el reached the borders of Moab, Balak,
the king of Moab, sent for a seer of great reputation, Balaam, the son
of Beor, to "Come, curse me Jacob, and come, defy Israel." Balaam came,
but instead of cursing Jacob, blessed the people in four prophecies,
wherein he made, what would appear to be, distinct references to the
standards of Judah, Joseph and Reuben.

"Behold the people riseth up as a lioness,
And as a lion doth he lift himself up."

Then again--

"He couched, he lay down as a lion,
And as a lioness; who shall rouse him up?"

And in two passages--

"God bringeth him forth out of Egypt;
He hath as it were the strength of the wild ox."

The wild ox and lion are obvious similes to use concerning a powerful
and warlike people. These two similes are, therefore, not sufficient by
themselves to prove that the tribal standards are being referred to. But
the otherwise enigmatical verse--

"Water shall flow from his buckets,"

appears more expressly as an allusion to the standard of Reuben, the
"man with the river," Aquarius pouring water from his pitcher; and if
one be a reference to a standard, the others may also well be.

[Illustration: AQUARIUS AND THE NEIGHBOURING CONSTELLATIONS.]

It is surely something more than coincidence that Joseph, who by his
father's favour and his own merit was made the leader of the twelve
brethren, should be associated with the bull or wild ox, seeing that
Taurus was the leader of the zodiac in those ages. It may also well be
more than coincidence, that when Moses was in the mount and "the people
gathered themselves unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods,
which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us
up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him," Aaron
fashioned the golden earrings given him into the form of a molten calf;
into the similitude, that is to say, of Taurus, then Prince of the
Zodiac. If we turn to St. Stephen's reference to this occurrence, we
find that he says--

"And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice
unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.
Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of
heaven."

In other words, their worship of the golden calf was star worship.

It has been often pointed out that this sin of the Israelites, deep as
it was, was not in itself a breach of the first commandment--