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.) מזּרות is not distinct from מזּלות, 2Ki 23:5 (comp. מזּרך, “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,[1] 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.[2]
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. משׁטר is construed after the analogy of רדה בּ, עצר, משׁל; and שׁמים, as sing. (Ew. §318, b).
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.
