“In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.” (Isa. 27:1)
Sprinkled throughout the Scriptures are references to different constellations. Isaiah 27:1 mentions one called “Leviathan” that we call “Hydra” today. What do these references mean? Do the constellations themselves hold any kind of special meaning?
Other passages such as Isaiah 47:13-14 and Deut. 4:19 tell us that ancient peoples worshipped the “host of heaven” and that God forbids such a thing. Yet passages like Isaiah 40:26 and Psalm 19:1-6 reinforce that the constellations do have special, God-given meanings that can be understood by anyone.
I’m going to do a bit of a deep dive into this subject, because there are certain things – especially in Revelation – that simply cannot be properly understood without a basic understanding of how these constellations are meant to be interpreted.
Let’s begin with the first principle of understanding, which is found in Job 38:31-33:
“Can you (Job) bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the belt of Orion? Can you bring out the constellations in their seasons? Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth?”
Now, what is an “ordinance,” biblically speaking? It’s simply a law given by God, as opposed to a “judgment” which is a God-approved verdict rendered by a judge operating according to God’s will. (cf. Lev. 18:4)
What this passage in Job is telling us is that the meaning of the constellations have to do with, among other things, the “ordinances of heaven” which must eventually be enacted on the earth.
Also notice that Psalm 19 begins with speaking of the constellations, and continues afterwards with talking about “the law of the Lord.” That’s because the two concepts are directly connected.
But, there’s an additional meaning that the constellations hold, and that has to do with reflecting a heavenly reality (not just pertaining to law) which has yet to come to pass on the earth.
Ancient pagan peoples looked to the stars to foretell the future for this reason. The method that they used to divine hidden meanings in the constellations was, essentially, forming celestial word-puns.
Each constellation had its own symbol in Sumerian logograms (word-pictures), and an associated Akkadian cuneiform word. But each constellation could be referred to by more than one Sumerian logogram, and each Sumerian logogram could be “read” as multiple different Akkadian words, each of which could have more than one meaning. The ancients would attempt to connect hidden meanings to these constellations by “reading” the constellation first one way, then another, and then another, etc.
This might seem like it’s just a pagan practice of divination that we can ignore. But believe it or not, this “word-punning” IS FOUND IN THE BIBLE ITSELF, TOO.
In fact, the very first place it’s found is in Genesis 1-3, in the biblical creation story!
I’m including a link below to an article which describes how many of the elements of Genesis 2:4-3:24, come from this celestial word-punning. Here are some highlights:
- The constellation of the “Pegasus Square” represents the Garden of Eden.
- The Akkadian word for “Eden,” “tseru,” had a homonym that meant “serpent” – hence the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
- The constellation of Aries, the worker, represented both “man” and “woman” – Adam and Eve
- The constellation of Aquarius, the water-bearer, represented the Sumerian god “Ea.” This is pronounced EE-ah. Or, in Hebrew, “Yah.” In other words, this is God, in Eden.
- The northern and southern fishes of Pisces represented the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
- Word-puns on the Pegasus Square constellation represented the Pishon and the Gihon. The Pishon went through Havilah (in Arabia) and the Gihon went through Kush (modern Ethiopia, south of Egypt; hence the Gihon is the Nile).
In the biblical creation story, we see four rivers coming out of Eden, and yet these four rivers – the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile, and the Jordan, don’t all connect.
Biblical scholars looking at these descriptions think that they should look for the biblical Eden somewhere else, where there are four connecting rivers. But that’s not what this means.
Flip over to Isaiah 2:1, where “the mountain of the Lord’s house” would be established in Jerusalem, and “all nations would FLOW to it.” Rather than being an accurate geographic description of Eden, it was intended to FORETELL a future time when nations WILL “flow” to “Eden” – in deference to God!
This might seem like a VERY strange way to understand future events, but nevertheless, it’s a biblical practice, in addition to being used by pagan, Gentile nations.
Now, I want to explain some of those pagan beliefs regarding the constellations, because they’re actually a distortion of biblical truths. In ancient Egypt, there was a belief that when the pharaoh died, he had to enter into the “underworld,” pass a series of tests, and be judged. Only then could he “ascend to become one with the imperishable stars” (the circumpolar stars that never set) and thereby achieve eternal life.
Now, on the surface this might just seem like a foolish pagan belief, but now let’s connect how the constellations come into play, in this belief.
First of all, in order to enter the “underworld,” the pharaoh needed to pass through a “portal” which was located in the Pleiades – the “seven sisters.” From there, he passed through Orion (which represented the pharaoh himself) and into the “underworld” – the Milky Way. Upon being “reborn,” he exited through the constellation of Cygnus, which was seen as the private parts of the sky goddess Nut, represented by the Milky Way.
The ancient Egyptians built the Great Pyramids to align with the three prominent stars of Cygnus as they rose from the horizon. These three stars would emerge from the tops of each of the three pyramids simultaneously, representing the “rebirth” of the pharaoh.
With that in mind, let’s re-read Job 38:31:
Can you (Job) bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the belt of Orion?
What is God REALLY asking Job, here?
What the pagan Gentiles understood was only a distortion of the plan of God, represented in the constellations. The Pleiades represent the seven “stars” (spirits, watchers) of God, while Orion represents the Anointed Prince.
Flip over to Revelation 1 and read verses 12-16:
Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands one like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters; He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.
Now read Jesus’ explanation for these things, in verse 20:
The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.
If that’s not enough, Revelation 12:1-6 are actually derived from the same celestial word-punning as Genesis 2:4-3:24!
In other words, Revelation 12:1-6 represent a heavenly reality which has been there since Creation, which FORETELLS something in the future. Although these signs have more than one meaning, they are PRIMARILY end-time – just as the reality of nations “flowing” to “Eden” in Isaiah 2:1 is end-time.
Nations “flowed” to Jerusalem during the reign of King Solomon as well, but that wasn’t the final fulfillment of the celestial picture in Genesis. In the same way, the woman in labor in Revelation 12 is Mary, and is the Church…but that’s not its PRIMARY meaning.
References:
McHugh, John. Pinpointing the Celestial Garden of Eden by Hallowed Heavenly Writing
McHugh, John. The Mesopotamian Stellar Tableau that May have Inspired Revelation 12:1-6