The Astronomy of the Bible / An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References of Holy Scripture

by E. Walter Maunder

We have no assistance from any cuneiform inscriptions as to the astronomical significance of ‘Ayish, Kīmah, and Kĕsīl, but the case is different when we come to Mazzaroth. In the fifth tablet of the Babylonian Creation epic we read—

"1. He (Marduk) made the stations for the great gods;
2. The stars, their images, as the stars of the zodiac, he fixed.
3. He ordained the year, and into sections (mizrāta) he divided it;
4. For the twelve months he fixed three stars.
5. After he had [. . .] the days of the year [. . .] images
6. He founded the station of Nibir to determine their bounds;
7. That none might err or go astray.
8. He set the station of Bēl and Ea along with him."

In the third line mizrāta, cognate with the Hebrew Mazzārōth, means the sections or divisions of the year, corresponding to the signs of the zodiac mentioned in the second line. There can therefore be little doubt that the translators who gave us our English versions are practically correct in the rendering of Job xxxviii. 32 which they give in the margin, "Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth (or the twelve signs) in his season?"

The foregoing extract from the fifth tablet of Creation has no small astronomical interest. Merodach is represented as setting in order the heavenly bodies. First of all he allots their stations to the great gods, dividing to them the constellations of the zodiac, and the months of the year; so that the arrangement by which every month had its tutelary deity or deities, is here said to be his work. Next, he divides up the constellations of the zodiac; not merely arranging the actual stars, but appropriating to each constellation its special design or "image." Third, he divides up the year to correspond with the zodiac, making twelve months with three "stars" or constellations to each. In other words, he carries the division of the zodiac a step further, and divides each sign into three equal parts, the "decans" of the astrologers, each containing 10° (deka) of the ecliptic.

The statement made in line 4 refers to an important development of astronomy. The constellations of the zodiac, that is, the groups made up of the actual stars, are very unequal in size and irregular in shape. The numerous theories, ancient or modern, in which the constellations are supposed to owe their origin to the distinctive weather of the successive months, each constellation figure being a sort of hieroglyph for its particular month, are therefore all manifestly erroneous, for there never could have been any real fixed or steady correlation between the constellations and the months. Similarly, the theories which claim that the ancient names for the months were derived from the constellations are equally untenable. Some writers have even held both classes of theory, overlooking the fact that they mutually contradict each other.

But there came a time when the inconvenience of the unequal division of the zodiac by the constellations was felt to be an evil, and it was remedied by dividing the ecliptic into twelve equal parts, each part being called after the constellation with which it corresponded most nearly at the time such division was made. These equal divisions have been called the Signs of the zodiac. It must be clearly understood that they have always and at all times been imaginary divisions of the heavens, that they were never associated with real stars. They were simply a picturesque mode of expressing celestial longitude; the distance of a star from the place of the sun at the spring equinox, as measured along the ecliptic,—the sun's apparent path during the year.

The Signs once arranged, the next step was an easy one. Each sign was equivalent to 30 degrees of longitude. A third of a sign, a "decan," was 10 degrees of longitude, corresponding to the "week" of ten days used in Egypt and in Greece.

This change from the constellations to the Signs cannot have taken place very early. The place of the spring equinox travels backwards amongst the stars at the rate of very little more than a degree in 72 years. When the change was made the spring equinox was somewhere in the constellation Aries, the Ram, and therefore Aries was then adopted as the first Sign, and must always remain such, since the Signs move amongst the stars with the equinox.