344 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



But, in justice to the author of the Hebrew or Arabian poem 

 whichsoever it originally was I should not quit this text, without 

 noticing also, the depth of astronomical knowledge which is con- 

 tained in it. ' Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days ? 

 Hast thou caused the day-spring to know his place, that it might take 

 hold on the ends of the earth?' when combined with that other 

 sublime assertion of the power of Jehovah, ' His hand incurvated 

 the flying serpent,' shows that the poet, and those of his readers 

 whom he immediately addressed, were informed of the spiral path; 

 that is to say, apparent annual path of the sun through the hea- 

 vens. The supposition that tha author and his readers or hearers 

 were thus informed, gives emphatic and forcible meaning to the 

 question, ' Hast thou caused the day-spring to know his place ? ' be- 

 cause that place varies from day to day. In the vernal season, and 

 at the remote sera of the patriarch, the day sprung from the stars 

 of Taurus ; but in the summer seasons from those of Leo. 



The justness and profundity of observation that is implied in the 

 text : ' By his spirit hath he garnished the heavens ; His hand incur- 

 vated the flying serpent;' and the creative and presiding power of 

 Jehovah, that is asserted and displayed in it, are not fully manifes- 

 ted, as the passage has commonly been explained. Not that more 

 is meant than meets the ear, but that what meets the ear cannot al- 

 so meet the mind, unless it be astronomically regarded : and the 

 generality of annotators have, on the contrary, supposed the words 

 flying, or ' crooked serpent,' (as it is rendered in the common Eng- 

 lish Bible), to allude literally to the incurvations of the serpent of 

 earth. 



