Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
maketh—rather, from the Arabic, "covereth up." This accords better with the context, which describes His boundless power as controller rather than as creator [UMBREIT].
Arcturus—the great bear, which always revolves about the pole, and never sets. The Chaldeans and Arabs, early named the stars and grouped them in constellations; often travelling and tending flocks by night, they would naturally do so, especially as the rise and setting of some stars mark the distinction of seasons. BRINKLEY, presuming the stars here mentioned to be those of Taurus and Scorpio, and that these were the cardinal constellations of spring and autumn in Job's time, calculates, by the precession of equinoxes, the time of Job to be eight hundred eighteen years after the deluge, and one hundred eighty-four before Abraham.
Orion—Hebrew, "the fool"; in Job 38:31 he appears fettered with "bands." The old legend represented this star as a hero, who presumptuously rebelled against God, and was therefore a fool, and was chained in the sky as a punishment; for its rising is at the stormy period of the year. He is Nimrod (the exceedingly impious rebel) among the Assyrians; Orion among the Greeks. Sabaism (worship of the heavenly hosts) and hero-worship were blended in his person. He first subverted the patriarchal order of society by substituting a chieftainship based on conquest (Genesis 10:9-10).
Pleiades—literally, "the heap of stars"; Arabic, "knot of stars." The various names of this constellation in the East express the close union of the stars in it (Amos 5:8).
chambers of the south—the unseen regions of the southern hemisphere, with its own set of stars, as distinguished from those just mentioned of the northern. The true structure of the earth is here implied.
Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Job 9:9:
Job 26:7
Job 37:9
Job 38:31
Job 38:32
Isaiah 37:37
Amos 5:8
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