Halakhah zu Jeschijahu 40:26

Judaism exhibits a fascination bordering on a fixation with regard to matters of astronomy, astrology, and celestial phenomena. The vagaries of the Jewish calendar are only the tip of the iceberg. The prophet Isaiah exclaims, "Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of His might and because He is strong in power, not one is missing" (Isaiah 40:26). The prophet marvels at the celestial creations, at the myriad bodies that were created in the heavens, each one having an assigned task and an assigned place. Isaiah notes that their Creator knows each and every one "by name," i.e., by role and function, and pointing to that phenomenon, he constructs a cryptic, but succinct and compelling, proof for the existence of the Deity. Isaiah points to the continued existence of the celestial bodies in formulating an Argument from Design. The argument is predicated upon an awareness that the ongoing existence of the universe is directly contingent upon the size, position and velocity—not to speak of the centrifugal force—of each of the heavenly bodies. Had any one of those bodies been created possessing different mass or shape, or located in an alternate position within the firmament, or were the laws of nature not operative, the universe would long since have ceased to exist.