obtain a far-fetched or expansive view of words suggested that Hillel indicated a comet, because comets answer to the ideas of brightness, swift motion, and calamity.
(3) In the General Epistle of St. Jude, verse 13, certain impious impostors are compared to "wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever [for an aeon = age]." The term "wandering stars" has been thought to refer to comets.[1]
(4) In the Revelation of St. John the Divine, xii. 3:—"There appeared another wonder in Heaven; and behold a great red dragon ... and his tail drew the third part of the stars of Heaven". Satan is here likened, it is supposed, to a comet, because a comet resembles a dragon (or serpent) in form, and its tail frequently may be said to compass, or to seem to grip stars.
These ideas are given for what they are worth, and on this point the reader must exercise his own judgement, especially bearing in mind Maunder's words in his excellent and most interesting book:—"We cannot expect to find in Scripture definite and precise descriptions that we can recognize as those of comets. At the most we may find some expressions, some descriptions, that to us may seem appropriate to the forms and appearances of these objects, and we may therefore infer that the appearance of a comet may have suggested these descriptions or expressions".[2]
It may be added that Maunder leans to the suggestion made by several writers that when Jerusalem was wasted by a pestilence and David offered up a sacrifice of intercession at the threshing-floor of Ornan, the Jebusite, the king may have seen in the scymitar-like tail of a comet (such as that of the comet of 1882[3]), what was to be regarded as God's "minister, a flaming fire".[4]
To quote the actual words of the sacred writer will make the point more clear:—"And David lifted up his eyes, and
