The Pleiades, Orion and the Bear

Three star groups are named in the Old Testament, always together (Job 9:9; Amos 5:8). Kimah means “cluster” or “heap” and is usually taken to be the Pleiades, the small bright cluster in Taurus in which six or seven stars can be seen with the naked eye. Kesil, the same word as “fool”, has been read as Orion since the Septuagint; why the giant hunter of the sky bore that name is unknown. Its plural, kesilim, is translated “constellations” in Isaiah 13:10. Job speaks of “the chains of the Pleiades” and “the belt of Orion” (Job 38:31).

The third name, ash or ayish, is the least certain. The KJV, following older translations, calls it Arcturus; most modern versions read “the Bear” — the Great Bear of the northern sky, whose brightest stars form the Big Dipper — and the BSB has “the Bear and her cubs” (Job 38:32). By another view it is the Hyades, the cluster beside the Pleiades. Farmers in many ancient lands timed their work by such stars: the Greek poet Hesiod, about 700 BC, told them to reap when the Pleiades rose before dawn and to plow when they set.