The vocalization "'Ayush" is proposed by Hoffmann (in Stade's "Zeitschrift," iii. 107); "'Iyush," by Brown-Briggs (Gesenius, s.v.); and "'Esch," by Friedrich Delitzsch (in "Hiob," xxxviii. 32), who previously identified it with "Moth," a star known as such to the Assyrians ("Assyr. Handwörterb." s.v. "săsu"), but in his "Hiob," in ix. 9, translates by the German equivalent of "Great Bear." Luther renders "Wagen" (Wagon), and in this has been followed by Ideler ("Sternnamen," pp. 21 et seq.), Hirzel, Ewald, Franz Delitzsch, Hitzig; and R. V. Stern (l.c.) maintains that the Pleiades are meant—a view accepted by Schrader, Nöldeke (Schenkel's "Bibel-Lexikon," iv. 370), and G. Hoffmann (l.c.). Merx writes "Canopus." Of the old versions, the LXX. in Job ix. 9 has Πλειάς, and in ib. xxxviii. 32, Ἕσπερος. The Vulgate and A. V. in ix. 9 have "Arcturus," and "Vesperus" and "Arcturus" respectively in xxxviii. 32. Targum in the former verse gives the Hebrew word; in the latter renders by the Aramaic for "hen" (=Pleiades). The Syriac has "'Iyuta" (= Aldabaran; see Merx, in xxxviii.) or the Hyades, which Jensen (l.c.) also suggests. Of this Syriac word, the Talmudical in some manuscripts), Ber. 58b, is the East Aramaic form. According to Levy, the latter is the seven-starred (Little) Bear; but in the passage itself R. Judah explains it as the tail of the Ram, if not the head of the Wagon or, according to Rashi, of the Bull. Kohut ("Aruch Completum," s.v.) derives it, as Stern and others before him, from the Greek ϒάδες, and explains it as a cluster of seven stars in the head of Taurus. Of medieval Jewish commentators, Saadia identifies it with the Bear; ReDaḲ, again, in his dictionary, under , explains as the tail of the Ram. Ibn Ezra merely states that = "seven stars." Gersonides locates it as a constellation "within the sphere of the fixed stars."

The Jewish medieval commentators hold the "Kesil" to have been either the Arabic "Suhail" (= Canopus) or Sirius. On the plural, in Isa. xiii. 10, see Jensen, l.c. (note also his suggestion that "Kesil" is a generic name for "comet").

Stern (l.c.) argues that "Kimah" is Sirius. In the Talmud occurs this statement: "But for the heat of Kesil, the world could not endure, on account of the excessive cold of the Pleiades, and vice versa" (Ber. 59a; B. M. 106b). "Kimah" is qualified as a planet (; Ber. 58a); the etymology is, of course, fanciful. The setting of the Pleiades is said to have been the cause of the Flood (Yer. Ta'an. i. 64a, at foot). According to Abu al-Walid, "Kimah" is the Arabic "Al-Thurayya" (= Pleiades). Ibn Ezra reports that his predecessors held it to be a group of seven stars in the tail of the Ram, but he believes it to be a single star, "the left eye of Taurus."

Ḳimḥi's explanation, that the reference is to the ripening of the fruit ("Kesil"), or the reverse ("Kimah"), is plainly too rationalistic, notwithstanding the Talmudic authority he quotes or the opinion of his father (under ).

What "Mazzarot" (Job xxxviii. 32) may be is still unsettled. Perhaps it is identical with "Mazzalot" (II Kings xxiii. 5). If so, it might designate Saturn or the seven planets. Stern (l.c.) would have this strange expression denote the Hyades. Ewald, for the passage in Job, claims the reference to be to the Northern and Southern Crowns, corresponding to the "chambers of the South" ("Teman") in Job ix. 9. Others have suggested the constellation of the Southern Ship, characterized in an Arabic translation as the "heart of the South"; others again suggest Sirius. Friedrich Delitzsch leaves the problem open, simply transliterating the Hebrew (see his "Hiob," p. 169, note to verses 31 et seq.). It has also been held to designate the Zodiac.