_Mazzārōth_ occurs only once in the Bible, viz. in Job xxxviii. 32, already so often quoted, but a similar word _Mazzālōth_ occurs in 2 Kings xxiii. 5, where it is said that Josiah put down the idolatrous priests, "them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets (_Mazzālōth_), and to all the host of heaven." The context itself, as well as the parallel passage in Deuteronomy--"When thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to worship them,"--shows clearly that celestial luminaries of some kind are intended, probably certain groups of stars, distinguished from the general "host of heaven." Comparing Job ix. 9, with Job xxxviii. 31, 32, we find _‘Ash_, or _‘Ayish_, _Kīmah_ and _Kĕsil_ common to the two passages; if we take _‘Ash_ and _‘Ayish_ as identical, this leaves the "chambers of the south" as the equivalent of _Mazzaroth_. The same expression occurs in the singular in Job xxxvii. 9--"Out of the south (_marg._ chamber) cometh the whirlwind." There need be but little question as to the significance of these various passages. The correspondence of the word _Mazzārōth_ with the Babylonian _mizrātā_, the "divisions" of the year, answering to the twelve signs of the zodiac, points in exactly the same direction as the correspondence in idea which is evident between the "chambers of the south" and the Arabic _Al manāzil_, "the mansions" or "resting-places" of the moon in the lunar zodiac. Mazzaroth are therefore the "divisions" of the zodiac, the "chambers" through which the sun successively passes in the course of the year, his "resting-place" for a month. They are "the chambers of the south," since that is their distinctive position. In Palestine, the sun, even at rising or setting at midsummer, passes but little to the north of east or west. Roughly speaking, the "south" is the sun's quarter, and therefore it is necessarily the quarter of the constellation in which the sun is placed. It has been made an objection to this identification that the Israelites are said to have worshipped _Mazzālōth_, and we have no direct evidence that the signs or constellations of the zodiac were worshipped as such. But this is to make a distinction that is hardly warranted. The Creation tablets, as we have seen, distinctly record the allocation of the great gods to the various signs, Merodach himself being one of the three deities associated with the month Adar, just as in Egypt a god presided over each one of the thirty-six decades of the year.