Kesil

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Kesil ( Hebrew כסיל kesīl ) is a constellation mentioned in the Hebrew Bible . To clarify the question of which constellation is meant, biblical passages are also used in which kesīl denotes the fool: Ps 49.11  EU ; Ps 92.7  EU ; Prov 1.22  EU . Due to the context it is clear that in the following cases kesīl means a constellation or a group of stars: Hi 9.9  EU , 38.31 EU , Am 5.8  EU and Isa 13.10  EU . In general, the term is believed to refer to Orion , a very striking constellation with the giant stars Betelgeuse and Rigel .

kesīl in the book of Job (Job)

Orion constellation (Johann Bayer, Uranometria , 1661)

Arie de Wilde calls Hi 9.9  EU a “brief outline of Israelite astronomy.” This was very practical and regulated the agricultural year. But apparently stargazing had been left to the peasants and seafarers as a purely technical matter, and the scholars had not looked into it. De Wilde explains that the old translations go different ways in identifying the stars mentioned. In determining the original meaning of the word, he assumes that kesīl also denotes the "fool" in Hebrew and suspects a legend of a giant who foolishly rebelled against the gods and was chained to heaven as a punishment (cf. 38:31 EU ). Orion has a similar role in Greek mythology.

kesīl in the book of Amos

At 5.8  EU is part of a praise ( doxology ) which, quite unusual for this genre,praises YHWH not as the one who stabilizes the order of creation, but as the one who overthrows it. If Hebrew כימה kīmah and Hebrew כסיל kesīl appear here as a couple, according to Jörg Jeremias , this can mean that these stars as “weathermakers” were ascribed the change of the seasons, the “overthrow” from heat to cold, unless one wants to see it as a polemic against astral cults .

The old translations

Hi 9.9 Hi 38, 31 On the 5.8 Isa 13:10
Septuagint ὁ ποιῶν Πλειάδα καὶ ῞Εσπερον καὶ ᾿Αρκτοῦρον καὶ ταμιεῖα νότου

He (it is) who makes the Pleiades and the evening star and the bear keeper ...

συνῆκας δὲ δεσμὸν Πλειάδος καὶ φραγμὸν ᾿Ωρίωνος ἤνοιξας

And have you recognized the bond of the Pleiades and opened the enclosure of Orion?

ποιῶν πάντα καὶ μετασκευάζων

... who creates and transforms everything ...

οἱ γὰρ ἀστέρες τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ ὁ ᾿Ωρίων καὶ πᾶς ὁ κόσμος τοῦ οὐρανοῦ τὸ φῶς οὐ δώσουσιν

Because the stars in the sky and Orion and the whole order of heaven will give no light ...

Vulgate ... qui facit Arcturum et Oriona et Hyadas et interiora austri ... ... numquid coniungere valebis micantes stellas Pliadis aut gyrum Arcturi poteris dissipare ... ... facientem Arcturum et Orionem ... ... quoniam stellae caeli et splendor earum non expandent lumen suum ...

The Syriac translation ( Peschitta ) calls the constellation gabbarā , "giant", and this corresponds to the Arabic name for Orion, Arabic الجبار, DMG al-ǧabbār "giant". A common mythological background can be seen here.

In the Targum , kesīl is rendered as niflā , "the fallen one"; here the second meaning of the word kesīl , "fool", had an effect: in the Israeli wisdom literature it is a topos that the fools fall ( doing-doing-connection ).

Rabbinic literature and Kabbalah

The constellations in Hebrew כימה kīmah and kesīl appear more often as a pair in the Bible text, although it is clear that kīmah refers to the Pleiades , while the meaning of kesīl is uncertain. The Babylonian Talmud emphasizes the cosmological meaning of these two constellations: God let the Flood begin by removing two stars from the Pleiades ( kīmah ), and he removed two stars from the constellation kesīl and inserted them at the missing parts of the Pleiades, to end the flood. Here it is relatively clear that the constellation Ursa maior is meant by kesīl and that reference is made to the motif that the Great Bear pursued the Pleiades because she wanted to bring back her two lost “sons”. It is noteworthy that for the rabbis in late antiquity the flood naturally had an astrological cause: the stars controlled the weather, and God manipulated the stars to change the weather.

In the 10th century AD, Shabbtai Donnolo developed the concept that all constellations in the sky are moving because kīmah is being followed by kesīl . If kesīl catches up with his "sons", the movement of the constellations in the sky and with it time would come to a standstill, and redemption would begin. Donnolo can identify Ursa maior with the Big Dipper and with the Orion. It is not the identification of the constellation in the sky that is central to the Kabbalistic commentators of Donnolos, but the consideration that man can support kesīl and thereby bring salvation closer, through permutations of Hebrew letters .

Abraham ibn Esra , who was both a Bible commentator and an astronomer, rejected the traditional view in the 11th century that kīmah meant the Pleiades. Rather, it is a big star with the name עין השור השמאלי a ha-shor ha-semoli ( α Tauri , Aldebaran ), and kesīl is also a prominent single star, namely לב העקרב lev ha-akrav ( α Scorpionis , Antares ) . These identifications came about because Ibn Ezra was looking for two stars whose positions in the sky were related to one another.

Saadja Gaon (10th century), on the other hand, identified kesīl in his commentary on Job with the Arabic star name suhail ( α Carinae , Canopus ). This went into his Arabic translation of the Bible. Bar Chijja joined him and put kesīl in two of his star lists: " kesīl , Arabic suhail , with the power of Saturn and Jupiter", or " kesīl , that is suhail , from the 1st order."

Humanism and modern times

The translation of the Book of Job for the Luther Bible was a joint effort by the Wittenberg scholars, which presented particular difficulties because of the unusual Hebrew vocabulary. In the case of kesīl , they stayed on the trail indicated by the Septuagint and Vulgate, but added a gloss with explanations for the reader:

“He makes the chariot on the sky and Orion and the chicks and the stars around noon. (ORION) Is that bright celestial bodies against noon / the the peasants the Jacob rod hot. The mother hen or hen / are the seven little stars. "

- Martin Luther: Hi 9,9 with marginal gloss in the Biblia Deudsch (1545)

During his trip to Arabia from 1761–1767 , Carsten Niebuhr was supposed to clarify, among other things, the star names mentioned in Hi 9.9  EU . That was the 86th question from the orientalist Johann David Michaelis , who designed this research trip. Niebuhr therefore met with Jewish scholars in Cairo , Sanaa and Baghdad who identified kesīl with the Arabic suhail ( α Carinae , Canopus ). But he himself decided otherwise and said kesīl was Sirius .

Moritz Stern devoted the 38.31 to 32 in EU occurring Star name an article of 1865 in that of Abraham Geiger published Jewish Journal of science and life appeared. He goes into context: in the preceding and following verses meteorological phenomena are mentioned; with the star names in verses 31f. a meteorological significance ascribed to them is to be assumed, as it is often attested for Orion in antiquity. “That כסיל is identical with Orion, as most of the explanations assume, I also consider indubitable. The inclined position - devexi Orionis as Horace says - and the shape of the constellation have led to the idea of ​​a staggering man ... So כסיל is the careless, insecure stumbling ... "

Web links

Matthias Albani:  Stars / constellations / star interpretation. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.

literature

  • Joachim Schüpphaus: Art. כסיל In: G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, Heinz-Josef Fabry (eds.): Theological dictionary to the Old Testament , Volume 4, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1984, pp. 277-283.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arie de Wilde: The Book of Job . Brill, Leiden 1981, p. 142.145.
  2. ↑ Jörg Jeremias: Der Prophet Amos (= The Old Testament German ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 3rd edition 2013, p. 68 f.
  3. ↑ The Septuagint (ed.Rahlfs / Hanhart)
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Kraus, Martin Karrer (Ed.): Septuaginta German. The Greek Old Testament in German translation . German Bible Society, Stuttgart 2009, p. 1017.1051.1181.1212.
  5. ↑ The Vulgate (ed. Weber / Gryson)
  6. ↑ a b Arie de Wilde: The Book of Job . Brill, Leiden 1981, p. 143.
  7. ↑ a b Matthias Albani:  Stars / Constellations / Star Interpretation. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.
  8. ↑ Berachot 58b-59a; Rosh Hashana 11b-12a
  9. ↑ Marla Segol: Word and Image in Medieval Kabbalah: The Texts, Commentaries, and Diagrams of the Sefer Yetsirah . Palgrave Macmillan 2012, p. 101 f.
  10. ^ Noah J. Efron: Judaism and Science: A Historical Introduction , Greenwood Press, Westport 2007, p. 61.
  11. ↑ Piergabriele Mancuso: Shabbatai Donnolo's Sefer Ḥakhmoni . Brill, Leiden 2010, pp. 72-74.
  12. ↑ Marla Segol: Word and Image in Medieval Kabbalah: The Texts, Commentaries, and Diagrams of the Sefer Yetsirah . Palgrave Macmillan 2012, pp. 102-104.
  13. ^ Bernard R. Goldstein: Star Lists in Hebrew , p. 192.
  14. ^ Bernard R. Goldstein: Star Lists in Hebrew , p. 194.
  15. ↑ Shlomo Sela: Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Rise of Medieval Hebrew Science . Brill, Leiden / Boston 2003, p. 373.
  16. ↑ Shlomo Sela: Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Rise of Medieval Hebrew Science . Brill, Leiden / Boston 2003, p. 260.
  17. ↑ Shlomo Sela: Abraham Ibn Ezra's Introductions to Astrology . Brill, Leiden 2017, p. 391.
  18. ↑ Hans Volz (Ed.): D. Martin Luther, Die Ganzer Heilige Schrifft Deudsch , Volume 1, Munich 1972, p. 926.
  19. ↑ Carsten Niebuhr: Description of Arabia: from own observations and in the country itself collected news , Copenhagen 1772, p. 114 f.
  20. ↑ Moritz Abraham Stern: The constellations in Job Kp. 38, V. 31 and 32 . In: Jüdische Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und Leben 4/1865, pp. 258–276, here p. 260.