Page 9 - Heavenly Signs by Mel Gable

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Stars and Constellations
Most scholars believe the Book of Job is one of the oldest manuscripts of text ever written. In the Bible, it
predates the time of Abraham and the founding of the Jewish nation of Israel. It is intriguing to find this oldest
book is written about the stars and the constellations with respect to God. It states that God himself put them in
their place in the heavens. It also references the same constellations we know today by their names. Other than
the Bible there are ancient literatures (Babylonian) which appear to support the names as well. It appears the star
configuration of the constellations and what they represent may be the oldest surviving text of any language.
Does this point to some level of importance and significance to this earth and mankind? There must be
significance to their names. Some constellations and star names date back to the time of Job in the Bible such as
“Bear.” The Pleiades star cluster was given the Hebrew name - הָמיִכּ Kimah (Kymh) cluster stars -Pleiades in Job’s
time and is still used today. We will see the Pleiades star cluster represents a crown of authority as a heavenly
sign. Some of today’s present names of stars and their meaning were determined during the ancient times of the
Babylonian Empire as we will see later. Many scholars and Biblical writers state that God arranged the stars and
defined their motion through the skies at the time of creation. A prime example is the Star of Bethlehem. There
are many passages which state that God arranged the stars.

Isaiah 40:26 “Lift your eyes on high, and see who created all these stars, The One who leads forth their
host by number, He calls them all by name. Because of his greatness of His might and the strength of
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His power, not one of them is missing.”
The first time I understood there was meaning to “Heavenly Signs” was with the birth of Christ and how the Magi
saw the Star of Bethlehem in the East. The Magi understood this was a sign of the Messiah, the King, and they
came to worship Him and give Him gifts. I wondered how they knew the star represented the King. It was
because of the heavenly bodies which made up the Bethlehem Star. It had meaning and significance to the Magi.

JOHANNES KEPLER (1571-1630) paved the way for rediscovery of the Bethlehem Star. He puzzled out the
math which drives the heavens. He even used his formula to search for the Bethlehem Star. But unlike us, Kepler
had no computer. With software incorporating Kepler's equations, we can animate ancient skies or the future
skies over the Middle East with great precision and accuracy.

JOHANNES KEPLER set out to show that a planet would travel in a perfect circular orbit around the sun,
called a solar orbit. This presented an easy mathematical model and simple view and beauty of his planetary
understanding. Nevertheless, he could not force the mathematical model of circular orbits to align with what was
observed in the night skies.
TYCHO BRAHE (1546-1601) made an invitation to Kepler to come to Prague and collaborate in the study of
the solar system. At that time, it was poorly understood even after following Newton’s work. It was thought that
the planets were “Wandering Stars”. This was due to the fact that planetary movement across the skies didn’t
necessarily follow the normal path from east to west of true stars in the night sky. Planets could retrace their
paths in the night sky based upon night time observation. Both men were brilliant and motivated to unravel the
mystery of planetary motion. Tycho Brahe died suddenly and Kepler found himself with full access to Brahe’s
library and works, which ended up changing everything from this point going forward. Kepler published his First
and Second Law of Planetary Motion in the year 1609. This was followed by Kepler’s Third Law, about ten years
later. These mathematical law models are so accurate that NASA and other astronomers worldwide use them
today. Kepler’s laws hold the keys to the heavens. The motion of the planets and the constellations are so unique
that they can be used to pinpoint an actual day in the past or in the future with inclusion of the sun and moon
even the hour of the day. With software incorporating Kipler’s equations, we can model with computers as well

5 New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Isaiah 40:26). LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.