Orion

Orion is named in three poetic passages — twice in Job and once in Amos — and stands behind a fourth in Isaiah's oracle on Babylon. In every case it is part of a wider catalogue of stars or constellations the work of whose making is laid to Yahweh.

Yahweh as Maker of the Constellations

Job's first hymn fragment lists the named constellations among Yahweh's works: "Who makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, And the chambers of the south" (Job 9:9). The same pairing of Pleiades and Orion returns in Amos's doxology, where the maker of the constellations is also the one who orders day and night and the sea: "[seek him] that makes the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; that calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the face of the earth (Yahweh is his name)" (Am 5:8).

Bound and Loosed by Yahweh

In the speech from the whirlwind the question is sharpened: not whether Orion is made, but whether anyone but Yahweh can govern it. "Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, Or loose the bands of Orion?" (Job 38:31).

Constellations Darkened in Judgment

In the oracle against Babylon the constellations themselves are extinguished as the day of Yahweh arrives: "For the stars of heaven and its constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine" (Isa 13:10).