"The Adsyr. word for the planet Venus i» penemlly read I>ilhat, more correctly Deletial (.^mi>«t), exptaineil ae Nabal kakkabu ' the atAr Nahat,' or '(Hhe who) proclniniH.'
t It ia to he noted t)iat the Ileh. word ti^Ut tfl raaac., and in ihis reaemhles HeOHi>horos(Heni»eni*) ; hnl the name in Afwyr., \rah., etc, ia fem. The name biicifcr. applied to .Sntnn, is due I'" Hleron>lnu8 and the Fathera of the Chnn-h, and apparently lu\d ita ohffin in the lejfend of the fall of the iiiiL'elM, introduced into the worita of Bishop Avitna, the poetCffidmon, and Slilton n Par I^tl (cf. Lk inl«, Rev IZ'").
t Schrader reads in the game powtntfc SaJ;h1ith for SMnitfi, and ■oniparea thit word with the cnneifonn Salt-kllt, one of the lauiet, of the (jod Ninip, worshipper! of old in Uahylonift vol.. I. — I ?
man to run his cour.se.' This poetical description of the sun, however, reminds one of those Bab. cylinder-seals on Avhich the sun-god is represented OS a man, from whom rays of light stream forth so dazzling that the divine attendants who open the doors which enclose him are obliged to look the other way whilst performing this duty.* The going forth of the sun ' from the end of heaven,' and the ' circuit unto the ends of it ' (v."), refer, naturally, to the daily journey of the sun, which, as it would seem from this passage, had been noticed to be a curved course in the heavens. Ai with the Babylonians and Assyrians, the sun wa.» used to mark the points of the compass, east being I the rising sun,' west ' the setting sun,' etc. The indication of the ditferent parts of the day from the position of the sun was, no doubt, from actual observation, the use of sun-dials (see below) not lieini; by any means common in the ancient East. For further information see SuN.
There is no express mention of eclipses in the Bible, but certain expressions, such as ' I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day' (Am 8"), have been regarded as referring to something of the kind. In the case of the above quotation, the fact that noon is mentioned in connexion with the sun going down might well refer to an eclipse ; but in the ca.se of .Mic .S«, Zee W, Joel 2">-^' 3", which were formerly taken to refer to eclipses, this can hardly be the reference, as the phenomena accompanying the obscuration of the sun and the moon do not favour that view. So also the passing reference in Jer 15' ' her sun is gone down while it was yet day,' can only mean tliat ' good fortune has ceased for her.' Reference to an eclipse has been seen also in 2 K 20", Is 38', where the shadow going back ten degrees on the dial of Aliaz is spoken of ; but real observation under natural conditions would be necessary before accepting this as being conclusive or even probable. This supposed eel lose has been identified with an annular eclipse ol the sun in 689 B.C. (Bo?:anquet in the Trans. Soc. Bibl. Archmolugy, vol. iii. p. 31 IF., vol. v. p. 261, etc.). The same writer also understands Ezk 30" 32''- ' to refer to the total eclipse of the sun in B.C. 556; but there is the same objection to this as to the supposed references in Micah, Zech., and Joel.
The Hebrews had more than one word for the moon (see Moon), serving to designate the luminary in a general sense, when full, and when new. The apparent motions of the moon were well known to the Hebrews, as it was by that heavenly body that their festivals were fixed ; and it has a special importance, because the Heb. year, like that of the Babylonians, was lunar, and was used to fix ' signs and seasons ' more, probably, than any other heavenly body. The moon played a part just as important in Bab. astronomy, for there was not only a large series of foreca-sts connected with its movements, but it was also used, as with the Hebrews, to determine the beginning of the month, and thus to fix the dates of the various festivals, etc. (FE.STIVAL.S). The Heb. idea of the moon as ' the lesser light to rule the night,' finds its echo in the Bab. account of the creation of the heavenly bodies (translated at>ove), in which she is described as the ruler of the night, the indicator of the beginning of the month, and apparently (by her changes) the divider of the month into weeks. It is not unlikely that the Hebrews learned these a.stronomical uses of our satellite from the Baby- lonians, probably at some early |ieriod, and also during the Captivity, by which time Bah.
• A very poeticAl h.\Tnn to the aun-^od, from Bornippa. deacrilwa him when (roinf; to real, and speaka of the (rreetinjrn of t)ie holta and the eatisfaotion of the door of heaven on hia arrival at ' he end of hia daily journev.
194 ASTRONOxMY AND ASTKOLOGY
ATAEGATIS
astronomy liad made ereat progress. Eclipses of the moon seem not to Le referred to in the Bible.
In all probability most of the nations of the ancient East had, like the Babylonians and Assyrians, professional astrologers, by whom the stars were consulted, horoscopes drawn, and lucky days predicted, for such as wished to know what the future had in store for them, so that they might ' know the ordinances of heaven,' and their ' dominion in the earth ' (Job 38^). The Hebrews, however, seem to have been less of astrologers than the nations around, for the prophet Jeremiah (lO*) exhorts them not to learn tlie way of the nations, and not to be dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the nations were dismayed at them, implying that the Hebrews, at least at that time, did not imitate 'the nations' in the matter of astrology to any great extent, though there was, in truth, a tendency to do so. The antiquity and reality of the belief in the influences of the stars in the ancient East is well brought home to us in Deborah's triumphal song, where she says ' the stars in their courses fought against Sisera ' ( Jg 5-"), which, though only a poetKal figure, is sutticiently characteristic.