The Astronomy of the Bible Part 17

"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.

In one pa.s.sage "the crooked serpent," here used as a synonym of _leviathan_, distinctly points to the dragon of the constellations. In Job's last answer to Bildad the Shuhite, he says--

"He divideth the sea with His power, And by His understanding He smiteth through the proud. (R.V.

_Rahab_.) By His spirit He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the crooked serpent."

The pa.s.sage gives a good example of the parallelism of Hebrew poetry; the repet.i.tion of the several terms of a statement, term by term, in a slightly modified sense; a rhyme, if the expression may be used, not of sound, but of signification.

Thus in the four verses just quoted, we have three terms in each--agent, action, object;--each appears in the first statement, each appears likewise in the second. The third statement, in like manner, has its three terms repeated in a varied form in the fourth.

Thus--

His power = His understanding.

Divideth = Smiteth through.

The sea = _Rahab_ (the proud).

And--

His spirit = His hand.

Hath garnished = Hath formed.

The heavens = The crooked serpent.

There can be no doubt as to the significance of the two parallels. In the first, dividing the sea, _i. e._ the Red Sea, is the correlative of smiting through _Rahab_, "the proud one," the name often applied to Egypt, as in Isa. x.x.x. 7: "For Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I called her Rahab that sitteth still." In the second, "adorning the heavens" is the correlative of "forming the crooked serpent." The great constellation of the writhing dragon, emphatically a "crooked serpent," placed at the very crown of the heavens, is set for all the constellations of the sky.

There are several references to _Rahab_, as "the dragon which is in the sea," all clearly referring to the kingdom of Egypt, personified as one of her own crocodiles lying-in-wait in her own river, the Nile, or transferred, by a figure of speech, to the Red Sea, which formed her eastern border. Thus in chapter li. Isaiah apostrophizes "the arm of the Lord."

"Art Thou not It that cut Rahab in pieces, That pierced the dragon?

Art Thou not It that dried up the sea, The waters of the great deep; That made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pa.s.s over?"

And in Psalm lx.x.xix. we have--

"Thou rulest the raging of the sea; When the waves thereof arise Thou stillest them.

Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces as one that is slain, Thou hast scattered Thine enemies with Thy strong arm."

So the prophet Ezekiel is directed--

"Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and say unto him, thou wast likened unto a young lion of the nations: yet art thou as a dragon in the seas."

In all these pa.s.sages it is only in an indirect and secondary sense that we can see any constellational references in the various descriptions of "the dragon that is in the sea." It is the crocodile of Egypt that is intended; Egypt the great oppressor of Israel, and one of the great powers of evil, standing as a representative of them all. The serpent or dragon forms in the constellations also represented the powers of evil; especially the great enemy of G.o.d and man, "the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan." So there is some amount of appropriateness to the watery dragons of the sky--_Hydra_ and _Cetus_--in these descriptions of _Rahab_, the dragon of Egypt, without there being any direct reference. Thus it is said of the Egyptian "dragon in the seas," "I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the earth, and to the fowls of the heaven;" and again, "I will cause all the fowls of the heaven to settle upon thee," just as _Corvus_, the Raven, is shown as having settled upon _Hydra_, the Water-snake, and is devouring its flesh. Again, Pharaoh, the Egyptian dragon, says, "My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself;" just as _Cetus_, the Sea-monster, is represented as pouring forth _Erida.n.u.s_, the river, from its mouth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANDROMEDA AND CETUS.]

But a clear and direct allusion to this last grouping of the constellations occurs in the Apocalypse. In the twelfth chapter, the proud oppressor dragon from the sea is shown us again with much fulness of detail. There the Apostle describes his vision of a woman, who evidently represents the people of G.o.d, being persecuted by a dragon.

There is still a reminiscence of the deliverance of Israel in the Exodus from Egypt, for "the woman _fled into the wilderness_, where she hath a place prepared of G.o.d, that there they may nourish her a thousand two hundred and threescore days." And the vision goes on:--

"And the serpent cast out of his mouth, after the woman water as a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the stream. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth."

This appears to be precisely the action which is presented to us in the three constellations of _Andromeda_, _Cetus_, and _Erida.n.u.s_. Andromeda is always shown as a woman in distress, and the Sea-monster, though placed far from her in the sky, has always been understood to be her persecutor. Thus Aratus writes--

"Andromeda, though far away she flies, Dreads the Sea-monster, low in southern skies."

The latter, baffled in his pursuit of his victim, has cast the river, _Erida.n.u.s_, out of his mouth, which, flowing down below the southern horizon, is apparently swallowed up by the earth.

It need occasion no surprise that we should find imagery used by St.

John in his prophecy already set forth in the constellations nearly 3,000 years before he wrote. Just as, in this same book, St. John repeated Daniel's vision of the fourth beast, and Ezekiel's vision of the living creatures, as he used the well-known details of the Jewish Temple, the candlesticks, the laver, the altar of incense, so he used a group of stellar figures perfectly well known at the time when he wrote.

In so doing the beloved disciple only followed the example which his Master had already set him. For the imagery in the parables of our Lord is always drawn from scenes and objects known and familiar to all men.

In two instances in which _leviathan_ is mentioned, a further expression is used which has a distinct astronomical bearing. In the pa.s.sage already quoted, where Job curses the day of his birth, he desires that it may not "behold the eyelids of the morning." And in the grand description of _leviathan_, the crocodile, in chapter xli., we have--

"His neesings flash forth light, And his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning."

Canon Driver considers this as an "allusion, probably to the reddish eyes of the crocodile, which are said to appear gleaming through the water before the head comes to the surface." This is because of the position of the eyes on the animal's head, not because they have any peculiar brilliancy.

"It is an idea exclusively Egyptian, and is another link in the chain of evidence which connects the author of the poem with Egypt. The crocodile's head is so formed that its highest points are the eyes; and when it rises obliquely to the surface the eyes are the first part of the whole animal to emerge. The Egyptians observing this, compared it to the sun rising out of the sea, and made it the hieroglyphic representative of the idea of sunrise. Thus Horus Apollo says: When the Egyptians represent the sunrise, they paint the eye of the crocodile, because it is first seen as that animal emerges from the water."[209:1]

In this likening of the eyes of the crocodile to the eyelids of the morning, we have the comparison of one natural object with another. Such comparison, when used in one way and for one purpose, is the essence of poetry; when used in another way and for another purpose, is the essence of science. Both poetry and science are opposed to myth, which is the confusion of natural with imaginary objects, the mistaking the one for the other.

Thus it is poetry when the Psalmist speaks of the sun "as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber"; for there is no confusion in his thought between the two natural objects. The sun is like the bridegroom in the glory of his appearance. The Psalmist does not ascribe to him a bride and children.

It is science when the astronomer compares the spectrum of the sun with the spectra of various metals in the laboratory. He is comparing natural object with natural object, and is enabled to draw conclusions as to the elements composing the sun, and the condition in which they there exist.

But it is myth when the Babylonian represents Bel or Merodach as the solar deity, destroying Tiamat, the dragon of darkness, for there is confusion in the thought. The imaginary G.o.d is sometimes given solar, sometimes human, sometimes superhuman characteristics. There is no actuality in much of what is a.s.serted as to the sun or as to the wholly imaginary being a.s.sociated with it. The mocking words of Elijah to the priests of Baal were justified by the intellectual confusion of their ideas, as well as by the spiritual degradation of their idolatry.

"Cry aloud: for he is a G.o.d; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awakened."

Such nature-myths are not indications of the healthy mental development of a primitive people; they are the clear signs of a pathological condition, the symptoms of intellectual disease.

It is well to bear in mind this distinction, this opposition between poetry and myth, for ignoring it has led to not a little misconception as to the occurrence of myth in Scripture, especially in connection with the names a.s.sociated with the crocodile. Thus it has been broadly a.s.serted that "the original mythical signification of the monsters _tehom_, _livyathan_, _tannim_, _rahab_, is unmistakably evident."

Of these names the first signifies the world of waters; the second and third real aquatic animals; and the last, "the proud one," is simply an epithet of Egypt, applied to the crocodile as the representation of the kingdom. There is no more myth in setting forth Egypt by the crocodile or leviathan than in setting forth Great Britain by the lion, or Russia by the bear.

The Hebrews in setting forth their enemies by crocodile and other ferocious reptiles were not describing any imaginary monsters of the primaeval chaos, but real oppressors. The Egyptian, with his "house of bondage," the a.s.syrian, "which smote with a rod," the Chaldean who made havoc of Israel altogether, were not dreams. And in beseeching G.o.d to deliver them from their latest oppressor the Hebrews naturally recalled, not some idle tale of the fabulous achievements of Babylonian deities, but the actual deliverance G.o.d had wrought for them at the Red Sea.

There the Egyptian crocodile had been made "meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness" when the corpses of Pharaoh's bodyguard, cast up on the sh.o.r.e, supplied the children of Israel with the weapons and armour of which they stood in need. So in the day of their utter distress they could still cry in faith and hope--

"Yet G.o.d is my King of old, Working salvation in the midst of the earth.

Thou didst divide the sea by Thy strength: Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.

Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, And gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.

Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood: Thou driedst up mighty rivers.

The day is Thine, the night also is Thine: Thou hast prepared the light and the sun.

Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: Thou hast made summer and winter."

FOOTNOTES:

[209:1] P. H. Gosse, in the _Imperial Bible-Dictionary_.