''Mazzaroth'' (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

: מַזָּרוֹת ''Mazzārōṯ'',

LXX The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...

Μαζουρωθ, ''Mazourōth'') is a Biblical Hebrew

Word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...

found in the Book of Job (38:32) and literally meaning "constellations," according to 10th-century biblical exegete

Saadia Gaon Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon ( ar, سعيد بن يوسف الفيومي ''Saʻīd bin Yūsuf al-Fayyūmi''; he, סַעֲדְיָה בֶּן יוֹסֵף אַלְפַיּוּמִי גָּאוֹן ''Saʿăḏyāh ben Yōsēf al-Fayyūmī Gāʾōn''; ...

, while others interpret the word as ''Garland of Crowns'',Jewish Encyclopedia: Constellations
accessed 2010-02-13. Norman C. Habel, ''The Book of Job: A Commentary'', Westminster John Knox Press, 1985, p. 523, but its context is that of

Astronomical Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxi ...

Constellations A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the earliest constellation ...

, and it is often interpreted as a term for the

Zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The pat ...

or the Constellations thereof.

Franz Delitzsch Franz Delitzsch (23 February 1813, in Leipzig – 4 March 1890, in Leipzig) was a German Lutheran theologian and Hebraist. Delitzsch wrote many commentaries on books of the Bible, Jewish antiquities, Biblical psychology, as well as a history of ...

, ''Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job'', Volume 2, T. & T. Clark, 1866, p. 324. (). The similar word '' mazalot'' (מַּזָּלוֹת) in may be related. The word itself is a

hapax legomenon In corpus linguistics, a ''hapax legomenon'' ( also or ; ''hapax legomena''; sometimes abbreviated to ''hapax'', plural ''hapaxes'') is a word or an expression that occurs only once within a context: either in the written record of an entire ...

(i.e., a word appearing only once in a text) of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

, the term ''mazalot'' came to be used in the sense of "astrology" in general, surviving in the expression "

mazel tov "Mazel tov" or "mazal tov" (Hebrew/Yiddish: , Hebrew: ''mazál tov''; Yiddish: ''mázl tov''; lit. "good fortune") is a Jewish phrase used to express congratulations for a happy and significant occasion or event. Etymology and pronunciation ...

," meaning "good fortune."

Biblical context

The appearance of the word in the Book of Job appears in the context of various astronomical phenomena: :"Canst thou bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season? Or canst thou guide the Bear with her sons?" ( JPS 1917) The related word ''mazalot'' (מַּזָּלוֹת) in

2 Kings The Book of Kings (, '' Sēfer Məlāḵīm'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Kings) in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It concludes the Deuteronomistic history, a history of Israel also including the book ...

may have a different meaning, and is often translated differently, with the linkage of this word to the

planet A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a you ...

s or the

zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The pat ...

being more widely held (in Kabbalistic astrology, ''mazalot'' was also used for astrology in general, and the word may be related to the Assyrian ''manzaltu'', "station"): :And the king stood on the platform, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes, with all his heart, and all his soul, to confirm the words of this covenant that were written in this book; and all the people stood to the covenant. And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el. And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to offer in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that offered unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven. The

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond ...

, however, uses the transliteration ''mazzaroth'' (μαζουρωθ) again at this point.

Translation

The word is traditionally (following

) left untranslated (ABC, ACV, AKJ, ASV, BBE, BIB, ESV, GNV, HNV, JPS, K21, KJG, KJR, KJV, NAB, NKJ, NRS, NWT, RSV, RWB, TMB, TNK, UPD, WEB, YLT, LXE, ZIK), but some

modern English Bible translations Modern English Bible translations consists of translations developed and published throughout the late modern period () to present-day (). A multitude of recent attempts have been made to translate the Bible into English. Most modern translations ...

render it as "zodiac" (AMP, CJB, EMP, LEE); others have "constellations" (CJB, CSB, DBY, NET, ERV, GWN, LEE, LIT, MKJ, NAS, NAU, NIB, NIV, TNV, WEV) or "stars" (CEV, NCB, NIR, NLV, TEV). But as the

Latin Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels us ...

renders the word as "luciferum", there are alternative English translations as ''"morning star"'' (CVB, TRC, furthermore

Luther Luther may refer to: People * Martin Luther (1483–1546), German monk credited with initiating the Protestant Reformation * Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), American minister and leader in the American civil rights movement * Luther (give ...

's 1545 German translation as ''Morgenstern'' also means ''"morning star"''; (DRA); ''"Venus"'' (MSG); ''"Crown season"'' (NJB); ''"sequence of seasons"'' (NLT); ''"Lucifer, 'that is, dai sterre (day star)"'' ( Wycliffe's Bible). WES gives "stars in the southern signs". Translators' Notes given in individual translations are: *Geneva: ''Certain stars so called, some think they were the twelve signs.'' *KJV/KGB: ' *NAS/NAU: ''perh. "a constellation"'' *NET: ''The word מַּזָּלֹות; (mazzarot) is taken by some to refer to the constellations (see 2 Kings 23:5), and by others as connected to the word for "crown," and so "corona."'' *NIB/NIV: ' The Targum renders the translation as "guards of the mazalot".

Rashi Shlomo Yitzchaki ( he, רבי שלמה יצחקי; la, Salomon Isaacides; french: Salomon de Troyes, 22 February 1040 – 13 July 1105), today generally known by the acronym Rashi (see below), was a medieval French rabbi and author of a compre ...

clarifies mazzarot as "all the gates of the mazalot".Rashi, Job 38:32 "Mazzarot"

References

{{Reflist

External links

The Gospel Message—Written in the Stars?
Danny Faulkner, Answers Research Journal, February 6, 2013 Hebrew words and phrases in the Hebrew Bible History of astrology

Biblical context

Translation

See also

References

External links