oints out
that the utterance of this caution preceded by about fifteen years the
celebrated eclipse of Thales (585 B.C.). But surely this is far-fetched.
I shall be inclined to attach the same criticism to his next citation.
Ezekiel employs these expressions:--"When I shall put thee out, I will
cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the Sun
with a cloud, and the Moon shall not give her light" (xxxii. 7). This
language resembles, in no small degree, Isaiah's, already quoted, and,
like that, _might_ apply to the phenomenon of a solar eclipse, but
whether that was actually the prophet's intention is another matter. He
may have witnessed the eclipse of 585 B.C. on the banks of the river
Chebar, and that spectacle may have put this imagery into his head.
Further than this it seems hardly safe to go.

This seems an appropriate place to mention a very interesting matter, to
which attention has been called by Oriental scholars in recent times,
who have investigated Assyrian and Egyptian monuments, and other
monuments of the same type. The story would be a long and interesting
one if presented in detail, and would far exceed my limits of space. I
must, therefore, be content with such a summary as that which has been
worked out by Mr. E. W. Maunder. Briefly the facts are these. There are
to be found in many places carvings in stone, symbolic of the Sun-god
once worshipped in the East. The general design, with of course
variations, is a circle with striated wings extending right and left to
two diameters of the wing, more or less, with a lesser extension in a
downward direction. Allowing for the roughness of the art, and for the
fact that the material was stone, it does not require any very great
stretch of imagination to see in these carvings the disc of a
totally-eclipsed Sun with, right and left and below it, that form of
corona which we have come to associate with total eclipses occurring at
periods of Sun-spot minima.[34] This idea should not seem far-fetched if
we bear in mind the fact that the ancient Orientals worshipped the Sun,
Moon, and Planets; and one of the natural outcomes of this is submitted
for our consideration by Maunder in the words following[35]:--

"There can be little doubt that the Sun was regarded partly as a symbol,
partly as a manifestation of the unseen, unapproachable Divinity. Its
light and heat, its power of calling into active exercise the
mysterious forces of germination