Mazzaroth

Mazzaroth (Hebrew mazzarot) appears in God's challenge to Job: "Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season?" (Job 38:32). Most translations understand it as a reference to the twelve signs of the zodiac or the constellations of the night sky in their seasonal progression — related to the Babylonian manzazu or the Hebrew mazzalot (2 Kings 23:5), the term for the zodiacal signs condemned by Josiah's reform as objects of idolatrous veneration. God's use of Mazzaroth in his speech to Job is not an endorsement of astrology but a rhetorical demonstration of divine sovereignty over the heavens: only God controls the orderly procession of the stars in their seasons, a power infinitely beyond human comprehension.