Introduction | Table of Contents |
Chapter
2
The Witness of the Stars
E. W. Bullinger
The First Book
The
Redeemer
(His First Coming)
"The sufferings of Christ"
The First Book is occupied with the PERSON
of the Coming One. It covers the whole ground, and includes the conflict
and the victory of the Promised Seed, but with special emphasis on His
Coming. The book opens with the promise of His coming, and it closes with
the Dragon cast down from heaven.
Chapter I
The Sign Virgo
The Promised Seed of the
woman
1. Virgo (the
Virgin)
Here is the commencement of all prophecy
in Genesis 3:15, spoken to the serpent: "I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy
head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." This is the prophetic announcement
which the Revelation in the heavens and in the Book is designed to unfold
and develop. It lies at the root of all the ancient traditions and
mythologies, which are simply the perversion and corruption of primitive
truth.
VIRGO is represented as a woman with a
branch in her right hand, and some ears of corn in her left hand.
Thus giving a two-fold testimony of the Coming One.
The name of this sign in the Hebrew is
Bethulah, which means a virgin, and in the Arabic a
branch. The two words are connected, as in Latin--Virgo, which
means a virgin; and virga, which means a branch
(Vulg. Isa 11:1). Another name is Sunbul, Arabic, an ear of
corn.
In Genesis 3:15 she is presented only as a
woman; but in later prophecies her nationality is defined as being of the
stock of Israel, the seed of Abraham, the line of David; and, further, she
is to be a virgin. There are two prominent prophecies of her and her seed:
one is connected with the first coming in incarnation, Isaiah 7:14 (quoted
in Matthew 1:23).
"Behold, a virgin shall
conceive and bear a son,
And shall call his name Immanuel."
The other is connected with His second
coming, leaping over the sufferings and this present interval of His
rejection, and looking forward to His coming in glory and judgment, Isaiah
9:6, 7 (quoted in Luke 2:11 and 1 :32, 33).
"For unto us a child is born,
Unto us a son is given; *
And the government shall be upon His
shoulder;
And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor,
The
Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Of the
increase of His government there shall be no end.
Upon the throne of
David, and upon His kingdom,
To order it, and to establish it
With
judgment and with justice
From henceforth even for ever.
The zeal
of the LORD of hosts will perform this."
* Here, the fact of His
humiliation, together with this long period of His rejection, is leaped
over, and the prophecy passes on at once--over at least a
period of 1893 years--to this "glory which should follow."
It is difficult to separate the Virgin and
her Seed in the prophecy; and so, here, we have first the sign VIRGO,
where the name points to her as the prominent subject; while in the first
of the three constellations of this sign, where the woman appears again,
the name COMA points to the child as the great subject.
Virgo contains 110 stars, viz., one
of the 1st magnitude, six of the 3rd, ten of the 4th, etc.
ARATUS thus sings of them:
"Beneath Bootes feet the
Virgin seek,
Who carries in her hand a glittering spike.
Over her
shoulder there revolves a star
In the right wing, superlatively
bright;
It rolls beneath the tail, and may compare
With the bright
stars that deck the Greater Bear.
Upon her sholder one bright star is
borne,
One clasps the circling girdle of her loins,
One at her
bending knee; and in her hand
Glitters that bright and golden Ear of
Corn.
Thus the brightest star in VIRGO
(a) * has an ancient name, handed down to us in all the star-maps,
in which the Hebrew word Tsemech is preserved. It is called in
Arabic Al Zimach, which means the branch. This star is in
the ear of corn which she holds in her left hand. Hence the star has a
modern Latin name, which has almost superseded the ancient one,
Spica, which means, an ear of corn. But this hides the great
truth revealed by its name Al Zimach. It foretold the coming of Him
who should bear this name. The same Divine inspiration has, in the written
Word, four times connected it with Him. There are twenty Hebrew words
translated "Branch," but only one of them (Tsemech) is used
exclusively of the Messiah, and this word only four times (Jer 33:15 being
only a repetition of Jer 23:5). Each of these further connects Him with
one special account of Him, given in the Gospels.
* The stars are known by Greek
letters and sometimes by numbers, &c. Alpha (a) denotes a
star of the first magnitude; Beta (b), the second, and so
on. This plan was originated by Bayer in his Uranometria, 1603.
The star Alpha, as seen in the New Great Equatorial Telescope
recently set up at Greenwich, is now discovered to be really a
double star, though it had hitherto always appeared to be
one.
(1) Jeremiah 23:5 --"Behold, the days
come, saith the LORD, That I will raise unto David a righteous BRANCH
(i.e., a Son), And a KING shall reign and prosper." The account of His
coming as King is written in the Gospel according to Matthew, where
Jehovah says to Israel, "Behold thy KING." (Zech 9:9; Matt 21:9)
(2) Zechariah 3:8--"Behold I will bring
forth my SERVANT the BRANCH." In the Gospel according to Mark we find the
record of Jehovah's servant and His service, and we hear Jehovah's voice
saying, "Behold my SERVANT." (Isa 42:1)
(3) Zechariah 6:12--"Thus speaketh the
LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the MAN whose name is the BRANCH." In the
Gospel according to Luke we behold Him, presented in "the MAN Christ
Jesus."
(4) Isaiah 4:2--"In that day shall the
BRANCH of JEHOVAH be beautiful and glorious." So that this Branch, this
Son, is Jehovah Himself; and as we read the record of John we hear the
voice from heaven saying, "Behold your GOD." (Isa 40:9)
This is the Branch foretold by the star
Al Zimach in the ear of corn.
The star b is called
Zavijaveh, which means the gloriously beautiful, as in
Isaiah 4:2. The star e, in the arm bearing the branch, is called
Al Mureddin, which means who shall come down (as in Psa
72:8), or who shall have dominion. It is also known as
Vindemiatrix, a Chaldee word which means the son, or
branch, who cometh.
Other names of stars in the sign, are--
Subilah, who carries. (Isa 46:4)
Al Azal, the Branch. (As in Isa 18:5)
Subilon, a spike
of corn. (As in Isa 17:5)
The Greeks, ignorant of the Divine origin
and teaching of the sign, represented Virgo as Ceres, with ears of
corn in her hand.
In the Zodiac in the Temple of Denderah,
in Egypt, about 2000 BC (now in Paris), she is likewise represented with a
branch in her hand, but ignorantly explained by a false religion to
represent Isis! Her name is called Aspolia, which means
ears of corn, or the seed, which shows that though the woman
is seen, it is her Seed who is the great subject of the prophecy.
Passing to the three constellations
anciently assigned to the sign VIRGO, we come to what may be compared to
three sections of the chapter, each giving some further detail as
to the interpretation of its teaching.
1. COMA (The Woman and Child)
The desired of all
nations
2. Coma (the
Desired)
The first constellation in VIRGO explains
that this coming "Branch" will be a child, and that He should be the
"Desire of all nations."
The ancient name of this constellation is
Comah, the desired, or the longed for. We have the word used
by the Holy Spirit in this very connection, in Haggai 2:7--"The DESIRE of
all nations shall come."
The ancient Zodiacs pictured this
constellation as a woman with a child in her arms. ALBUMAZAR * (or ABU
MASHER), an Arabian astronomer of the eighth century, says, "There arises
in the first Decan **, as the Persians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians, and the
two HERMES and ASCALIUS teach, a young woman whose Persian name
denotes a pure virgin, sitting on a throne, nourishing an infant
boy (the boy, I say), having a Hebrew name, by some nations called
IHESU, with the signification IEZA, which in Greek is called CHRISTOS."
* A Latin translation of his work
is in the British Museum Library. He says the Persians understood these
signs, but that the Indians perverted them with inventions.
** The constellations are called
Decans. The word means a part, and is used of the three
parts into which each sign is divided, each of which is occupied by a
constellation.
But this picture is not found in any of
the modern maps of the stars. There we find today a woman's wig! It
appears that BERENICE, the wife of EUERGETES (PTOLEMY III), king of Egypt
in the third century BC, when her husband once went on a dangerous
expedition, vowed to consecrate her fine head of hair to Venus if he
returned in safety. Her hair, which was hung up in the Temple of Venus,
was subsequently stolen, and to comfort BERENICE, CONON, an astronomer of
Alexandria (BC 283-222), gave it out that Jupiter had taken it and made it
a constellation!
This is a good example of how the meaning
of other constellations have been perverted (ignorantly or intentionally).
In this case, as in others, the transition from ancient to more modern
languages helped to hide the meaning. The Hebrew name was COMA
(desired). But the Greeks had a word for hair, Co-me. this
again is transferred to the Latin coma, and thus "Coma
Berenice" (The hair of Berenice) comes down to us today as the
name of this constellation, and gives us a woman's wig instead of that
Blessed One, "the Desire of all Nations."
In this case, however we are able to give
absolute proof that this is a perversion.
The ancient Egyptian name for this
constellation was Shes-nu, the desired son!
The Zodiac in the Temple of Denderah, in
Egypt, going back at least 2000 years BC, has no trace of any hair, but it
has the figure of a woman and child.
Even Shakespeare understood the truth
about this constellation picture, which has been so long covered by modern
inventions. In his Titus Andronicus he speaks of an arrow being
shot up to heaven to the "Good boy in Virgo's lap."
The constellation itself is very
remarkable. Others contain one or two stars of the first or second
magnitude, and then a greater or less variety of lesser stars; but this is
peculiar from having no one very bright star, but contains so many stars
of the 4th and 5th magnitudes. It contains 43 stars altogether, ten being
of the 4th magnitude, and the remainder of the 5th, 6th, etc.
It was in all probability the
constellation of Coma in which "the Star of Bethlehem" appeared.
There was a traditional prophecy, well-known in the East, carefully
preserved and handed down, that a new star would appear in this sign when
He whom it foretold should be born.
This was, doubtless, referred to in the
prophecy of Balaam, which would thus receive a double fulfilment, first of
the literal "Star," and also of the person to whom it referred. The Lord
said by Balaam (Num 24:17),
"There shall come * a star
out of Jacob,
And a sceptre shall rise out of Israel."
* I.e., come forth (as in
the RV). At is rendered in Genesis 3:24 "There shall come forth a
star at or over the inheritance or possessions of Jacob," thus
indicating the locality which would be on the meridian of this
star.
Thomas Hyde, an eminent Orientalist
(1636-1703), writing on the ancient religion of the Persians, quotes from
ABULFARAGIUS (an Arab Christian Historian, 1126-1286), who says that
ZOROASTER, or ZERDUSHT, the Persian, was a pupil of Daniel the Prophet,
and that he predicted to the Magians (who were the astronomers of Persia),
that when they should see a new star appear it would notify the
birth of a mysterious child, whom they were to adore. It is further stated
in the Zend Avesta that this new star was to appear in the sign of
the Virgin. Some have supposed that this passage is not genuine. But
whether it was interpolated before or after the event, it is equally good
evidence for our purpose here. For if it was written before the
event, it is evidence of the prophetic announcement; and if it was
interpolated after the event it is evidence of the historic
fact
The Book of Job shows us how Astronomy
flourished in Idumea; and the Gospel according to Matthew shows that the
Persian Magi, as well as others, were looking for "the Desire of all
nations."
New stars have appeared again and again.
It was in 125 BC that a star, so bright as to be seen in the day-time,
suddenly appeared. It was this that caused HIPPARCHUS to draw up his
catalogue of stars, which has been handed down to us by PTOLEMY (150 AD).
This new star would show the
latitude, passing at that time immediately overhead at midnight,
every twenty-four hours; while the prophecy would give the
longitude as the land of Jacob. Having these two factors, it would
be only a matter of observation, and easy for the Magi to find the place
where it would be vertical, and thus to locate the very spot of the birth
of Him of whom it was the sign, for they emphatically called it "His
Star." There is a beautiful tradition which relates how, in their
difficulty, on their way from Jerusalem to find the actual spot under the
Zenith of this star, these Magi sat down beside David's "Well of
Bethlehem" to refresh themselves. There they saw the star reflected in the
clear water of the well. Hence it is written that "when they saw the star
they rejoiced with exceeding joy," for they knew they were at the very
spot and place of His appearing whence He was to "come forth."
There can be little doubt that it was a
new star. In the first place a new star is no unusual phenomenon. In
the second place the tradition is well supported by ancient Christian
writers. One speaks of its "surpassing brightness." Another (IGNATIUS,
Bishop of Antioch, AD 69) says, "At the appearance of the Lord a star
shone forth brighter than all the other stars." IGNATIUS, doubtless, had
this from those who had actually seen it! PRUDENTIUS (4th century AD) says
that not even the morning star was so fair. Archbishop TRENCH, who quotes
these authorities, says "This star, I conceive, as so many ancients and
moderns have done, to have been a new star in the heavens."
One step more places this new star in the
constellation of COMA, and with new force makes it indeed "His star"--the
"Sign" of His "coming forth from Bethlehem." will it be "the sign of the
Son of Man in heaven" (Matt 24:30) when He shall "come unto" this world
again to complete the wondrous prophecies written of Him in the heavenly
and earthly Revelations? *
* It ought also to be noted that in the preceding year
there were three conjunctions of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, at the
end of May and October, and at the beginning of December. Kepler
(1571-1631) was the first to point this out, and his calculations have
been confirmed by the highest authorities. These conjunctions occurred
in the sign of PISCES: and this sign, according to all the ancient
Jewish authorities (Josephus, Abarbanel, Eliezer, and others), has
special reference to Israel. The conjunction of Jupiter and
Saturn, they hold, always marked the occurrence of some even
favourable to Israel; while Kepler, calculating backwards, found
that this astronomical phenomenon always coincided with some great
historical crisis, viz.: the Revelation to Adam, the birth of Enoch, the
Revelation to Noah, the birth of Moses, the birth of Cyrus, the birth of
Christ, the birth of Charlemagne, and the birth of
Luther.
Thus does the constellation of COMA reveal
that the coming "Seed of the woman" was to be a child born, a son given.
But He was to be more: He was to be God
and man--two natures in one person! This is the lesson of the next
picture.
2. CENTAURUS (The Centaur)
The despised
sin-offering
3. Centaurus (the
Centaur)
It is the figure of a being with two
natures. Jamieson, in his Celestial Atlas, 1822, says, "On the
authority of the most accomplished Orientalist of our own times, the
Arabic and Chaldaic name of this constellation is Bezeh." Now this
Hebrew word Bezeh (and the Arabic Al Beze) means the
despised. It is the very word used of this Divine sufferer in Isaiah
53:3, "He is DESPISED and rejected of men."
The constellation contains thirty-five
stars. Two of the 1st magnitude, one of the 2nd, six of the 3rd, nine of
the 4th, etc., which, together with the four bright stars in the CROSS
make a brilliant show in southern latitudes.
The brightest star, a (in the
horse's fore-foot), has come down to us with the ancient name of
Toliman, which means the heretofore and hereafter, marking
Him as the one "which is, and which was, and which is to come--the
Almighty" (Rev 1:8). Sir John Herschell observed this star to be growing
rapidly brighter. It may be, therefore, one of the changeable stars, and
its name may be taken as an indication of the fact that it was known to
the ancients.
Another name for the constellation was in
Hebrew, Asmeath, which means a sin-offering (as in Isaiah
53:10).
The Greek name was Cheiron, which
means the pierced, or who pierces. In the Greek fables
Cheiron was renowned for his skill in hunting, medicine, music,
athletics, and prophecy. All the most distinguished heroes of Greece are
described as his pupils. He was supposed to be immortal, but he
voluntarily agreed to die; and, wounded by a poisoned arrow (not intended
for him) while in conflict with a wild boar, he transferred his
immortality to Prometheus; whereupon he was placed amongst the stars.
We can easily see how this fable is the
ignorant perversion of the primitive Revelation. The true tradition can be
seen dimly through it, and we can discern Him of whom it spoke,--the
all-wise, all-powerful Teacher and Prophet, who "went about doing good,"
yet "despised and rejected of men," laying down His life that others might
live.
It is one of the lowest of the
constellations, i.e. the farthest south from the northern centre. It is
situated immediately over the CROSS, which bespeaks His own death; He is
seen in the act of destroying the enemy.
Thus these star-pictures tell us that it
would be as a child that the Promised Seed should come forth
and grow and wax strong in spirit and be filled with wisdom (Luke 2:40);
and that as a man having two natures He should suffer and die. Then the
third and last section in this first chapter of this First Book goes on to
tell of His second coming in glory.
3. BOOTES (The Coming One)
He cometh
4. Bootes (the Coming
One)
This constellation still further develops
this wondrous personage.
He is pictured as a man walking rapidly,
with a spear in his right hand and a sickle in his left hand.
The Greeks called him Bo-o-tes,
which is from the Hebrew root Bo (to come), meaning the
coming. It is referred to in Psalm 96:13:
"For He cometh,
For He
cometh to judge the earth;
He shall judge the world in righteousness,
And the people with His truth."
It is probable that his ancient name was
Arcturus * (as referred to in Job 9:9), for this is the name of the
brightest star, a (in the left knee). Arcturus means He
cometh. **
* The ancient name could
not have been Bootes! though it is derived from, and may be a
reminiscence of the Hebrew.
** ARATUS calls him Arctophylax,
i.e., the guardian of Arctos, the flock of the greater fold, called
today the Great Bear:
"Behind, and seeming to
urge on the Bear,
Arctophylax, on earth Bootes named,
Sheds o'er
the Arctic car his silver light."
By some moderns he is mistakenly called
The Waggoner. Hence the allusion of Thompson:
"Wide o'er the spacious
regions of the North,
Bootes urges on his tardy wain."