The Watchtower Society and John and Morton Edgar - A2Z.org

" deified " by the name of Orion, the mighty hunter,and " placed among the stars " (Paschal Chronicle, tom.i, p. 61). 'The constellation Virgo is admitted by themost learned astronomers to have been dedicated toCeres, who as we have seen was identical with theEgyptian Isis, and was therefore the same as Semiramisthe Babylonian goddess (Dr. John Hill, in hisUrania; and Mr. A. Jamieson, in his Celestial Atlas(see Landseer's Sabean Researches, p. 201). All the signsof the Zodiac, and the oth.er constellations and starswere associated \vith various gods, and incidents inconnection with them, by the Chaldean astrologersThe Lord s~ecially commanded the Israelitrs to on noaccollnt worship images, the siin or moon, or the stars,because of the degrading influence jt would have upor)them, ever1 as it liarl upon the heatllrn ~lalions. 111Duet. 4:15-19, we read : " Take ye therefore good heedunto yourselves, . . . lest ye corrupt yourselves, andmake you a graven image, the similitude of any figure,the likeness of male or female, the likeness of anybeast that is on the earth, the likeness of any wingedfowl that flieth in the air, the likeness of any fish thatis in the waters beneath the earth ; and lest thou liftup thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest thesun, and the nloon, and the stars, even all the host ofheaven, shouldst he driven to worship then], and servethem." Yet the Jewish people frequently disregal.detlthe Lord's command. In 2 Icings, chapters 22 and 23,we read how king Josiah, after having henrd the wordsof the newly discovered book of ;,he law of Moses,cleared the land of this idolatry:He put down theidolatrous priests . . . them also that burned incenseunto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to thetwelve signs or constellations [f.e., the Zodiac, theinvention of the Chaldeans], and to all tl~e host of