Job 38:31 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades? Generally understood of the seven stars, which, rising about the time of the vernal equinox, bring in the spring. Canst thou restrain or hinder their influences? Or loose the bands of Orion? By which it binds up the air and earth, rising in November, and bringing in the winter, attended with storms of rain and hail, or frost and snow. See note on Job 9:9. Whatever be the meaning of the words rendered Pleiades and Orion, the sense of which is disputed among the learned; by the former, כימה, chimah, we are to understand the sign which appears in the heavens at the spring of the year: and by the latter, כסיל, chesil, the sign which presents itself when the season is cold and severe: and the plain interpretation of the passage is, Is it in thy power to hinder either the mild or the rigid seasons of the year from making their regular appearance? Both summer and winter will have their course; God indeed can change them when he pleases, can make the spring cold, and so bind the influences of Pleiades and the winter warm, and so loose the bands of Orion, but we cannot.