In later days the original meaning of the "Triad of Stars" would seem to have been forgotten, and they were taken as representing Sin, Samas, and Istar;--the Moon, the Sun and the planet Venus. Yet now and again a hint of the part they once played in determining the length of the year is preserved. Thus, on the tablet now in the British Museum, and shown on p. 322, sculptured with a scene representing the worship of the Sun-god in the temple of Sippar, these three symbols are shown with the explanatory inscription:-- "The Moon-god, the Sun-god, and Istar, dwellers in the abyss, Announce to the years what they are to expect;" possibly an astrological formula, but it may well mean--"announce whether the years should expect twelve or thirteen months." As already pointed out, this method had one drawback; it gave a sidereal year, not a tropical year, and this inconvenience must have been discovered, and Capella substituted for the Twin stars, long before the giving of the Law to Israel. The method employed by the priests of watching the progress of the ripening of the barley overcame this difficulty, and gave a year to Israel which, on the average, was a correct tropical one. There is a detail in the history of the flood in Gen. vii. and viii. which has been taken by some as meant to indicate the length of the tropical year. "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." "And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, . . . in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried." The interval from the commencement of the deluge to its close was therefore twelve lunar months and ten days; _i. e._ 364 or 365 days. The beginning of the rain would, no doubt, be sharply marked; the end of the drying would be gradual, and hence the selection of a day exactly (so far as we can tell) a full tropical year from the beginning of the flood would seem to be intentional. A complete year had been consumed by the judgment. No such total interruption of the kindly succession of the seasons shall ever occur again:-- "While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." The rain is no longer for judgment, but for blessing:-- "Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it, Thou greatly enrichest it; The river of God is full of water: Thou providest them corn, when Thou hast so prepared the earth. Thou waterest her furrows abundantly; Thou settlest the ridges thereof: Thou makest it soft with showers; Thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness." FOOTNOTES: [311:1] P. I. Hershon, _Genesis with a Talmudical Commentary_, p. 30.