I’ve been interest in astronomy at least since 1967. I would have been 11 years old. I will be quoting from the Blue Letter Website. My aunt had us kids read the Christmas story during Christmas maybe all my life. So I think astronomy and the Bible was embedded in me in my foundation. I am not a bible scholar and my grammar is not stellar.

I will be dissecting items I see in the Bible that I see is related to astronomy. This will include stars, heaven, moon, sun and I am sure more.According to Blue Letter Bible Stars is mentioned in the Bible 56 times Star is mentioned 17 times.

 

Gen 1:16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.

So in this first mention of stars.God made “two” lights not one “two” govern what does govern mean. Take a look.

to exercise continuous sovereign authority over

That is interesting to me. “govern“

Why did he say “He also made the stars.”  I am not sure why that didn’t take more emphasis at this time.

The second occurrence of stars .

Gen 15:5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Who is him? Adam.  So the first human was commanded to “Look up at the sky and count the stars” Se he is giving Adam a command to Look up at the sky.  God also tells Adam to “count the stars” Adam was the first astronomer.   Another part of this passage he says “if indeed you can count them”. I found the interesting.  Even with all the technology we have today we are not able to count all the stars.  

“So shall your offspring be.”  So this last sentence is coming true for Adam every day.  

Offspring What is offspring? “: the product of the reproductive processes of an animal or plant ”  that is interesting that it doesn’t mention human in the first sentence but it does mention “Child” in the second sentence. So Adam must have counted lots of stars!

Gen 22:17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies,

 Wow this chapter is powerful.  “I will surely bless you”  I like the third definition the best “to invoke divine care for.” and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.” To me this seems impossible. I don’t understand how this could be at all but I am not God.  I like this one “Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies” I will assume I am a descendant of Adam and I have taken my possession of my little part of the city of Wendell.  Go ahead lets look up possession the act of having or taking into control. Words really do mean something.  “The act” We are all acting it seems like. I will look at enemies. “one that is antagonistic to another especially : one seeking to injure, overthrow, or confound an opponent”  Wow I had to look beyond the definition of this one. I see this several ways. I have had a few enemies in my life. I usually work behind the scenes of organizations I participate with until a couple of years ago when I was elected as president of the club. The club had a constitution and bylaws that conflicted with each document and I set out to have this corrected.  I hated this place we met at and it was a long drive for me.  The acoustics were bad and I just didn’t like it. The participation in the club was declining.  As president I could choose the place we met at so I choose a restaurant in another city. I had opposition people spoke against me. It was awful time period for me personally.  They were my enemy. But in the end I was right because the organization has grown larger since we changed our meeting location. Someone had to make that decision. I felt I had to make that decision at that time because if the active members of made it they would have chosen to stay at the old location.  I did make some mistakes but in the end we got a new constitution and the club is growing. I grew as a person and I took possession of the cities of my enemies. 

Gen 26:4 I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed

I guess Adam was worried about his descendants. God made this clear. I wonder if he is talking about the stars in the sky that Adam sees or all the stars. I am more comfortable talking about the ones that Adam sees. I also call attention to “your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed” wow.  In this world of exoplanets I wonder how we can just include the “earth”. But I am not going to add to what God said.  

Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

Who are we talking about? Joseph. I had another dream.(See my article about dreams). I can’t imagine the sun and moon and eleven stars bowing down to Joseph.  I had to look for the Bible supplement study for this one. The Sun Moon and Eleven Stars. I keep thinking of the Pleiades for the 11 stars but that is only 7.  According to the commentary Joseph and his brothers had rivalry because Joseph was a favorite. He told his brothers of the dream and this created some division.