This myth is very instructive. Before it could have arisen, not only must the constellations have been mapped out, and the equator and ecliptic both recognized, but the inclination of the moon's orbit to that of the sun must also have been recognized, together with the fact that it was only when the moon was near its node that the eclipses, either of the sun or moon, could take place. In other words, the cause of eclipses must have been at one time understood, but that knowledge must have been afterwards lost. We have seen already, in the chapter on "[The Deep]," that the Hebrew idea of tehōm could not possibly have been derived from the Babylonian myth of Tiamat, since the knowledge of the natural object must precede the myth founded upon it. If, therefore, Gen. i. and the Babylonian story of Creation be connected, the one as original, the other as derived from that original, it is the Babylonian story that has been borrowed from the Hebrew, and it has been degraded in the borrowing.
So in this case, the myth of the Dragon, whose head and tail cause eclipses, must have been derived from a corruption and misunderstanding of a very early astronomical achievement. The myth is evidence of knowledge lost, of science on the down-grade.
Some may object that the myth may have brought about the conception of the draconic constellations. A very little reflection will show that such a thing was impossible. If the superstition that an eclipse is caused by an invisible dragon swallowing the sun or moon had really been the origin of the constellational dragons, they would certainly have all been put in the zodiac, the only region of the sky where sun or moon can be found; not outside it, where neither can ever come, and in consequence where no eclipse can take place. Nor could such a superstition have led on to the discoveries above-mentioned: that the moon caused eclipses of the sun, the earth those of the moon; that the moon's orbit was inclined to the ecliptic, and that eclipses took place only near the nodes. The idea of an unseen spiritual agent being at work would prevent any search for a physical explanation, since polytheism is necessarily opposed to science.
There is a word used in Scripture to denote a reptilian monster, which appears in one instance at least to refer to this dragon of eclipse, and so to be used in an astronomical sense. Job, in his first outburst of grief cursed the day in which he was born, and cried—
"Let them curse it that curse the day,
Who are ready (margin, skilful) to rouse up Leviathan.
Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark
Let it look for light, but have none;
Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning."
"Leviathan" denotes an animal wreathed, gathering itself in coils: hence a serpent, or some great reptile. The description in Job xli. is evidently that of a mighty crocodile, though in Psalm civ. leviathan is said to play in "the great and wide sea," which has raised a difficulty as to its identification in the minds of some commentators. In the present passage it is supposed to mean one of the stellar dragons, and hence the mythical dragon of eclipse. Job desired that the day of his birth should have been cursed by the magicians, so that it had been a day of complete and entire eclipse, not even the stars that preceded its dawn being allowed to shine.
The astronomical use of the word leviathan here renders it possible that there may be in Isa. xxvii. an allusion—quite secondary and indirect however—to the chief stellar dragons.
"In that day the Lord with His sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and He shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."
The marginal reading gives us instead of "piercing," "crossing like a bar"; a most descriptive epithet for the long-drawn-out constellation of Hydra, the Water-snake, which stretched itself for one hundred and five degrees along the primitive equator, and "crossed" the meridian "like a bar" for seven hours out of every twenty-four. "The crooked serpent" would denote the dragon coiled around the poles, whilst "the dragon which is in the sea" would naturally refer to Cetus, the Sea-monster. The prophecy would mean then, that "in that day" the Lord will destroy all the powers of evil which have, as it were, laid hold of the chief places, even in the heavens.
