(
@Kais_1 as well) Instead if painting a picture of the houses of the Zodiac being "ages" that the earth progresses though, it has been the observation that the sun progress through the twelve houses each year, throughout many cultures.
The notion that the story begins with Virgo (also the beginning of the year in the Hebrew calendar) and proceeds to Leo is interesting (to say the least).
Each of the constellations contain stars with very specific and unusual names which illustrate that part of the story.
The information below is from Chuck Missler at KHouse.
The Hebrew “Mazzaroth” has nothing to do with astrology. Rather, it is a tool that uses the stars to tell a story.
In this article, we’re going to look at the Mazzaroth, the Hebrew name for the
zodiac. Many
scholars believe the word
zodiac comes from the
Greek zidiakòs kýklos meaning “a circle of little animals.” The
Sanskrit root word
sodi, though, means “the way” and reflects the
Middle East understanding of the zodiac.
The
Mazzaroth has nothing to do with
astrology or any attempt to tell our futures based on the stars. Rather, the
Mazzarothis a tool that uses the stars to tell a story.
The Hebrews knew their
constellations. They were not to worship the stars, but the first chapter of
Genesis states that when
God created the
heavenly bodies, He did so for several reasons. He said, “…Let there be lights in the
firmament of the
heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for
seasons, and for days, and years.”
[1]
Stories in the Sky
It is amusing to see planetarium shows still spreading the notion that the various pictures associated with the constellations were ancient imaginings taken from
the arrangement of the stars. If you have carefully explored that conjecture, it is easily discarded as fanciful and absurd.
Have you ever tried to visualize a “lady chained to a chair” in the bent-W known as
Cassiopeia? One can see
Draco as a serpent-dragon winding and bending between the
Big and
Little Dippers, but
Sagittarius looks more like a teapot than an archer. And yet, the names of the constellations tend to be consistent, with small variations, throughout different cultures around the world.
We also discover something else as we delve into these ancient records. We discover ancient
Persian and
Arabian traditions that ascribe the invention of
astronomy to
Adam,
Seth and
Enoch.
Josephus credits the children of Seth with working to preserve the ancient knowledge in
pillars of stone.
[2]
Those traditions do have roots back that far, and I suggest that
the names of the stars and the constellations originally had meaning to Adam, Seth, and Enoch—that they were created to serve as a
mnemonic, a memory tool, to tell a very important story. The story they tell has significance to all of us, so much so that it was corrupted in a temple at
Babel and became the distorted
soothsayer’s tool we see today in astrology.
Associated with each sign’s constellation are three other smaller constellations called “
decans” for a total of 36, each rising in the same area of the sky as their associated major constellation. Every ten days, a different decan is visible on the eastern horizon just before sunrise, and 2100 years before Christ, symbols on
Egyptian coffins show they were used to keep track of
sidereal time.
[3]
The pictures in the sky are not as important as their names, and the corrupted
Babylonian star names aren’t extremely helpful, although we can see a hint of the original names in a few places. The clue to unraveling the original story is to understand the
Hebrew names. We owe a debt to
E.W. Bullinger for his 1893 book The Witness of the Stars and his careful exposition of the Hebrew constellation and star names.
The Seed of the Virgin
The first sign of the
Mazzaroth is known best by her Latin name
Virgo—the Virgin. In the
Mazzaroth, the Hebrew name of this constellation is Bethulah, which also means Virgin, and she holds a
branch in her hand (see graphic, left).
That’s interesting. Why is the Virgin holding a branch in her hand? The brightest star in the constellation is
Spica, Latin for “ear of grain.” The Hebrew name for the star,
Tsemech, means “branch” as does the
Arabic name,
Al Zimach. In
Egyptian, the star is
Aspolia—“the seed.”
There are 20 Hebrew words that can mean “branch.”
Tsemach is consistently associated with the
Messiah—the Branch who will sprout up out of the root of
David(
Isaiah 4:2,
Jeremiah 23:5,
Zechariah 3:8). The reference to the grain is interesting. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
If we can’t track the Hebrew names, the Arabic is usually very close, because the languages are similar. In Arabic, the whole constellation is called The Branch, and the other bright stars in the constellation are
Zavijaveh, “gloriously beautiful” and
Al Mureddin, “who shall have dominion” (
Psalm 72:8). In
Chaldean, this last star is
Vindemiatrix, “son who cometh.”
Bethulah/Virgo corresponds beautifully with
Genesis 3:15 and
Isaiah 7:14, the first Biblical prophecy of the coming Messiah, born of the seed of the woman, born of a virgin.
Coma
The three decan constellations associated with Virgo are
Coma,
Centaurus, and
Bootes. In Hebrew, the root word
Camah means “to long with desire” as when David says, “…my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is” (
Psalm 63:1), and the derivative
Comah means “the desired one.”
In the Egyptian Temple of
Denderah, Coma is portrayed as a woman holding a child. Bullinger quotes the Arabian astronomer Albumazar saying of Coma, “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…”
[4]
That’s an odd visual, because virgins do not suckle babies. The ancient Egyptian name for the constellation is
Shes-nu, which means the “desired son.”
Centaurus
Another decan constellation associated with Virgo is Centaurus, and the centaur we know from
pagan mythology. Half-man, half-horse, a centaur is a being with two natures. The name of the constellation in Hebrew is
Bezah, which means “the despised”—as in
Isaiah 53:3: “He is despised and rejected of men…”
Asmeath, “sin offering,” was another name for this constellation in Hebrew, as in
Isaiah 53:10: “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin…” Our Savior was a despised sin offering with two natures—God and man.
Bootes
The third decan associated with Virgo is
Bootes, a man walking rapidly with a
spear in his right hand and a
sickle in his left. His name is a Greek variation on the Hebrew word
Bo, which means “to come.”
Arcturus, the brightest star in this constellation and the brightest north of the celestial equator, is mentioned in
Job 9:9 and
38:32. Its Hebrew name is
`Ayish, from a root word that means, “to come quickly” or “to hasten.” He is the Coming One. It is likely that the entire constellation’s original name was Arcturus.
By the time of the Greeks, Bootes is portrayed as a
Plowman, holding his sickle. He is also shown driving the bears of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, or in recent centuries leading the nearby greyhound constellation.
As a guardian, though, why does he carry a sickle? That’s the tool and weapon of the farmer, not the hunter. Yet, according to
Revelation 14,
Jesus Christ does carry a sickle in his right hand for the time of harvest (
Revelation 14:14–15). After Arcturus, the next brightest star in Bootes is called
Necar – “the pierced one” or
Merga, “who bruises.”
The Gospel in the Stars
Thus, we see in the constellation Virgo and her decans the framework for the story to follow. We see the Virgin suckling the greatly desired son, also called “the seed of the woman” and “the branch.” We then see the two-natured teacher and prophet who was pierced and sacrificed, and finally the Coming One, who will hurry with a sickle in his hand as ready for a harvest.
“It is only one chapter out of twelve,” Bullinger writes, “but it distinctly foreshadows the end—even ‘the sufferings of Christ and the glory which should follow.’”
[5]
https://www.khouse.org/articles/2014/1193/