222 On the Science of Astronomy 



constellations in the Zodiac is by Job, wbo, according to 

 Hebrew chronology, lived in the year of the world 2362, or 

 about 1400 years before the Christian era, — contemporary 

 with, or at least very few years antecedent to, Moses. In 

 chap. ix. verse 9 of Job, the words ousai usJi Fsil v'cheemo 

 occur, in reference to Arcturus, a star of the first magnitude 

 in Bootes, — Orion, a brilliant constellation, — and Pleiades, 

 a group in the neck or shoulder of Taurus. 



Again, in the 31st and 32nd verses of the 38th chapter. 

 Job mentions them in connection with Nazzareth, a Hebrew 

 word, which literally means Zodiacal constellation, and 

 might have been rendered by the well understood term 

 signs. In the Vulgate it is given in the expression 

 "duodecim signis." The Hebrew words limtshaiishyr 

 mauadownotis hemo — in the 31st verse translated " canst 

 thou bind the sweet influence of Pleiades," might with 

 greater propriety be read thus, — canst thou restrain the subtle 

 influence, that is, the attractive force, of the Pleiades — the 

 word influence being understood as a directive or impulsive 

 power, such as the attraction of gravitation. Job appears 

 in this to convey his knowledge of our whole Astral system 

 revolving round that group, — or rather one of the stars 

 therein. The profound researches of the modern German 

 Astronomer and Geometrician Msedler having established 

 as a fact the hypothesis that our system does certainly 

 revolve round Alcyone, a star of the third magnitude 

 in the Pleiades, a sufiiciently convincing proof that the 

 Heavens had been carefully observed, and the movements 

 and revolutions of the celestial bodies consecutively noticed 

 in the remotest ages. 



It is evident that Job was well aware that the globe of 

 the earth was suspended in space, for in speaking of the 

 Divine architect, in chap, xxvi., verse 7, he uses the words 



