Another interpretation of Mazzaroth is given by Dr. Cheyne, on grounds that refute Professor Schiaparelli's suggestion, but it is itself open to objection from an astronomical point of view. He writes—
"Mazzaroth is probably not to be identified with Mazzaloth (2 Kings xxiii. 5) in spite of the authority of the Sept. and the Targum. . . . Mazzaroth = Ass. Mazarati; Mazzaloth (i.e. the zodiacal signs) seems to be the plural of Mazzāla = Ass. Manzaltu, station."[254:1]
Dr. Cheyne therefore renders the passage thus—
"Dost thou bring forth the moon's watches at their season,
And the Bear and her offspring—dost thou guide them?
Knowest thou the laws of heaven?
Dost thou determine its influence upon the earth?"
Mazzaloth are therefore "the zodiacal signs," but Mazzaroth "the watches or stations of the moon, which marked the progress of the month;"[254:2] or, in other words, the lunar zodiac.
But the lunar and the solar zodiac are only different ways of dividing the same belt of stars. Consequently when, as in the passage before us, reference is made to the actual belt of stars as a whole, there is no difference between the two. So that we are obliged, as before, to consider Mazzaroth and Mazzaloth as identical, and both as setting forth the stars of the zodiac.
So far as the two zodiacs differ, it is the solar and not the lunar zodiac that is intended. This is evident when we consider the different natures of the apparent motions of the sun and the moon. The sun passes through a twelfth part of the zodiac each month, and month by month the successive constellations of the zodiac are brought out, each in its own season; each having a period during which it rises at sunset, is visible the whole night, and sets at sunrise. The solar Mazzaroth are therefore emphatically brought out, each "in its season." Not so the lunar Mazzaroth.
The expression, "the watches or stations of the moon which marked the progress of the month," is unsuitable when astronomically considered. "Watches" refer strictly to divisions of the day and night; the "stations" of the moon refer to the twenty-seven or twenty-eight divisions of the lunar zodiac; the "progress of the month" refers to the complete sequence of the lunar phases. These are three entirely different matters, and Dr. Cheyne has confused them. The progress of the moon through its complete series of stations is accomplished in a siderial month—that is, twenty-seven days eight hours, but from the nature of the case it cannot be said that these "stations" are brought out each in his season, in that time, as a month makes but a small change in the aspect of the sky. The moon passes through the complete succession of its phases in the course of a synodical month, which is in the mean twenty-nine days, thirteen hours—that is to say from new to new, or full to full—but no particular star, or constellation, or "station" has any fixed relation to any one given phase of the moon. In the course of some four or five years the moon will have been both new and full in every one of the "lunar stations."
"Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?
Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?"
He, who has lived out under the stars, in contact with the actual workings of nature, knows what it is to watch "Mazzaroth" brought "out in his season;" the silent return to the skies of the constellations, month by month, simultaneous with the changes on the face of the earth. Overhead, the glorious procession, so regular and unfaltering, of the silent, unapproachable stars: below, in unfailing answer, the succession of spring and summer, autumn and winter, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, rain and drought. If there be but eyes to see, this majestic Order, so smooth in working, so magnificent in scale, will impress the most stolid as the immediate acting of God; and the beholder will feel at the same a reverent awe, and an uplifting of the spirit as he sees the action of "the ordinances of heaven," and the evidence of "the dominion thereof in the earth."