Job 38:31

β . Perhaps Job can tell who formed the constellations, “Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the South,” upon which he descanted so sublimely, (Job 9:9,) and who set them in their lofty places, and ordained and confirmed their influences upon the earth! Job 38:31-33.

31. Sweet influences Our Authorized Version is based on the natural derivation of מעדנות from עדן , “to be soft” or “tender,” the root idea of the word Eden. According to this rendering the meaning is, as given by Patrick, “Canst thou forbid the sweet flowers to come forth, when the ‘seven stars’ arise in the spring; or open the earth for the husbandman’s labour, when the winter season, at the rising of Orion, ties up their hands;” an interpretation fanciful and weak. The word is now generally supposed to be, by metathesis, from ענד , “to bind;” hence bands. Furst, Gesenius, etc., follow the Septuagint and Targum in this rendering. The word kimah, rendered PLEIADES, (the seven stars,) signifies heap or group, and naturally suggests the ties that bind it together into its beautiful order, which leads Persian poets to compare it to a bouquet formed of jewels, (see note, Job 9:9,) and one of the Moallakat to say, “It was the hour when the Pleiades appeared in the firmament, like the folds of a silken sash, variously decked with gems.” With Oriental poets “the bands of the Pleiades” is a frequent figure. It will illustrate the Authorized Version to add that Madlar reached the conclusion that Alcyone, the principal star in the group of the Pleiades, now occupies the centre of gravity, and is at present the sun or great centre about which our universe of stars is revolving. This “focal point,” it is proper to add, was conjectured by Struve to lie between π and μ , in the group Hercules; while Argelander fixed upon Perseus as “the empire constellation of our astral system.” These “seven stars,” which in unspeakable beauty shine conspicuously forth from a vast throng ( heap) of apparently minor stars, out of a distance perhaps forty million times as great as that of our own earth from the sun, send forth tender and as yet unestimated powerful influences, some of which our own earth is not too small to gather up and to feel.

The bands of Orion (See Job 9:9.) מושׁכות , signifies also fetters, or its belt of three stars. (Hitzig.) These are the stars by which the giant form seems to be fastened to the heaven. (Hirtzel.) These mighty stars canst thou move from the places God has assigned them? Job can neither place in order the clustering Pleiades nor displace the stars of Orion. There is, possibly, an allusion to the wonderful nebula within this constellation. “Orion and the Pleiades are visible in the Syrian sky longer in the year than with us, and there they come about 17 higher above the horizon than with us.” Delitzsch.