certain plant is found, or the use that
is made of it; or, in the case of an animal, whether it is "clean" or
"unclean," what are its habits, and with what other animals it is
associated. But in the case of the few Scripture references to special
groups of stars, we have no such help. We are in the position in which
Macaulay's New Zealander might be, if, long after the English nation had
been dispersed, and its language had ceased to be spoken amongst men, he
were to find a book in which the rivers "Thames," "Trent," "Tyne," and
"Tweed" were mentioned by name, but without the slightest indication of
their locality. His attempt to fit these names to particular rivers
would be little more than a guess--a guess the accuracy of which he
would have no means for testing.

This is somewhat our position with regard to the four Hebrew names,
_K[=i]mah_, _K[)e]s[=i]l_, _`Ayish_, and _Mazzaroth_; yet in each case
there are some slight indications which have given a clue to the
compilers of our Revised Version, and have, in all probability, guided
them correctly.

The constellations are not all equally attractive. A few have drawn the
attention of all men, however otherwise inattentive. North-American
Indians and Australian savages have equally noted the flashing
brilliancy of Orion, and the compact little swarm of the Pleiades. All
northern nations recognize the seven bright stars of the Great Bear, and
they are known by a score of familiar names. They are the "Plough," or
"Charles's Wain" of Northern Europe; the "Seven Plough Oxen" of ancient
Rome; the "Bier and Mourners" of the Arabs; the "Chariot," or "Waggon,"
of the old Chaldeans; the "Big Dipper" of the prosaic New England
farmer. These three groups are just the three which we find mentioned in
the earliest poetry of Greece. So Homer writes, in the Fifth Book of the
_Odyssey_, that Ulysses--

"There view'd the Pleiads, and the Northern Team,
And Great Orion's more refulgent beam,
To which, around the axle of the sky,
The Bear, revolving, points his golden eye."

It seems natural to conclude that these constellations, the most
striking, or at all events the most universally recognized, would be
those mentioned in the Bible.

The passages in which the Hebrew word _K[=i]mah_, is used are the
following--

(God) "maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades (_K[=i]mah_), and
the chambers of the south" (Job ix. 9).

"Canst thou bind the swee