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The isolated group of the "Seven Stars," from the singularity of its appearance, has been distinguished and designated by an appropriate name from the earliest ages. The learned priests of Belus carefully observed its risings and settings nearly two thousand years before the Christian era. By the Greeks it was called Pleiades, from. the word pleein, to sail, because it indicated the time when the sailor might hope to undertake a voyage with safety. It was also called Vergiliae, from ver, the spring, because it ushered in the mild vernal weather, favourable to farming and pastoral employments. The Greek poets associated it with that beautiful mythology which, in its purest form, peopled the air, the woods, and the waters with imaginary beings, and made the sky itself a concave mirror, from which came back exaggerated ideal reflections of humanity. The seven stars were supposed to be the seven daughters of Atlas, by Pleione, one of the Oceanides — placed in the heavens after death. Their names are Alcyone, Merope, Main, Electra, Taygeta, Asterope, and Celaeno. They were all united to the immortal gods, with the exception of Merope, who married Sisyphus, King of Corinth, and whose star, therefore, is dim and obscure among her sisters. The "lost Pleiad," the "sorrowing Merope," has long been a favourite shadowy creation of the poetic dream. But an interest deeper than any derived from mythical association or classical allusion, is connected with this group of stars by the use made of it in Scripture. I believe that in the apparently simple and passing allusion to it in Job, lies hid the germ of one of the greatest of physical truths — a germ lying dormant and concealed in the pages of Scripture for ages, but now brought into air and sunlight by the discoveries of science, and developing flowers and fruit of rare value and beauty. If our translators have correctly identified the group of stars to which they have given the familiar name of Pleiades — and we have every reason to confide in their fidelity — we have a striking proof here afforded to us of the perfect harmony that exists between the revelations of science and those of the Bible — the one illustrating and confirming the other. So far as Job was concerned, the question, "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades?" might have referred solely to what was then the common belief — namely, that the genial weather of spring was somehow caused by the peculiar position of the Pleiades in the sky at that season; as if God had simply said, "Canst thou hinder or retard the spring?" It remained for modern science to make a grander and wider application of it, and to show in this, as in other instances, that the Bible is so framed as to expand its horizon with the march of discovery — that the requisite stability of a moral rule is, in it, most admirably combined with the capability of movement and progress. If we examine the text in the original, we find that the Chaldaic word translated in our version Pleiades is Chimah, meaning literally a hinge, pivot, or axle, which turns round and moves other bodies along with it. Now, strange to say, the group of stars thus characterised has recently been ascertained by a series of independent calculations — in utter ignorance of the meaning of the text — to be actually the hinge or axle round which the solar system revolves. It was long known as one of the most elementary truths of astronomy, that the earth and the planets revolve around the sun; but the question recently began to be raised among astronomers, "Does the sun stand still, or does it move round some other object in space, carrying its train of planets and their satellites along with it in its orbit?" Attention being thus specially directed to this subject, it was soon found that the sun had an appreciable motion, which tended in the direction of a lily-shaped group of small stars, called the constellation of Hercules. Towards this constellation the stars seem to be opening out; while at the opposite point of the sky their mutual distances are apparently diminishing — as if they were drifting away, like the foaming wake of a ship, from the sun's course. When this great physical truth was established beyond doubt, the next subject of investigation was the point or centre round which the sun performed this marvellous revolution: and after a series of elaborate observations, and most ingenious calculations, this intricate problem was also satisfactorily solved — one of the greatest triumphs of human genius. M. Madler, of Dorpat, found that Alcyone, the brightest star of the Pleiades, is the centre of gravity of our vast solar system — the luminous hinge in the heavens, round which our sun and his attendant planets are moving through space. The very complexity and isolation of the system of the Pleiades, exhibiting seven distinct orbs closely compressed to the naked eye, but nine or ten times that number when seen through a telescope — forming a grand cluster, whose individuals are united to each other more closely than to the general mass of stars — indicate the amazing attractive energy that must be concentrated in that spot. Vast as is the distance which separates our sun from this central group — a distance thirty-four millions of times greater than the distance between the sun and our earth — yet so tremendous is the force exerted by Alcyone, that it draws our system irresistibly around it at the rate of 422,000 miles a day, in an orbit which it will take many thousands of years to complete. With this new explanation, how remarkably striking and appropriate does the original word for Pleiades appear! What a lofty significance does the question of the Almighty receive from this interpretation! "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades?" Canst thou arrest, or in any degree modify, that attractive influence which it exerts upon our sun and all its planetary worlds, whirling them round its pivot in an orbit of such inconceivable dimensions, and with a velocity so utterly bewildering? Silence the most profound can be the only answer to such a question. Man can but stand afar off, and in awful astonishment and profound humility exclaim with the Psalmist, "O Lord my God, Thou art very great!"

(Hugh Macmillan, D. D.)

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KJV: Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?

WEB: "Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion?