round him, it begins its long return voyage into
infinite space. As it recedes it grows fainter and fainter,
until at length it passes beyond the range of the most
powerful telescopes made by man, and is seen no more. It has
been seen for the first and last time by the generation of men
to whom it has displayed its glories. It has been seen for the
first and last time by the race of man itself."[108:1]
"These are . . . wandering stars, to whom is reserved the
blackness of darkness for ever."
FOOTNOTES:
[108:1] R. A. Proctor, _The Expanse of Heaven_, p. 134.
[Illustration: FALL OF AN AEROLITE.
"There fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp." (_see_
p. 116).]
CHAPTER X
METEORS
Great meteorites--"aerolites" as they are called--are like great comets,
chance visitors to our world. Now and then they come, but we cannot
foretell their coming. Such an aerolite exploded some fifteen miles
above Madrid at about 9{h} 29{m}, on the morning of February 10, 1896:--
"A vivid glare of blinding light was followed in 1-1/2 minutes
by a loud report, the concussion being such as not merely to
create a panic, but to break many windows, and in some cases
to shake down partitions. The sky was clear, and the sun
shining brightly, when a white cloud, bordered with red, was
seen rushing from south-west to north-east, leaving behind it
a train of fine white dust. A red-tinted cloud was long
visible in the east."
Many fragments were picked up, and analyzed, and, like other aerolites,
were found to consist of materials already known on the earth. The outer
crust showed the signs of fire,--the meteoric stone had been fused and
ignited by its very rapid rush through the air--but the interior was
entirely unaffected by the heat. The manner in which the elements were
combined is somewhat peculiar to aerolites; the nearest terrestrial
affinity of the minerals aggregated in them, is to be found in the
volcanic products from great depths. Thus aerolites seem to be broken-up
fragments from the interior parts of globes like our own. They do not
come from our own volcanoes, for the velocities with which they entered
our atmosphere prove their cosmical origin. Had our atmosphere not
entangled them, many, circuiting the sun in a parabolic or hyperbolic
curve, would have escaped for ever from our system. The swift motions,
which they had on entering our atmosphere, are considerably greater on
the average than those of comets, and probably their true home is not in
our solar system, but in interstellar space.
The aerolites that reach the surface are not always exploded into very
small fragments, but every now and then quite large masses remain
intact. Most of these are stony; some have bits of iron scattered
through them; others are almost pure iron, or with a little nickel
alloy, or have pockets in them laden with stone. There are hundreds of
accounts of the falls of aerolites during the past 2,500 years. The
Greeks and Romans considered them as celestial omens, and kept some of
them in temples. One at Mecca is revered by the faithful Mohammedans,
and Jehangir, the great Mogul, is said to have had a sword forged from
an iron aerolite which fell in 1620 in the Panjab. Diana of Ephesus
stood on a shapeless block which, tradition says, was a meteoric stone,
and reference may perhaps be found to this in the speech of the
town-clerk of the city to appease the riot stirred up against St. Paul
by Demetrius the silversmith and his companions:--
"Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there who knoweth not how
that the city of the Ephesians is temple-keeper of the great
Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?"
Aerolites come singly and unexpectedly, falling actually to earth on
land or sea. "Shooting stars" come usually in battalions. They travel
together in swarms, and the earth may meet the same swarm again and
again. They are smaller than aerolites, probably mere particles of dust,
and for the most part are entirely consumed in our upper atmosphere, so
that they do not actually reach the earth. The swarms travel along paths
that resemble cometary orbits; they are very elongated ellipses,
inclined at all angles to the plane of the ecliptic. Indeed, several of
the orbits are actually those of known comets, and it is generally held
that these meteorites or "shooting stars" are the _débris_ that a comet
sheds on its journey.
We can never see the same "shooting star" twice; its visibility implies
its dissolution, for it is only as it is entrapped and burnt up in our
atmosphere that we see it, or can see it. Its companions in a great
meteoric swarm, are, however, as the sand on the sea-shore, and we
recognize them as members of the same swarm by their agreement in
direction and date. The swarms move in a closed orbit, and it is where
this orbit intersects that of the earth that we get a great "star
shower," if both earth and swarm are present together at the
intersection. If the swarm is drawn out, so that many meteorites are
scattered throughout the whole circuit of its orbit, then we get a
"shower" every year. If the meteor swarm is more condensed, so as to
form a cluster, then the "shower" only comes when the "gem of the ring,"
as it is termed, is at the intersection of the orbits, and the earth is
there too.
Such a conjunction may present the most impressive spectacle that the
heavens can afford. The Leonid meteor shower is, perhaps, the most
famous. It has been seen at intervals of about thirty-three years, since
early in the tenth century. When Ibrahim ben Ahmed lay dying, in the
year 902 A.D., it was recorded that "an infinite number of stars were
seen during the night, scattering themselves like rain to the right and
left, and that year was known as the year of stars." When the earth
encountered the same system in 1202 A.D. the Mohammedan record runs that
"on the night of Saturday, on the last day of Muharram, stars shot
hither and thither in the heavens, eastward and westward, and flew
against one another, like a scattering swarm of locusts, to the right
and left." There are not records of all the returns of this meteoric
swarm between the thirteenth century and the eighteenth, but when the
earth encountered it in 1799, Humboldt reported that "from the beginning
of the phenomenon there was not a space in the firmament equal in extent
to three diameters of the moon that was not filled every instant with
bolides and falling stars;" and Mr. Andrew Ellicott, an agent of the
United States, cruising off the coast of Florida, watched this same
meteoric display, and made the drawing reproduced on the opposite page.
In 1833 a planter in South Carolina wrote of a return of this same
system, "Never did rain fall much thicker than the meteors fell towards
the earth; east, west, north, south, it was the same." In 1866 the
shower was again heavy and brilliant, but at the end of the nineteenth
century, when the swarm should have returned, the display was meagre and
ineffective.
[Illustration: METEORIC SHOWER OF 1799, NOVEMBER 12.
Seen off Cape Florida, by Mr. Andrew Ellicott.]
The Leonid system of meteorites did not always move in a closed orbit
round our sun. Tracing back their records and history, we find that in
A.D. 126 the swarm passed close to Uranus, and probably at that time the
planet captured them for the sun. But we cannot doubt that some such
similar sight as they have afforded us suggested the imagery employed by
the Apostle St. John when he wrote, "The stars of heaven fell unto the
earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken
of a mighty wind. And the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled
together."
And the prophet Isaiah used a very similar figure--
"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 the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a
falling fig from the fig-tree."
Whilst the simile of a great aerolite is that employed by St. John in
his description of the star "Wormwood"--
"The third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from
heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third
part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters."
St. Jude's simile of the "wandering stars, to whom is reserved the
blackness of darkness for ever," may have been drawn from meteors rather
than from comets. But, as has been seen, the two classes of objects are
closely connected.
The word "meteor" is sometimes used for any unusual light seen in the
sky. The Zodiacal Light, the pale conical beam seen after sunset in the
west in the spring, and before sunrise in the east in the autumn, and
known to the Arabs as the "False Dawn," does not appear to be mentioned
in Scripture. Some commentators wrongly consider that the expression,
"the eyelids of the morning," occurring twice in the Book of Job, is
intended to describe it, but the metaphor does not in the least apply.
The Aurora Borealis, on the other hand, seldom though it is seen on an
impressive scale in Palestine, seems clearly indicated in one passage.
"Out of the north cometh golden splendour" would well fit the gleaming
of the "Northern Lights," seen, as they often are, "as sheaves of golden
rays."
CHAPTER XI
ECLIPSES OF THE SUN AND MOON
We do not know what great comets, or aerolites, or "star-showers" were
seen in Palestine during the centuries in which the books of the Bible
were composed. But we do know that eclipses, both of the sun and moon,
must have been seen, for these are not the results of chance
conjunctions. We know more, that not only partial eclipses of the sun,
but total eclipses, fell within the period so covered.
There is no phenomenon of nature which is so truly impressive as a total
eclipse of the sun. The beautiful pageants of the evening and the
morning are too often witnessed to produce the same effect upon us,
whilst the storm and the earthquake and the volcano in eruption, by the
confusion and fear for personal safety they produce, render men unfit to
watch their developments. But the eclipse awes and subdues by what might
almost be called moral means alone: no noise, no danger accompanies it;
the body is not tortured, nor the mind confused by the rush of the
blast, the crash of the thunder-peal, the rocking of the earthquake, or
the fires of the volcano. The only sense appealed to is that of sight;
the movements of the orbs of heaven go on without noise or confusion,
and with a majestic smoothness in which there is neither hurry nor
delay.
This impression is felt by every one, no matter how perfectly
acquainted, not only with the cause of the phenomenon, but also with the
appearances to be expected, and scientific men have found themselves
awestruck and even overwhelmed.
But if such are the feelings called forth by an eclipse now-a-days, in
those who are expecting it, who are prepared for it, knowing perfectly
what will happen and what brings it about, how can we gauge aright the
unspeakable terror such an event must have caused in ages long ago, when
it came utterly unforeseen, and it was impossible to understand what was
really taking place?
And so, in olden time, an eclipse of the sun came as an omen of terrible
disaster, nay as being itself one of the worst of disasters. It came so
to all nations but one. But to that nation the word of the prophet had
come--
"Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the
signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them."
God did not reveal the physical explanation of the eclipse to the
Hebrews: that, in process of time, they could learn by the exercise of
their own mental powers. But He set them free from the slavish fear of
the heathen; they could look at all these terror-striking signs without
fear; they could look with calmness, with confidence, because they
looked in faith.
It is not easy to exaggerate the advantage which this must have given
the Hebrews over the neighbouring nations, from a scientific point of
view. The word of God gave them intellectual freedom, and so far as they
were faithful to it, there was no hindrance to their fully working out
the scientific problems which came before them. They neither worshipped
the heavenly bodies nor were dismayed at their signs. We have no record
as to how far the Hebrews made use of this freedom, for, as already
pointed out, the Holy Scriptures were not written to chronicle their
scientific achievements. But there can be no doubt that, given the
leisure of peace, it is _a priori_ more likely that they should have
taught astronomy to their neighbours, than have learnt it even from the
most advanced.
There must have been numberless eclipses of the moon seen in the ages
during which the Canon of Holy Scripture was written. Of eclipses of the
sun, total or very nearly total over the regions of Palestine or
Mesopotamia, in the times of the Old Testament, we know of four that
were actually seen, whose record is preserved in contemporaneous
history, and a fifth that was nearly total in Judæa about midday.
The first of the four is recorded on a tablet from Babylon, lately
deciphered, in which it states that on "the 26th day of Sivan, day was
turned into night, and fire appeared in the midst of heaven." This has
been identified with the eclipse of July 31, 1063 B.C., and we do not
find any reference to it in Scripture.
The second is that of Aug. 15, 831 B.C. No specific record of this
eclipse has been found as yet, but it took place during the lifetime of
the prophets Joel and Amos, and may have been seen by them, and their
recollection of it may have influenced the wording of their prophecies.
The third eclipse is recorded on a tablet from Nineveh, stating the
coincidence of an eclipse in Sivan with a revolt in the city of Assur.
This has been identified with the eclipse of June 15, 763 B.C.
The fourth is that known as the eclipse of Larissa on May 18, 603 B.C.,
which was coincident with the final overthrow of the Assyrian Empire,
and the fifth is that of Thales on May 28, 585 B.C.
The earth goes round the sun once in a year, the moon goes round the
earth once in a month, and sometimes the three bodies are in one
straight line. In this case the intermediate body--earth or
moon--deprives the other, wholly or partially of the light from the sun,
thus causing an eclipse. If the orbits of the earth and moon were in the
same plane, an eclipse would happen every time the moon was new or full;
that is to say, at every conjunction and every opposition, or about
twenty-five times a year. But the plane of the moon's orbit is inclined
to the plane of the earth's orbit at an angle of about 5°, and so an
eclipse only occurs when the moon is in conjunction or opposition and is
at the same time at or very near one of the nodes--that is, one of the
two points where the plane of the earth's orbit intersects the moon's
orbit. If the moon is in opposition, or "full," then, under these
conditions, an eclipse of the moon takes place, and this is visible at
all places where the moon is above the horizon at the time. If,
however, the moon is in conjunction, or "new," it is the sun that is
eclipsed, and as the shadow cast by the moon is but small, only a
portion of the earth's surface will experience the solar eclipse. The
nodes of the moon's orbit are not stationary, but have a daily
retrograde motion of 3´ 10·64´´. It takes the moon therefore 27{d} 5{h}
5{m} 36{s} (27·21222{d}) to perform a journey in its orbit from one node
back to that node again; this is called a Draconic period. But it takes
the moon 29{d} 12{h} 44{m} 2·87{s} (29·53059{d}) to pass from new to
new, or from full to full, _i. e._ to complete a lunation. Now 242
Draconic periods very nearly equal 223 lunations, being about 18 years
10-1/3 days, and both are very nearly equal to 19 returns of the sun to
the moon's node; so that if the moon is new or full when at a node, in
18 years and 10 or 11 days it will be at that node again, and again new
or full, and the sun will be also present in very nearly its former
position. If, therefore, an eclipse occurred on the former occasion, it
will probably occur on the latter. This recurrence of eclipses after
intervals of 18·03 years is called the Saros, and was known to the
Chaldeans. We do not know whether it was known to the Hebrews prior to
their captivity in Babylon, but possibly the statement of the wise king,
already quoted from the Apocryphal "Wisdom of Solomon," may refer to
some such knowledge.
Our calendar to-day is a purely solar one; our months are twelve in
number, but of purely arbitrary length, divorced from all connection
with the moon; and to us, the Saros cycle does not readily leap to the
eye, for eclipses of sun or moon seem to fall haphazard on any day of
the month or year.
But with the Hebrews, Assyrians, and Babylonians it was not so. Their
calendar was a luni-solar one--their year was on the average a solar
year, their months were true lunations; the first day of their new month
began on the evening when the first thin crescent of the moon appeared
after its conjunction with the sun. This observation is what is meant in
the Bible by the "new moon." Astronomers now by "new moon" mean the time
when it is actually in conjunction with the sun, and is therefore not
visible. Nations whose calendar was of this description were certain to
discover the Saros much sooner than those whose months were not true
lunations, like the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.
There are no direct references to eclipses in Scripture. They might have
been used in the historical portions for the purpose of dating events,
as was the great earthquake in the days of King Uzziah, but they were
not so used. But we find not a few allusions to their characteristic
appearances and phenomena in the books of the prophets. God in the
beginning set the two great lights in the firmament for signs as well as
for seasons; and the prophets throughout use the relations of the sun
and moon as types of spiritual relations. The Messiah was the Sun of
Righteousness; the chosen people, the Church, was as the moon, which
derives her light from Him. The "signs of heaven" were _symbols_ of
great spiritual events, not _omens_ of mundane disasters.
The prophets Joel and Amos are clear and vivid in their descriptions;
probably because the eclipse of 831 B.C. was within their recollection.
Joel says first, "The sun and the moon shall be dark;" and again, more
plainly,--
"I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood,
and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into
darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the
terrible day of the Lord come."
This prophecy was quoted by St. Peter on the day of Pentecost. And in
the Apocalypse, St. John says that when the sixth seal was opened, "the
sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood."
In these references, the two kinds of eclipses are referred to--the sun
becomes black when the moon is "new" and hides it; the moon becomes as
blood when it is "full" and the earth's shadow falls upon it; its deep
copper colour, like that of dried blood, being due to the fact that the
light, falling upon it, has passed through a great depth of the earth's
atmosphere. These two eclipses cannot therefore be coincident, but they
may occur only a fortnight apart--a total eclipse of the sun may be
accompanied by a partial eclipse of the moon, a fortnight earlier or a
fortnight later; a total eclipse of the moon may be accompanied by
partial eclipses of the sun, both at the preceding and following "new
moons."
Writing at about the same period, the prophet Amos says--
"Saith the Lord God, I will cause the sun to go down at noon,
and I will darken the earth in the clear day,"
and seems to refer to the fact that the eclipse of 831 B.C. occurred
about midday in Judæa.
Later Micah writes--
"The sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be
dark over them."
Isaiah says that the "sun shall be darkened in his going forth," and
Jeremiah that "her sun is gone down while it was yet day." Whilst
Ezekiel says--
"I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not
give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make
dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord
God."
But a total eclipse is not all darkness and terror; it has a beauty and
a glory all its own. Scarcely has the dark moon hidden the last thread
of sunlight from view, than spurs of rosy light are seen around the
black disc that now fills the place so lately occupied by the glorious
king of day. And these rosy spurs of light shine on a background of
pearly glory, as impressive in its beauty as the swift march of the
awful shadow, and the seeming descent of the darkened heavens, were in
terror. There it shines, pure, lovely, serene, radiant with a light like
molten silver, wreathing the darkened sun with a halo like that round a
saintly head in some noble altar-piece; so that while in some cases the
dreadful shadow has awed a laughing and frivolous crowd into silence, in
others the radiance of that halo has brought spectators to their knees
with an involuntary exclamation, "The Glory!" as if God Himself had made
known His presence in the moment of the sun's eclipse.
And this, indeed, seems to have been the thought of both the
Babylonians and Egyptians of old. Both nations had a specially sacred
symbol to set forth the Divine Presence--the Egyptians, a disc with long
outstretched wings; the Babylonians, a ring with wings. The latter
symbol on Assyrian monuments is always shown as floating over the head
of the king, and is designed to indicate the presence and protection of
the Deity.
[Illustration: THE ASSYRIAN "RING WITH WINGS."]
We may take it for granted that the Egyptians and Chaldeans of old, as
modern astronomers to-day, had at one time or another presented to them
every type of coronal form. But there would, no doubt, be a difficulty
in grasping or remembering the irregular details of the corona as seen
in most eclipses. Sometimes, however, the corona shows itself in a
striking and simple form--when sun-spots are few in number, it spreads
itself out in two great equatorial streamers. At the eclipse of Algiers
in 1900, already referred to, one observer who watched the eclipse from
the sea, said--
"The sky was blue all round the sun, and the effect of the
silvery corona projected on it was beyond any one to describe.
I can only say it seemed to me what angels' wings will be
like."[129:1]
[Illustration: CORONA OF MINIMUM TYPE.
Drawing made by W. H. Wesley, from photographs of the 1900 Eclipse.]
It seems exceedingly probable that the symbol of the ring with wings
owed its origin not to any supposed analogy between the ring and the
wings and the divine attributes of eternity and power, but to the
revelations of a total eclipse with a corona of minimum type. Moreover
the Assyrians, when they insert a figure of their deity within the ring,
give him a kilt-like dress, and this kilted or feathered characteristic
is often retained where the figure is omitted. This gives the symbol a
yet closer likeness to the corona, whose "polar rays" are remarkably
like the tail feathers of a bird.
Perhaps the prophet Malachi makes a reference to this characteristic of
the eclipsed sun, with its corona like "angels' wings," when he
predicts--
"But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness
arise with healing in His wings."
But, if this be so, it must be borne in mind that the prophet uses the
corona as a simile only. No more than the sun itself, is it the Deity,
or the manifestation of the Deity.
In the New Testament we may find perhaps a reference to what causes an
eclipse--to the shadow cast by a heavenly body in its revolution--its
"turning."
"Every good gift and every perfect boon is from above, coming
down from the Father of Lights, with Whom can be no variation,
neither shadow that is cast by turning."
FOOTNOTES:
[129:1] _The Total Solar Eclipse of May, 1900_, p. 22.
CHAPTER XII
SATURN AND ASTROLOGY
The planets, as such, are nowhere mentioned in the Bible. In the one
instance in which the word appears in our versions, it is given as a
translation of _Mazzaloth_, better rendered in the margin as the "twelve
signs or constellations." The evidence is not fully conclusive that
allusion is made to any planet, even in its capacity of a god worshipped
by the surrounding nations.
Of planets, besides the earth, modern astronomy knows Mercury, Venus,
Mars, many planetoids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. And of
satellites revolving round planets there are at present known, the moon
which owns our earth as primary, two satellites to Mars, seven
satellites to Jupiter, ten to Saturn, four to Uranus, and one to
Neptune.
The ancients counted the planets as seven, numbering the moon and the
sun amongst them. The rest were Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and
Saturn. They recognized no satellites to any planet. We have no evidence
that the ancient Semitic nations considered that the moon was more
intimately connected with the earth than any of the other six.
But though the planets were sometimes regarded as "seven" in number,
the ancients perfectly recognized that the sun and moon stood in a
different category altogether from the other five. And though the
heathen recognized them as deities, confusion resulted as to the
identity of the deity of which each was a manifestation. Samas was the
sun-god and Baal was the sun-god, but Samas and Baal, or Bel, were not
identical, and both were something more than merely the sun personified.
Again, Merodach, or Marduk, is sometimes expressly identified with Bel
as sun-god, sometimes with the divinity of the planet Jupiter. Similarly
Ashtoreth, or I[vs]tar, is sometimes identified with the goddess of the
moon, sometimes with the planet Venus. It would not be safe, therefore,
to assume that reference is intended to any particular heavenly body,
because a deity is mentioned that has been on occasions identified with
that heavenly body. Still less safe would it be to assume astronomical
allusions in the description of the qualities or characteristics of that
deity. Though Ashtoreth, or I[vs]tar, may have been often identified
with the planet Venus, it is ridiculous to argue, as some have done,
from the expression "Ashteroth-Karnaim," Ashteroth of "the horns," that
the ancients had sight or instruments sufficiently powerful to enable
them to observe that Venus, like the moon, had her phases, her "horns."
Though Nebo has been identified with the planet Mercury, we must not see
any astronomical allusion to its being the nearest planet to the sun in
Isaiah's coupling the two together, where he says, "Bel boweth down,
Nebo stoopeth."
Isaiah speaks of the King of Babylon--
"How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!"
The word here translated Lucifer, "light-bearer," is the word _h[=e]lel_
from the root _halal_, and means _spreading brightness_. In the
Assyrio-Babylonian, the planet Venus is sometimes termed _Must[=e]lel_,
from the root _[=e]lil_, and she is the most lustrous of all the
"morning stars," of the stars that herald the dawn. But except that her
greater brilliancy marks her as especially appropriate to the
expression, Sirius or any other in its capacity of morning star would be
suitable as an explanation of the term.
St. Peter uses the equivalent Greek expression _Ph[=o]sphorus_ in his
second epistle: "A light that shineth in a dark place, until the day
dawn and the day-star" (light-bringer) "arise in your hearts."
Isaiah again says--
"Ye are they that forsake the Lord, that forget My holy
mountain, that prepare a table for that Troop, and that
furnish the drink offering unto that Number."
"Gad" and "Meni," here literally translated as "Troop" and "Number," are
in the Revised Version rendered as "Fortune" and "Destiny." A reference
to this god "Meni" has been sugges
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