have felt constrained to reject [see art. ORION], and partly on a mistaken derivation and explana- tion of nwo (LXX δεσμόν), which does not mean outpourings, but ‘ bands,’ ‘links,’ ‘ knots.’
As might have been expected, this conspicuous group of stars arrested the attention and exercised the imagination of many peoples. The Australian saw in thema group of girls playing the corroboree. The North American Indian thought of them as dancers. There is some reason for believing that at one time in Egypt they were connected with Isis. The Greeks represented them as sisters flying before Orion: the maidens prayed for deliverance from the giant hunter, and were heard by the gods, who changed them into doves, and placed them amongst the stars. In this mythology their names are Electra, Maia, Taygete, Alcyone, Celzno, Sterope, and Merope. e Arabs pictured them as a group of riders mounted on Eales and Wetz- stein (in App. to Delitzsch’s Book of Job) points out that they named the star immediately in front of the cluster hadi, t.e. the singer who rides in front of a troop of camels and stimulates them to swift movement by his song. The Persians com-
are them to a cluster of jewels or a necklace.
heir mention in the Bible has no mythological tinge. At Am 58, Job 9°, the constellations are adduced as forming part of that wonderful com- plex of creation the existence of which bears testimony to the Maker’s almightiness. At Job 38% they are signs of the seasons, and the recurrence of these seasons year by year is alto- gether beyond the control of man. He cannot tie the bands which hold this group together—another proof of that impotence hich should lead him willingly to submit to God.
LrrERATURE.—Hoffmann’s article quoted above ; Cheyne, Job and Solomon, 1887, p. 290; Cox, Book of Job, 1885, p. 518, Delitzsch, Book of Job, Eng. tr. 1866; Oom. on Job by A. B. Davidson a or E. O. S. Gibson (1899). Duhm, Das Buch Hiob, 1897, follows Gustav Bickell, Das Buch Job, 1894, im omitting the verse Job 99 from the text.
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