I really like the Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, and David Brown commentary on this passage:
31. sweet influences—the joy diffused by spring, the time when
the Pleiades appear. The Eastern poets, Hafiz, Sadi, &c., describe them as "brilliant rosettes." Gesenius translates:
"bands" or "knot," which answers better the parallelism.
But English Version
agrees better with the Hebrew. The seven stars are closely "bound" together (see on Job 9:9). "Canst thou bind or loose the tie?" "Canst thou loose the bonds by which the constellation Orion
(represented in the East as an impious giant chained to the sky) is held fast?" (See on Job 9:9).
32. Canst thou bring forthfrom their places or houses
(Mazzaloth, 2Ki 23:5, Margin; to which Mazzaroth here is equivalent) into the
sky the signs of the Zodiac at their respective seasons—the twelve lodgings in which the sun successively stays, or
appears, in the sky?
Arcturus—Ursa Major. his sons?—the three stars in his tail. Canst
thou make them appear in the sky? (Job 9:9). The great and less Bear are called
by the Arabs "Daughters of the Bier," the quadrangle being the bier, the three others the mourners.
33. ordinances—which regulate the alternations of seasons, &c. (Ge :22) .dominion—controlling influence of the heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, &c., on the earth (on the tides,
weather) (Ge 1:16; Ps 136:7-9).
Job 9:9. maketh—rather, from the Arabic, "covereth up." This accords
better with the context, which describes His boundless power as controller rather than as creator [Umbreit]. Arcturus—the
great bear, which always revolves about the pole, and never sets.
The Chaldeans and Arabs, early
named the stars and grouped them in constellations; often travelling and tending flocks by night, they would naturally do
so, especially as the rise and setting of some stars mark the distinction of seasons.
Brinkley,
presuming the stars here mentioned to be those of Taurus and Scorpio, and that these were the cardinal constellations of spring
and autumn in Job's time, calculates, by the precession of equinoxes, the time of Job to be eight hundred eighteen years after
the deluge, and one hundred eighty-four before Abraham.
Orion—Hebrew, "the fool"; in Job
38:31 he appears fettered with "bands." The old legend represented this star as a hero, who
presumptuously rebelled against God, and was therefore a fool, and was chained in the sky as a punishment; for its rising
is at the stormy period of the year.
He is Nimrod (the exceedingly impious rebel) among the Assyrians;
Orion among the Greeks. Sabaism (worship of the heavenly hosts) and hero-worship were blended in his person.
He first subverted the patriarchal order of society by substituting a chieftainship based on conquest (Genesis 10:9, 10).
Pleiades—literally,
"the heap of stars"; Arabic, "knot of stars."
The various names of this constellation
in the East express the close union of the stars in it (Amos 5:8).
chambers of the south—the
unseen regions of the southern hemisphere, with its own set of stars, as distinguished from those just mentioned of the northern.
The true structure of the earth is here implied.
