[256:1] Rev. T. K. Cheyne, M.A., Job and Solomon, p. 52.
CHAPTER IX
ARCTURUS
In two passages of the Book of Job a word, ‘Ash or ‘Ayish, is used, by context evidently one of the constellations of the sky, but the identification of which is doubtful. In our Authorized Version the first passage is rendered thus:—
(God) "Which maketh Arcturus (‘Ash), Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south";
and the second:—
"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades,
Or loose the bands of Orion?
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season?
Or canst thou guide Arcturus (‘Ayish) with his sons?
Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?
Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?"
The words (or word, for possibly ‘Ayish is no more than a variant of ‘Ash) here translated "Arcturus" were rendered by the "Seventy" as "Arktouros" in the first passage; as "Hesperos" in the second passage; and their rendering was followed by the Vulgate. The rendering Hesper or Vesper is absurd, as "the sons" of Hesper has no meaning. "Arktouros" is not improbably a misrendering of "Arktos," "the north," which would give a free but not a literal translation of the meaning of the passage. In another passage from Job (xxxvii. 9) where the south wind is contrasted with the cold from another quarter of the sky, the "Seventy"—again followed by the Vulgate—rendered it as "cold from Arcturus." Now cold came to the Jews, as it does to us, from the north, and the star which we know as Arcturus could not be described as typifying that direction either now or when the Septuagint or Vulgate versions were made. The Peschitta, the Syriac version of the Bible, made about the second century after Christ, gives as the Syriac equivalent for ‘Ash, or ‘Ayish, the word ‘iyūthā, but it also renders Kĕsīl by the same word in Amos v. 8, so that the translators were evidently quite at sea as to the identity of these constellations. We are also in doubt as to what star or constellation the Syrians meant by ‘Iyūthā, and apparently they were in some doubt themselves, for in the Talmud we are told that there was a disputation, held in the presence of the great teacher Rabbi Jehuda, about 150 years after Christ, whether ‘Iyūthā was situated in the head of the Bull, or in the tail of the Ram. Oriental scholars now assign it either to Aldebaran in the head of the Bull, the "sons" being in this case the other members of the Hyades group of which Aldebaran is the brightest star; or else identifying it with the Arabic el-‘aiyūq, the name of the star which the Greeks call Aix, and we call Capella, the "sons" on this inference being the three small stars near, called by the Greeks and by ourselves the "Kids." The word ‘Ash is used several times in Scripture, but without any astronomical signification, and is there rendered "moth," as in Isaiah, where it says—
