Stars

Stars in Scripture are made things — spoken into being on the fourth day, ranged in courses, named individually, set to rule the night, called to fight, and forbidden as objects of worship. They differ from one another in glory, they sing, they fall, they darken, and at the end of the prophetic horizon a single star resolves the whole figure: "I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright, the morning star" (Re 22:16). What follows tracks the star as such, in canonical order: creation, ordering, prohibition, the named figures, comets and falls, and the figurative weight Scripture finally lays on a single star.

Made by God

The fourth-day account names the stars almost in passing, as a coda to the two great lights: "And [the Speech of] God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars" (Ge 1:16). The making is then taken up across the wisdom and praise literature. Job confesses that "By his Spirit the heavens are garnished; His hand has pierced the swift serpent" (Job 26:13). The psalmist looks up and asks of the same craftsman, "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, The moon and the stars, which you have appointed" (Ps 8:3). And the host is itself a piece of the speaking: "By the word of Yahweh were the heavens made, And all the host of them by the breath of his mouth" (Ps 33:6). The hymn of Ps 136 sets the stars in their nightly office — "To him who made great lights" (Ps 136:7), "The moon and stars to rule by night" (Ps 136:9) — and Amos's doxology names the constellations under the same hand: "[seek him] that makes the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night... Yahweh is his name" (Am 5:8). Ben Sira gathers the same testimony into a single line: "The beauty of heaven, and its glory [are] the stars, With their bright shining in the heights of God. At the word of God they stand as decreed, And they do not sleep in their watches" (Sir 43:9-10).

Numbered, Named, and Differing in Glory

The stars are not an undifferentiated swarm. Yahweh "counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by [their] names" (Ps 147:4). Paul, on the other end of Scripture, presses the same observation against a flat reading of resurrection bodies: "There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory" (1Co 15:41). What is true of the host as a whole is also true of its individual members, each with its own brightness and its own appointment.

Worship Forbidden

Because the stars are so visibly governing the night, the same heavens that declare God's glory become a snare. The Deuteronomic prohibition is explicit: "or else you will lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the host of heaven, you will be drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven" (De 4:19). Israel's history is the violation of that ban. The Northern Kingdom "worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal" (2Ki 17:16). Manasseh "reared up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as did Ahab king of Israel, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them" (2Ki 21:3). Jerusalem's roofs become altars where they "burned incense to all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink-offerings to other gods" (Jer 19:13). Zephaniah indicts "those who worship the host of heaven on the housetops" (Zep 1:5). Amos names a specific astral cult — "the tabernacle of your⁺ king and the Kewan -- your⁺ idols, the star of your⁺ god which you⁺ made to yourselves" (Am 5:26). And Josiah's reform names the planets directly: "those also that burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven" (2Ki 23:5).

Constellations: Orion, the Bear, the Pleiades, the Serpent

A small set of named star-figures runs across the Hebrew Scriptures. Job confesses Yahweh as the one "Who makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, And the chambers of the south" (Job 9:9); Amos pairs the same with creation language: "[seek him] that makes the Pleiades and Orion" (Am 5:8). The "swift serpent" of Job 26:13 belongs to the same vocabulary of constellations placed under God's hand. And Isaiah uses the figure as a marker of cosmic blackout: "the stars of heaven and its constellations will not give their light" (Is 13:10).

Stars in Battle and at Creation

Scripture twice lets the stars themselves act. At the founding of the world "the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy" (Job 38:7). And in Deborah's song, when the kings of Canaan come up to Megiddo, the same heavens take Israel's part: "From heaven fought the stars, From their courses they fought against Sisera" (Jg 5:20).

Darkening of the Stars

Yahweh acts within the courses he established, including by withdrawing them. Job had already named the principle: "Who commands the sun, and it does not rise, And seals up the stars" (Job 9:7). Qoheleth folds the same withdrawal into a meditation on age: "before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars, are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain" (Ec 12:2). The prophets enlist the figure for the day of Yahweh: "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" (Is 13:10); "all the host of heaven will be dissolved, and the heavens will be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host will fade away" (Is 34:4); "the heavens tremble; the sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining" (Joe 2:10); the same line returns at Joe 3:15: "The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining." The same vocabulary carries into John's trumpet visions: a great star burning as a torch, "and the name of the star is called Wormwood" (Re 8:11); and at the fourth trumpet, "the third part of the sun was struck, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; that the third part of them should be darkened, and the day should not shine for the third part of it, and the night in like manner" (Re 8:12).

Comets and Wandering Stars

Jude, in a single image, fixes a moral category to a stellar one. False teachers are "wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever" (Jude 1:13).

Falling of the Stars

The image of stars falling from the sky belongs to apocalyptic vision. Daniel's little horn "waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and some of the host and of the stars it cast down to the ground, and trampled on them" (Da 8:10). The synoptic Olivet discourse takes up the same figure: "the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken" (Mr 13:25). Apocalypse compounds it: "the stars of the heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts her unripe figs when she is shaken of a great wind" (Re 6:13); at the third trumpet "there fell from heaven a great star, burning as a torch" (Re 8:10); at the fifth, "I saw a star from heaven fallen to the earth: and there was given to him the key of the pit of the abyss" (Re 9:1); and the dragon's tail "draws the third part of the stars of heaven, and casts them to the earth" (Re 12:4).

A Star out of Jacob

The figurative use of "star" focuses on a deliverer. Balaam's oracle is the foundation: "I see him, but not now; I look at him, but not near: There will come forth a star out of Jacob, And a scepter will rise out of Israel, And will strike through the corners of Moab, And the crown of the head of all the sons of tumult" (Nu 24:17). Ben Sira, describing Simon the high priest in the sanctuary, picks up the same brightness: "Like a morning star from between the clouds, And like the full moon on the feast-days" (Sir 50:6). The apostolic word makes the figure interior: "we have the word of prophecy [made] more sure; to which you⁺ do well that you⁺ take heed, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the day-star arises in your⁺ hearts" (2Pe 1:19). And the figure resolves on the last page of Scripture: to the conqueror Jesus says, "I will give him the morning star" (Re 2:28); and of himself, "I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright, the morning star" (Re 22:16).

Seven Stars and a Crown of Twelve

The closing visions of Revelation use the star with two further symbolic loads. In John's first vision the risen Christ "had in his right hand seven stars" (Re 1:16), and the explanation follows immediately: "the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven lampstands are seven churches" (Re 1:20). And the woman of the twelfth chapter is a great sign in heaven: "a woman arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (Re 12:1).