Hebrew Astronomy: Part 2 Who Are The Stars

To us Modern people, we know the stars are like our Sun, but they exist at a much greater distance. They are balls of burning gas, spinning and shining brilliantly in the night sky.

The Hebrews would not be aware of this. And their experience would have been similar to other ancient cultures.

We get a glimpse of what the ancient peoples thought about the stars in the astronomical writings of the ancient Egyptians, Sumerians and Babylonians. But this seems absent from Genesis, even though it is a contemporary text. Unless you know where to look.

Stars and Angels

In the Book of Judges, we find a cryptic verse.

Judges 5 v 20

From the heavens the stars fought, from their courses they fought against Sisera.

Sisera was the commander in the Canaanite army, who was defeated by Balak and Deborah. The verse suggests the stars were fighting for them.

In Psalm 33, we see the word translated ‘starry host’ is more related to an army.

Psalm 33 v 6

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.

These two verses suggest the stars are part of God’s Heavenly Army, the Angelic Host.

Physical stars are not angels, but are metaphorical representations of how the Hebrews conceived of them. Angels are unembodied spiritual beings, they are not balls of burning gas.

Today, the average person in the West thinks that Heaven is made up of clouds, where angels sit around playing harps. This doesn’t mean that people believe this is physically true, but spiritually true. They don’t think there dead ancestors live on clouds above their heads. And if they could fly up there, they could see them again.

The main difference between Modern and the ancient peoples is that we have divorced the physical and spiritual realms. We then say the spiritual is an illusion, and only this physical world truly exists.

In contrast, the ancients believed the physical and spiritual existed together. They were both as real as each other.

For example, the ancient Greeks believed their gods lived on Mount Olympus. But they didn’t think that if they climbed up there, they’d meet them. They understood them as spiritual beings.

Similarly, the Hebrews and Israelites believed God’s throne was sat on top of the sky, the firmament, and the Earth was His footstool. But at no point in Scripture do we see them ride off in chariots and try to find His feet.

Astronomy in Genesis

So if angels and stars are linked, where does the Book of Genesis implicitly talk about Hebrew astronomy? Here is a list, which I will unpack in my later posts.

Genesis 11: The Tower of Babel

Genesis 15: God’s promise to Abraham

Genesis 28: Jacob’s Ladder

Genesis 37: Joseph’s dream of bowing stars

Genesis 39: Jacob blessed his children

After this, we will look at the connections between Genesis 3, the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and the planets. We will then unpack how this relates to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil too.

And then, we look at other examples of this in ancient mythology and Neolithic cultures across the World.

I would also remind you that I have covered the astronomical data in Genesis 5 and 11 in previous posts in Agloria. If you haven’t read them, please feel free to have a look.