It is possible that the two great stars which follow Orion, Sirius and Procyon, known to the ancients generally and to us to-day as "the Dogs," were by the Babylonians known as "the Bow-star" and "the Lance-star"; the weapons, that is to say, of Orion or Merodach. Jensen identifies Sirius with the Bow-star, but considers that the Lance-star was Antares; Hommel, however, identifies the Lance-star with Procyon. In the fifth tablet of the Babylonian Creation epic as translated by Dr. L. W. King, there is an interesting account of the placing of the Bow-star in the heavens. After Merodach had killed Tiamat—
75. "The gods (his fathers) beheld the net which he had made,
76. They beheld the bow and how (its work) was accomplished.
77. They praised the work which he had done [ . . . ]
78. Then Anu raised [the . . . ] in the assembly of the gods.
79. He kissed the bow, (saying), 'It is [ . . . ]'!
80. And thus he named the names of the bow, (saying),
81. 'Long-wood shall be one name, and the second name [shall be . . . ],
82. And its third name shall be the Bow-star, in heaven [shall it . . . ]!'
83. Then he fixed a station for it."
Dr. Cheyne even considers that he has found a reference to these two stars in Job xxxviii. 36—
"Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts (Lance-star),
Or who hath given understanding to the heart (Bow-star)."
But this interpretation does not appear to have been generally accepted. The same high authority suggests that the astronomical allusions in Amos may have been inserted by a post-exilic editor, thus accounting for the occurrence of the same astronomical terms as are found in Job, which he assigns to the exilic or post-exilic period. This seems a dangerous expedient, as it might with equal reason be used in many other directions. Further, it entirely fails to explain the real difficulty that kīmah and kĕsīl have not been found as Babylonian constellation names, and that their astronomical signification had been lost by the time that the "Seventy" undertook their labours.
Quite apart from the fact that the Babylonians could not give the name of "Fool" to the representation in the sky of their supreme deity, the Hebrews and the Babylonians regarded the constellation in different ways. Several Assyriologists consider that the constellations, Orion and Cetus, represent the struggle between Merodach and Tiamat, and this conjecture is probably correct, so far as Babylonian ideas of the constellations are concerned, for Tiamat is expressly identified on a Babylonian tablet with a constellation near the ecliptic.[241:1] But this means that the myth originated in the star figures, and was the Babylonian interpretation of them. In this case, Cetus—that is Tiamat—must have been considered as a goddess, and as directly and immediately the ancestress of all the gods. Orion—Merodach—must have been likewise a god, the great-great-grandson of Tiamat, whom he destroys.
The Hebrew conception was altogether different. Neither Merodach, nor Tiamat, nor the constellations of Orion and Cetus, nor the actual stars of which they are composed, are anything but creatures. Jehovah has made Orion, as well as the "Seven Stars," as "His hand hath formed the crooked serpent." By the mouth of Isaiah He says, "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord, do all these things." The Babylonian view was of two divinities pitted against each other, and the evil divinity was the original and the originator of the good. In the Hebrew view, even the powers of evil are created things; they are not self-existent.
And the Hebrews took a different view from the Babylonians of the story told by these constellations. The Hebrews always coupled Orion with the Pleiades; the Babylonians coupled Orion with Cetus—that is, Merodach with Tiamat.
The view that has come down to us through the Greeks agrees much better with the association of the constellations as held amongst the Hebrews, rather than amongst the Babylonians. The Hunter Orion, according to the Greeks, chased the Pleiades—the little company of Seven Virgins, or Seven Doves—and he was confronted by the Bull. In their view, too, the Sea-monster was not warring against Orion, but against the chained woman, Andromeda.