The Astronomy of the Bible Part 7

"For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and G.o.dhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew G.o.d, they glorified Him not as G.o.d, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible G.o.d into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things."

FOOTNOTES:

[68:1] Josephus, _Antiquities_, XIII. iii. 1.

CHAPTER VII

THE MOON

"The balmy moon of blessed Israel Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine: All night the splintered crags that wall the dell With spires of silver s.h.i.+ne."

So, in Tennyson's words, sang Jephthah's daughter, as she recalled the days of her mourning before she accomplished her self-sacrifice.

It is hard for modern dwellers in towns to realize the immense importance of the moon to the people of old. "The night cometh when no man can work" fitly describes their condition when she was absent. In sub-tropical countries like Palestine, twilight is short, and, the sun once set, deep darkness soon covers everything. Such artificial lights as men then had would now be deemed very inefficient. There was little opportunity, when once darkness had fallen, for either work or enjoyment.

But, when the moon was up, how very different was the case. Then men might say--

"This night, methinks, is but the daylight sick; It looks a little paler: 'tis a day, Such as the day is when the sun is hid."

In the long moonlit nights, travelling was easy and safe; the labours of the field and house could still be carried on; the friendly feast need not be interrupted. But of all men, the shepherd would most rejoice at this season; all his toils, all his dangers were immeasurably lightened during the nights near the full. As in the beautiful rendering which Tennyson has given us of one of the finest pa.s.sages in the _Iliad_--

"In heaven the stars about the moon Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, And every height comes out, and jutting peak And valley, and the immeasurable heavens Break open to their highest, and all the stars s.h.i.+ne, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart."

A large proportion of the people of Israel, long after their settlement in Palestine, maintained the habits of their forefathers, and led the shepherd's life. To them, therefore, the full of the moon must have been of special importance; yet there is no single reference in Scripture to this phase as such; nor indeed to any change of the moon's apparent figure. In two cases in our Revised Version we do indeed find the expression "at the full moon," but if we compare these pa.s.sages with the Authorized Version, we find them there rendered "in the time appointed,"

or "at the day appointed." This latter appears to be the literal meaning, though there can be no question, as is seen by a comparison with the Syriac, that the period of the full moon is referred to. No doubt it was because travelling was so much more safe and easy than in the moonless nights, that the two great spring and autumn festivals of the Jews were held at the full moon. Indeed, the latter feast, when the Israelites "camped out" for a week "in booths," was held at the time of the "harvest moon." The phenomenon of the "harvest moon" may be briefly explained as follows. At the autumnal equinox, when the sun is crossing from the north side of the equator to the south, the full moon is crossing from the south side of the equator to the north. It is thus higher in the sky, when it souths, on each succeeding night, and is therefore up for a greater length of time. This counterbalances to a considerable extent its movement eastward amongst the stars, so that, for several nights in succession, it rises almost at sundown. These nights of the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel was rejoicing over the ingathered fruits, each family in its tent or arbour of green boughs, were therefore the fullest of moonlight in the year.[81:1]

Modern civilization has almost shut us off from the heavens, at least in our great towns and cities. These offer many conveniences, but they remove us from not a few of the beauties which nature has to offer. And so it comes that, taking the population as a whole, there is perhaps less practically known of astronomy in England to-day than there was under the Plantagenets. A very few are astronomers, professional and amateur, and know immeasurably more than our forefathers did of the science. Then there is a large, more or less cultured, public that know something of the science at secondhand through books. But the great majority know nothing of the heavenly bodies except of the sun; they need to "look in the almanack" to "find out moons.h.i.+ne." But to simpler peoples the difference between the "light half" of the month, from the first quarter to the last quarter through the full of the moon, and the "dark half," from the last quarter to the first quarter, through new, is very great. Indian astronomers so divide the month to this day.

In one pa.s.sage of Holy Scripture, the description which Isaiah gives of the "City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel," there is a reference to the dark part of the month.

"Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon (literally "month") withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended."

The parallelism expressed in the verse lies between the darkness of night whilst the sun is below the horizon, and the special darkness of those nights when the moon, being near conjunction with the sun, is absent from the sky during the greater part or whole of the night hours, and has but a small portion of her disc illuminated. Just as half the day is dark because the sun has withdrawn itself, so half the nights of the month are dark because the moon has withdrawn itself.

The Hebrew month was a natural one, determined by actual observation of the new moon. They used three words in their references to the moon, the first of which, _chodesh_, derived from a root meaning "to be new,"

indicates the fact that the new moon, as actually observed, governed their calendar. The word therefore signifies the new moon--the day of the new moon: and thus a month; that is, a lunar month beginning at the new moon. This is the Hebrew word used in the Deluge story in the seventh chapter of Genesis; and in all references to feasts depending on a day in the month. As when the Lord spake to Moses, saying, "Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with your trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings." And again in the Psalm of Asaph to the chief musician upon Gitt.i.th: "Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day." This is the word also that Isaiah uses in describing the bravery of the daughters of Zion, "the tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets." "The round tires" were not discs, like the full moon, but were round like the crescent.

Generally speaking, _chodesh_ is employed where either reference is made to the shape or newness of the crescent moon, or where "month" is used in any precise way. This is the word for "month" employed throughout by the prophet Ezekiel, who is so precise in the dating of his prophecies.

When the moon is mentioned as the lesser light of heaven, without particular reference to its form, or when a month is mentioned as a somewhat indefinite period of time, then the Hebrew word _yareach_, is used. Here the word has the root meaning of "paleness"; it is the "silver moon."

_Yareach_ is the word always used where the moon is cla.s.sed among the heavenly bodies; as when Joseph dreamed of the sun, the moon, and the eleven constellations; or in Jer. viii. 2, where the Lord says that they shall bring out the bones of the kings, princes, priests, prophets, and inhabitants of Jerusalem, "and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have wors.h.i.+pped."

The same word is used for the moon in its character of "making ordinances." Thus we have it several times in the Psalms: "He (the Lord) appointed the moon for seasons." "His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before Me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven." And again: "The moon and stars rule by night;" whilst Jeremiah says, "Thus saith the Lord, Which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night."

In all pa.s.sages where reference seems to be made to the darkening or withdrawing of the moon's light (Eccl. xii. 2; Isa. xiii. 10; Ezek.

x.x.xii. 7; Joel ii. 10, 31, and iii. 15; and Hab. iii. 11) the word _yareach_ is employed. A slight variant of the same word indicates the month when viewed as a period of time not quite defined, and not in the strict sense of a lunar month. This is the term used in Exod. ii. 2, for the three months that the mother of Moses hid him when she saw that he was a goodly child; by Moses, in his prophecy for Joseph, of "Blessed of the Lord be his land . . . for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the months." Such a "full month of days" did Shallum the son of Jabesh reign in Samaria in the nine and thirtieth year of Uzziah, king of Judah. Such also were the twelve months of warning given to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, before his madness fell upon him. The same word is once used for a true lunar month, viz. in Ezra vi. 15, when the building of the "house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king." In all other references to the months derived from the Babylonians, such as the "month Chisleu" in Neh. i. 1, the term _chodesh_ is used, since these, like the Hebrew months, were defined by the observation of the new moon; but for the Tyrian months, Zif, Bul, Ethanim, we find the term _yerach_ in three out of the four instances.

In three instances a third word is used poetically to express the moon.

This is _lebanah_, which has the meaning of whiteness. In Song of Sol.

vi. 10, it is asked--

"Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?"

Isaiah also says--

"Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously."

And yet again--

"Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound."

It may not be without significance that each of these three pa.s.sages, wherein the moon is denominated by its name of whiteness or purity, looks forward prophetically to the same great event, pictured yet more clearly in the Revelation--

"And I heard as it were the voice of a great mult.i.tude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord G.o.d omnipotent reigneth.

"Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready.

"And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints."

_Chodesh_ and _yareach_ are masculine words; _lebanah_ is feminine. But nowhere throughout the Old Testament is the moon personified, and in only one instance is it used figuratively to represent a person. This is in the case of Jacob's reading of Joseph's dream, already referred to, where he said--

"Behold I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me."

And his father quickly rebuked him, saying--

"What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?"

Here Jacob understands that the moon (_yareach_) stands for a woman, his wife. But in Mesopotamia, whence his grandfather Abraham had come out, Sin, the moon-G.o.d, was held to be a male G.o.d, high indeed among the deities at that time, and superior even to Samas, the sun-G.o.d. Terah, the father of Abraham, was held by Jewish tradition to have been an especial wors.h.i.+pper of the moon-G.o.d, whose great temple was in Haran, where he dwelt.

Wherever the land of Uz may have been, at whatever period Job may have lived, there and then it was an iniquity to wors.h.i.+p the moon or the moon-G.o.d. In his final defence to his friends, when the "three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes," Job, justifying his life, said--

"If I beheld the sun when it s.h.i.+ned, Or the moon walking in brightness; And my heart hath been secretly enticed, And my mouth hath kissed my hand: This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judges: For I should have lied to G.o.d that is above."

The Hebrews, too, were forbidden to wors.h.i.+p the sun, the moon, or the stars, the host of heaven, and disobeyed the commandment both early and late in their history. When Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness in the plain over against the Red Sea, he said to them--

"The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. . . . Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in h.o.r.eb out of the midst of the fire:

"Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female. . . .

And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to wors.h.i.+p them, and serve them, which the Lord thy G.o.d hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven."

We know what the "similitude" of the sun and the moon were like among the surrounding nations. We see their "hieroglyphs" on numberless seals and images from the ruins of Nineveh or Babylon. That of the sun was first a rayed star or disc, later a figure, rayed and winged. That of the moon was a crescent, one lying on its back, like a bowl or cup, the actual att.i.tude of the new moon at the beginning of the new year. Just such moon similitudes did the soldiers of Gideon take from off the camels of Zebah and Zalmunna; just such were the "round tires like the moon" that Isaiah condemns among the bravery of the daughters of Zion.