Job's Astronomy: Orion

Canst thou .... loose the bands of Orion? 

Job 38:31

"God once again challenged Job, this time to “loose the bands of Orion.” God was referencing the “belt” of Orion; the three stars forming the linear “band” at Orion’s waist.

God appeared to be challenging Job in just the opposite way he had in the first portion of the verse.
*Rather than bind the Pleiades, God challenged Job to loosen Orion. It’s as if He was saying, “Hey Job, you think you can loosen Orion’s belt? Well, I can!”

Orion’s belt is formed by two stars (Alnilam, and Mintaka) and one star cluster (Alnitak). Alnitak is actually a triple star system at the eastern edge of Orion’s belt.
These stars (along with all the other stars forming Orion) are not gravitationally bound like those in Pleiades. Instead, the stars of

Orion’s belt are heading in different directions.

Garrett P. Serviss, a noted astronomer, wrote about the bands of Orion in his book, Curiosities of the Sky: “The great figure of Orion appears to be more lasting, not because its stars are physically
connected, but because of their great distance, which renders their movements too deliberate to be exactly ascertained. Two of the greatest of its stars, Betelgeuse and Rigel, possess, as far as has been ascertained, no perceptible motion across the line of sight, but there is a little movement perceptible in the ‘Belt.’ 

At the present time this consists of an almost perfect straight line, a row of second-magnitude stars about equally spaced and of the most striking beauty. In the course of time, however, the two right-hand stars, Mintaka and Alnilam will approach each other and form a naked-eye double, but the third, Alnita, will drift away eastward, so that the ‘Belt’ will no longer exist.
Unlike the Pleaides clusters, the stars in the band of Orion do not share a common trajectory.

In the course of time,

Orion’s belt will be loosened just as God told Job."

J.W. Wallace