Who makes the Bear, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south.
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Arcturus These are names of stars or constellations. In Hebrew, Hash, Cesil, and Cima. (Challoner)
And chadre the man, (Haydock) the "bottom or seals of the south "which were to him invisible, being the Antarctic constellations. The ancients were acquainted only with these four, (Homer; Virgil, Æneid iii.) which denoted the four quarters and seasons. (Calmet)
Ash, Arcturus, "the bear's tail "near the north pole, (Haydock) rules in autumn, when the year begins (Calmet) in Arabia. Cesil, (Haydock) or Orion, on the west, styled by astronomers "the heart of the scorpion "rises about the autumnal equinox, and presides over winter; (Calmet) and Cima, (Haydock) the Hyades, or the seven "rainy "stars, do over spring, the "pleasing "season, as Cima denotes, (chap. xxxviii. 31.) when navigation commences. "The seals of the south "designate summer. (Calmet)
We must not, however, imagine that Job countenances poetical fables; (St. Jerome in Amos v. 8.) or that he called the constellations by th...
For what does the name “the heavens” denote but this deeply heavenly life of those who preach, of whom the psalmist speaks, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” Thus the same persons are recorded to be the heavens, and the same to be the sun. Indeed they are the heavens, because they protect by praying for all; they are the sun, because they show the power of light by preaching. And so, as the “earth was shaken,” “the heavens were spread out.” For when Judea fed greedily on the violence of persecution, the Lord spread about the life of the apostles, so that all the Gentiles might acquaint themselves with them.… For what is denoted by the title of “the sea” but this world’s bitterness raging in the destruction of the righteous? The psalmist also speaks concerning this: “He gathers the waters of the sea together as in a skin.” For the Lord “gathers the water of the sea together as in a skin” as he disposes all things with wonderful governance. He restrains the carnal threats pent up i...
12. The word of Truth never follows the vain fables of Hesiod, Aratus, or Callimachus, that in naming Arcturus it should take the last of the seven stars for the tail of the bear, or as if Orion were holding a sword as a mad lover; for these names of the stars were invented by the votaries of carnal wisdom, but Holy Scripture for this reason makes use of these words, that the things which it aims to convey instruction about, may be represented by the customariness of their usual designation. For if he had spoken of any stars he might wish by names unknown to us, man, for whom this very Scripture was made, would assuredly have known nothing what he heard. Thus in Holy Writ the wise ones of God derive their speech from the wise ones of the world, in like sort as therein God the very Creator of man, for man's benefit, takes in Himself the tones of human passion, i.e. so as to say, It repenteth Me that I have made man upon the earth [Gen. 6, 6. 7.]; whereas it is plain and undoubted tha...
