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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 38:31 - 38:31
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
31 Canst thou join the twistings of the Pleiades,
Or loose the bands of Orion?
32 Canst thou bring forth the signs of the Zodiac at the right time,
And canst thou guide the Bear with its children?
33 Knowest thou the laws of heaven,
Or dost thou define its influence on the earth?
That מַֽעֲדַגֹּות here signifies bindings or twistings (from עָדַן = עָנַד, Job 31:36) is placed beyond question by the unanimous translations of the lxx (δεσμόν) and the Targ. (שֵׁירֵי = σειράς), the testimony of the Masora, according to which the word here has a different signification from 1Sa 15:32, and the language of the Talmud, in which מעדנין, Kêlim, c. 20, signifies the knots at the end of a mat, by loosing which it comes to pieces, and Succa, 13b, the bands (formed of rushes) with which willow-branches are fastened together above in order to form a booth (succa); but מדאני, Sabbat, 33a, signifies a bunch of myrtle (to smell on the Sabbath). מעדנות כִּימָה is therefore explained according to the Persian comparison of the Pleiades with a bouquet of jewels, mentioned on Job 9:9, and according to the comparison with a necklace (‛ipd-eth-thurajja), e.g., in Sadi in his Gulistan, p. 8 of Graf's translation: “as though the tops of the trees were encircled by the necklace of the Pleiades.” The Arabic name thurajja (diminutive feminine of tharwân) probably signifies the richly-adorned, clustered constellation. But כִּימָה signifies without doubt the clustered group,
(Note: The verb כום is still in general use in the Piel (to heap up, form a heap, part. mukauwam, heaped up) and Hithpa. (to accumulate) in Syria, and kôm is any village desolated in days of yore whose stones form a desolate heap comp. Fleischer, De Glossis Habichtianis, p. 41f.]. If, according to Kamus, in old Jemanic kı̂m in the sense of mukâwim signifies a confederate (synon. chilt, gils), the כִּיִמָה would be a confederation, or a heap, assemblage (coetus) of confederates. Perhaps the כימה was regarded as a troop of camels; the Beduins at least call the star directly before the seven-starred constellation of the Pleiades the hâdi, i.e., the singer riding before the procession, who cheers the camels by the sound of the hadwa (חַדְוָה), and thereby urges them on. - Wetzst.
On πλειάδες, which perhaps also bear this name as a compressed group (figuratively γότρυς) of several stars (ὅτι πλείους ὁμοῦ κατὰ συναγωγήν εἰσι), vid., Kuhn's Zeitschr. vi. 282-285.)
and Beigel (in Ideler, Sternnamen, S. 147) does not translate badly: ”Canst thou not arrange together the rosette of diamonds (chain would be better) of the Pleiades?”
As to כְּסִיל, we firmly hold that it denotes Orion (according to which the Greek versions translate Ὠρίων, the Syriac gaboro, the Targ. נִפְלָא or נְפִילָא, the Giant). Orion and the Pleiades are visible in the Syrian sky longer in the year than with us, and there they come about 17º higher above the horizon than with us. Nevertheless the figure of a giant chained to the heavens cannot be rightly shown to be Semitic, and it is questionable whether כסיל is not rather, with Saad., Gecat., Abulwalid, and others, to be regarded as the Suhêl, i.e., Canopus, especially as this is placed as a sluggish helper (כסיל, Hebr. a fool, Arab. the slothful one, ignavus) in mythical relation to the constellation of the Bear, which here is called עַיִשׁ, as Job 9:9 עָשׁ, and is regarded as a bier, נַעַשׁ (even in the present day this is the name in the towns and villages of Syria), which the sons and daughters forming the attendants upon the corpse of their father, slain by Gedî, the Pole-star. Understood of Orion, משְׁכֹות (with which Arab. msk, tenere, detinere, is certainly to be compared) are the chains (Arab. masakat, compes), with which he is chained to the sky; understood of Suhêl, the restraints which prevent his breaking away too soon and reaching the goal.
(Note: In June 1860 I witnessed a quarrel in an encampment of Mo'gil-Beduins, in which one accused the others of having rendered it possible for the enemy to carry off his camels through their negligence; and when the accused assured him they had gone forth in pursuit of the marauders soon after the raid, and only turned back at sunset, the man exclaimed: Ye came indeed to my assistance as Suhêl to Gedî (פזעתם לי פזע סהיל ללגדי). I asked my neighbour what the words meant, and was informed they are a proverb which is very often used, and has its origin as follows: The Gedî (i.e., the Pole-star, called mismâr, מִשְׂמָר, in Damascus) slew the Na‛sh (נַעַשׁ), and is accordingly encompassed every night by the children of the slain Na‛sh, who are determined to take vengeance on the murderer. The sons (on which account poets usually say benı̂ instead of benât Na‛sh) go first with the corpse of their father, and the daughters follow. One of the latter is called waldâne, a lying-in woman; she has only recently given birth to a child, and carries her child in her bosom, and she is still pale from her lying-in. (The clear atmosphere of the Syrian sky admits of the child in the bosom of the waldâne being distinctly seen.) In order to give help to the Gedî in this danger, the Suhêl appears in the south, and struggles towards the north with a twinkling brightness, but he has risen too late; the night passes away ere he reaches his goal. Later I frequently heard this story, which is generally known among the Hauranites. - Wetzst.
We add the following by way of explanation. The Pleiades encircle the Pole-star as do all stars, since it stands at the axis of the sky, but they are nearer to it than to Canopus by more than half the distance. This star of the first magnitude culminates about three hours later than the Pleiades, and rises, at the highest, only ten moon's diameters above the horizon of Damascusa significant figure, therefore, of ineffectual endeavour.)
מַזָּרֹות is not distinct from מַזָּלֹות, 2Ki 23:5 (comp. מַזָּרָךְ, “Thy star of fortune,” on Cilician coins), and denotes not the twenty-eight menâzil (from Arab. nzl, to descend, turn in, lodge) of the moon,
(Note: Thus A. Weber in his Abh. über die vedischen Nachrichten von den naxatra (halting-places of the moon), 1860 (comp. Lit. Centralbl. 1859, col. 665), refuted by Steinschneider, Hebr. Bibliographie, 1861, Nr. 22, S. 93f.)
but the twelve signs of the Zodiac, which were likewise imagined as menâzil, i.e., lodging-houses or burûg, strongholds, in which one after another the sun lodges as it describes the circle of the year.
(Note: The names “the Ram, the Bull,” etc., are, according to Epiphanius, Opp. i. p. 34f. (ed. Petav.), transferred from the Greek into the Jewish astrology, vid., Wissenschaft Kunst Judenthum, S. 220f.)
The usage of the language transferred lzm also to the planets, which, because they lie in the equatorial plane of the sun, as the sun (although more irregularly), run through the constellations of the Zodiac. The question in Job 38:32 therefore means: canst thou bring forth the appointed zodiacal sign for each month, so that (of course with the variation which is limited to about two moon's diameters by the daily progress of the sun through the Zodiac) it becomes visible after sunset and is visible before sunset? On Job 38:33 vid., on Gen 1:14-19. מִשְׁטָר is construed after the analogy of רָדָה בְּ, עָצַר, מָשַׁל; and שָׁמַיִם, as sing. (Ew. §318, b).