“O holy night! The stars are brightly shining; it is the night of the dear Savior’s birth”.” So go the opening strains of the popular Christmas carol. As an astronomer, I love any hymn or Bible verse that talks about the stars, sun, or moon. I’ve reread some Bible verses lately about the sextillions of stars. Let’s consider what they reveal about God’s personality.
Isaiah 40:26 (NIV): “Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”
Psalm 147:3-5 (NIV): “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of stars and calls them each by name.“
According to these Bible verses about the sextillions of stars, God has a name for every single star!
Astronomers calculate about 400 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. With about the same number of galaxies in the observable Universe, the number swells to 160,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (one-hundred and sixty sextillion) stars. That’s a lot of names! How big God is!
In Genesis 15:4-5 “[God] took [Abraham] outside and said, ‘Look up at the heavens and count the stars, if you can. So shall your offspring be.”
Stars of our Spiritual Ancestors
I’m amazed that the very same stars we see at night are the same stars our spiritual ancestors glimpsed. Not only that, but those same stars served as the basis of God’s promise to Abraham that is still being fulfilled to this day in the Church and Israel.
Apollo 15 Mission
Another passage, while not obviously dealing with the heavens, still has astronomical significance for me. During the Apollo 15 mission to the Moon in 1971, Christian astronaut Jim Irwin and his partner, Dave Scott, landed in a valley amidst mountains over 10,000 feet tall. As they drove across the plains in the lunar rover, Jim commented, “You know,” Dave, “I’m reminded of one of my favorite biblical passages from the Psalms: ‘I lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help‘.”
Now, every time I hear or read that verse, I always picture those mountains of the moon and realize that God waits for us to call upon him in the day of trouble so he will deliver us and we will honor him (Psalm 50:15).
The view Abraham likely had as God promised him countless offspring: Image credit: Evosia Photography/Henry Jun Wah Lee.
