§ 1. Hydra (The Serpent). That old Serpent—the Devil, destroyed.
§ 2. Crater (The Cup). The cup of Divine wrath poured out upon him.
§ 3. Corvus (The Crow, or Raven). Birds of prey devouring him.
Such are the contents of this wondrous book that is written in the heavens. Thus has God been speaking and emphasizing and developing His first great prophetic promise of Gen. iii. 15.
Though for more than 2,500 years His people had not this Revelation written in a book as we now have it in the Bible, they were not left in ignorance and darkness as to God's purposes and counsels; nor were they without hope as to ultimate deliverance from all evil and from the Evil One.
Adam, who first heard that wondrous promise, repeated it, and gave it to his posterity as a most precious heritage—the ground of all their faith, the substance of all their hope, the object of all their desire. Seth and Enoch took it up. Enoch, we know, prophesied of the Lord's coming, saying, “Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints to execute judgment upon all” (Jude 14). How could these “holy prophets, since the world began,” have recorded their prophecies better, or more effectually, [pg 028] or more truthfully and powerfully, than in these star-pictures and their interpretation? This becomes a certainty when we remember the words of the Holy Spirit by Zacharias (Luke i. 67-70):—
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel;
For He hath visited and redeemed His people,
And hath raised up a horn of salvation for us
In the house of His servant David;