pleiades Summary and Overview

Heb. kimah, "a cluster" (Job 9:9; 38:31; Amos 5:8, A.V., "seven stars;" R.V., "Pleiades"), a name given to the cluster of stars seen in the shoulder of the constellation Taurus.

The Hebrew word (cimah) so rendered occurs in #Job 9:9; 38:31; Am 6:8| In the last passage our Authorized Version has "the seven stars," although the Geneva version translates the word "Pleiades" as in the other cases. The Pleiades are a group of stars situated on the shoulder of the constellation Taurus. The rendering "sweet influences" of the Authorized Version, #Job 38:31| is a relic of the lingering belief in the power which the stars exerted over human destiny. But Schaff thinks the phrase arose from the fact that the Pleiades appear about the middle of April, and hence are associated with the return of spring, the season of sweet influences.

PLE'IADES , a cluster of stars, placed by modern astronomers in the neck or near the shoulder of the constellation Taurus. They appear about the middle of April, and hence are associated with the return of spring, the season of sweet influences. Job 9:9; Job 38:31; Am 5:8.

kimah. Amos 5:8; Job 9:9; Job 38:31; literally, "the heap (Arabic knot) of stars." "Canst thou bind (is it thou that bindest) the sweet influences (the Pleiades rise in joyous spring, ma'adanot; but Gesenius, transposing ma'anadoth, translated "bands") of Pleiades?" Madler of Dorpat discovered that the whole solar system is moving forward round Alcyone, the brightest star in Pleiades. The Pleiades are "bound" together with such amazing attractive energy that they draw our whole planetary system and sun round them at the rate of 422,000 miles a day in the orbit which will take thousands of years before completion.