138 LT.-COL. G. MACKINLAY ON BIBLICAL ASTRONOMY. 



are hidden from one stationed in northern latitudes is a very 

 natural one ; I myself well remember being struck with a full 

 view of the brilliant star Canopus high in the heavens, when in 

 more southern latitudes. This star is of course never visible 

 to us in England, being hidden from view below the horizon 

 in the south. The " working " on the left or north in Job xxiii, 9, 

 may refer to the revolving of the stars round the pole. 



That the passage most probably indicates the points of the 

 compass seems evident from the context : Job is desirous 

 to discover Jehovah, " Oh that I knew where I might find 

 Him," he says just before in verse 3, and then in the text 

 under consideration lie says in effect, " though I go to the sun 

 rising, He is not there, to the sunset but I cannot perceive 

 Him ; to the mysterious north stretched over empty space 

 (Job xxvi, 7), round which the constellations revolve, but I 

 cannot behold Him ; he hideth Himself if I journey southward 

 and gaze on the stars hidden from us here, even there I cannot 

 see Himself!' Then by way of sharp contrast he adds in verse 10, 

 " but He knoweth the way that /take." In Job ix, 7-11, the 

 same thought of Jehovah's power over the sun and stars and 

 of Job's inability to see the maker Himself " which doeth great 

 things past finding out, yea, marvellous things without number," 

 is expressed in somewhat similar language : " So He goeth by 

 me and I see Him not : He passeth on also, but I perceive Him 

 not." Modern Science notes some of the marvellous things, 

 but utterly fails to find the Maker Himself. 



In Job xxvi, 7, K.V., the description of the north as 

 stretched over empty space, seems to accord with the idea in 

 the modern Arabic word for north, which means "void" (Eev. 

 W. G. Pope), and with the Tibetan chang " clean," or " purified " 

 (Colonel Waddell) ; perhaps our own word north may mean no 

 (sun) or void (of the sun). 



The east sometimes in the Bible means a country in that 

 direction ; as the west is spoken of as behind or hinder ; and 

 as the Mediterranean Sea (which was essentially the sea) was 

 on that side of Palestine, the word for sea often signifies west,* 

 and it is consequently translated " west " no fewer than 69 

 times ; as this was so often done, it would appear that in 

 Ps. cxxxix, 9, " If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell 

 in the uttermost part of the sea," that the word " west " in 



-* Mr. G. Michell of Casa Blanca on the Atlantic coast of Morocco 

 states tlxat the Arabic word for sea, signifies " west " there at the present 

 time, 



