על בריאת העולם י״טOn the Account of the World's Creation 19
א׳
1[58] The purpose of their existence is, as the Lord Himself pronounced, not only to send forth light upon the earth, but also to give timely signs of coming events. For either by their risings or settings or eclipses, or again by the seasons of their appearance or disappearance, or by other alterations in their movements, men conjecture future issues, good harvests and bad, increase and decay of animal life, fair weather and foul, gales and calms, floodings and shrinkings of rivers, seas smooth and rough, irregularities of the seasons, either wintry summers, or scorching winters, or springs like autumn, or autumns like spring.
ב׳
2[59] Indeed it has happened that, by conjecture based on the movements of the heavenly bodies, men have notified in advance a disturbance and shaking of the earth, and countless other unusual occurrences, proving the complete truth of the words, “the stars were made for signs.”
ג׳
3It is added, moreover, “and for appointed times” (Gen. 1:14). By “appointed times” Moses understood the four seasons of the year, and surely with good reason. For what idea does “appointed time” convey but “time of achievement”? Now the four seasons of the year bring about achievement by bringing all things to perfection, all sowing and planting of crops, and the birth and growth of animals.
ד׳
4[60] The heavenly bodies were created also to furnish measures of time: for it is by regular revolutions of sun, moon, and the other bodies that days and months and years were constituted. This in itself involved the showing of their most useful service of all; I mean number as part of the world’s order, time by its mere lapse indicating it. For out of one day came “one,” out of two “two,” out of three “three,” out of a month “thirty,” out of a year the number equivalent to the days made up of twelve months, and out of infinite time came (the conception of) infinite number.
ה׳
5[61] So many and so essential are the benefits within the scope of the constitutions and movements of the heavenly bodies. To how vast a number of other operations of nature, methinks, do they extend! Operations obscure to us—for all things are not within the ken of mortals—yet working together for the permanence of the whole; operations which are invariably carried out under ordinances and laws which God laid down in His universe as unalterable.