The "courses" of the stars are the paths which they appear to follow as they move round the pole of the heavens as the night proceeds, whilst the stars themselves stand for the heavenly helpers who, unseen, had mingled in the battle and discomforted the squadrons of Sisera's war-chariots. It almost reads as if to Deborah had been vouchsafed such a vision as Elisha prayed might be given to his servant:—
"Therefore sent the King of Syria thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about.
"And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?
"And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
"And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."
The solemn procession of the starry host through the long night—the rising in the east, the southing, and the setting in the west—is not the only ordered movement of the stars of heaven that may be recognized. As night by night brightens to its dawn, if we watch the eastern horizon and note what stars are the last to rise above it before the growing daylight overpowers the feeble stellar rays, then we see that some bright star, invisible on the preceding mornings, shines out for a few moments low down in the glimmer of the dawn. As morning succeeds morning it rises earlier, until at last it mounts when it is yet dark, and some other star takes its place as the herald of the rising sun. We recognize to-day this "heliacal rising" of the stars. Though we do not make use of it in our system of time-measuring, it played an important part in the calendar-making of the ancients. Such heralds of the rising sun were called "morning stars" by the Hebrews, and they used them "for seasons" and "for years." One star or constellation of stars would herald by its "heliacal rising" the beginning of spring, another the coming of winter; the time to plough, the time to sow, the time of the rains, would all be indicated by the successive "morning stars" as they appeared. And after an interval of three hundred and sixty-five or three hundred and sixty-six days the same star would again show itself as a morning star for a second time, marking out the year, whilst the other morning stars would follow, each in its due season. So we read in Job, that God led "forth the Mazzaroth in their season."
This wonderful procession of the midnight sky is not known and admired by those who live in walled cities and ceiled houses, as it is by those who live in the open, in the wilderness. It is not therefore to be wondered at, that we find praise of these "works of the Lord . . . sought out of all them that have pleasure therein," mostly amongst the shepherds, the herdsmen, the wanderers in the open—in the words and prophecies of Job, of Jacob, Moses, David and Amos.
The thought that each new day, beginning with a new outburst of light, was, in its degree, a kind of new creation, an emblem of the original act by which the world was brought into being, renders appropriate and beautiful the ascription of the term "morning stars" to those "sons of God," the angels. As the stars in the eastern sky are poetically thought of as "singing together" to herald the creation of each new day, so in the verses already quoted from the Book of Job, the angels of God are represented as shouting for joy when the foundations of the earth were laid.
The "morning star" again stands as the type and earnest of that new creation which God has promised to His servants. The epistle to Thyatira concludes with the promise—"He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, . . . I will give him the morning star."
The brightest of these heralds of the sun is the planet Venus, and such a "morning star" for power, glory, and magnificence, the king of Babylon had once been; like one of the angels of God. But as addressed in Isaiah's prophecy, he has been brought down to Sheol:—
