Job 38:31

canst thou bind Rather, dost thou bind? The questions addressed to Job, throughout the chapter, mean in general, Is it he that effects what is observed to be done? not, Can he undo what is done, or do what is not done? Hence the questions here imply that the Pleiades arebound and that Orion is loosed, and Job is asked whether it be hethat binds in the one case and looses in the other.

the sweet influences The idea suggested by "influences" is that man's life on the earth is ruled by the stars, as Shakespeare calls the moon

the moist star,

Upon whose influence Neptune's empire hangs.

There is, however, no trace of this idea in the original word. Those who retain this translation suppose the reference to be to the genial influence of spring, of which this cluster of stars, when appearing before the sun in the east, was a joyful herald. Such a reference is too remote; neither does it allow any just meaning to "bind." Besides, the exegetical tradition is that the word rendered "sweet influences "has the same sense as "bands" in the second clause (so Sept. δεσμόν), as the parallelism requires. The verse rather means,

Dost thou bind the bands of the Pleiades,

Or loose the cords of Orion?

It is not certain that these are the stars meant, and the allusions are obscure. As "loosing the cords" or bands of Orion cannot mean dissolving the constellation and separating its stars from one another, so, if the parallelism is exact, "binding the bands" of the Pleiades ought not to refer to the fact that the stars of this constellation always appear as a group in the same form, although this is the idea which most writers consider to be expressed. The word in the second clause, being from a root always meaning to draw(ch. Job 41:1; Isaiah 5:18; Hosea 11:4), ought to have some such sense as cords, that by which anything is drawn, rather than that by which it is bound. The reference is probably to the motion of the constellation in the heavens. An Arabic poet, bewailing the slowness of the hours of a night of sorrow, says that, in their immobility and tardiness to turn towards their setting-place, "its stars seem bound by cords to a rock." The same poet, however, compares the Pleiades, including perhaps Orion under the name, when it appears upon the horizon, to a girdle studded with jewels; and some have supposed that the sense in the present passage is similar, rendering, Dost thou bind into a band(or fillet) the Pleiades? This is an improbable conceit. So far as the mere language is concerned, the first clause most naturally refers to some star or constellation which appears bound to one place, whether it be that it stands always high in the heavens or is unable to rise much above the horizon; and the second clause to some star or group whose motion in the heavens is free, whether it be that it is able to rise high or that it sets and disappears.