There can be no doubt, as the learned Authoress of _Mazzaroth_ conclusively proves, that these signs were afterwards identified with the twelve sons of Jacob. Joseph sees the sun and moon and eleven stars bowing down to him, he himself being the twelfth (Gen. xxxvii. 9). The blessing of Jacob (Gen. xlix.) and the blessing of Moses (Deut. xxxiii.) both bear witness to the existence of these signs in their day. And it is more than probable that each of the Twelve Tribes bore one of them on its standard. We read in Num. ii. 2, “Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own STANDARD, with the ENSIGN of their father’s house” (R.V. “with the ensigns of their fathers’ houses”). This “Standard” was the _Degel_ (דֶגֶל) on which the “Sign” (אוֹת, _Oth_) was depicted. Hence it was called the “_En‐sign_.” Ancient Jewish authorities declare that each tribe had one of the signs as its own, and it is highly probable, even from Scripture, that four of the tribes carried its “Sign”; and that these four were placed at the four sides of the camp. If the Lion were appropriated to Judah, then the other three would be thus fixed, and would be the same four that equally divide the Zodiac at its four cardinal points. According to Num. ii. the camp was thus formed:— In the North, from North‐West to North‐East: ASHER (_Sagittarius_). DAN, The Scorpion (_Scorpio_). NEPHTALI (_Capricornus_). In the East, from North‐East to South‐East: ISSACHAR (_Cancer_). JUDAH, The Lion (_Leo_). ZEBULON (_Virgo_). In the South, from South‐East to South‐West: SIMEON (_Pisces_). REUBEN, The Man (_Aquarius_). GAD (_Aries_). In the West, from South‐West to North‐West: EPHRAIM and MANASSEH, The Bull (the two horns of _Taurus_). BENJAMIN (_Gemini_). In the Center: LEVI, The Scales (_Libra_). If the reader compares the above with the blessings of Israel and Moses, and compares the meanings and descriptions given below with those blessings, the connection will be clearly seen. Levi, for example, had no standard, and he needed none, for he kept “the balance of the Sanctuary,” and had the charge of that brazen altar on which the atoning blood outweighed the nation’s sins. The four great signs which thus marked the four sides of the camp, and the four quarters of the Zodiac, are the same four which form the Cherubim (the Eagle, the Scorpion’s enemy, being substituted for the Scorpion). The Cherubim thus form a compendious expression of the hope of Creation, which, from the very first, has been bound up with the Coming One, who alone should cause its groanings to cease. But this brings us to the Signs themselves and their interpretation.