Deli is the Hebrew name for the zodiac constellation Aquarius, the Water Bearer. The word translates literally as "a bucket for drawing water" or simply "pail" (דְּלִי), reflecting the figure’s central attribute: the pouring vessel that gives the sign its identity.

Position on the Tree of Life

Deli is the Heaven assigned to Path 28 on the Tree of Life, the twenty-eighth path of the Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom. In the heavens of Assiah (the material world), Deli occupies the same step as the zodiac sign Aquarius in the sequence of lunar mansions and planetary spheres.

Astrological and planetary correspondence

As the zodiac sign Aquarius, Deli is ruled by Saturn (traditionally) and by Uranus (in modern correspondence). In the Hermetic Qabalah, its elemental nature is Air, and its mode is fixed. The sign governs the eleventh house of the horoscope and is associated with originality, detachment, and humanitarian impulses. The Water Bearer himself is sometimes linked to the figure of Ganymede in Greek myth, the young prince carried to Olympus to serve as cupbearer to the gods.

Historical context

Deli appears in the Hebrew text of the Bible in Job 38:37, where God asks Job: “Who can pour out the bottles (נִבְלֵי nivlei) of heaven?”—a direct reference to the jars of rain that the constellation Deli was said to tip. In Talmudic and midrashic sources (e.g., Berakhot 58b), Deli is one of the twelve zodiacal signs (mazzaroth) recognized by the sages, each governing a month: Deli governs the month of Shevat (January–February). The sign is also singled out in the Sefer Yetzirah as one of the twelve simple letters, associated with hearing, laughter, and the kidneys.

In medieval Jewish astrology, Deli was considered a masculine, diurnal sign, and its planetary ruler Saturn lent it a cold, dry, melancholic nature. Kabbalistic commentators such as Rabbi Abraham Abulafia and Rabbi Moses Cordovero assigned the sign to the sefirah of Yesod in certain schemes, but the table of Liber 777 places it exclusively on Path 28 of Assiah.

The symbol of the Water Bearer appears in Babylonian star catalogues as Gu, “the Pourer of Water,” connected with the god Ea (Enki), lord of the subterranean waters of wisdom. This image of a god pouring two streams of water from a jar survived into Hellenistic astronomy and was transmitted to the Hebrews via Greek influence, though the Hebrew name retained the concrete domestic object—a bucket—rather than the anthropomorphic figure.

In Liber 777

At step 28 of the column “The Heavens of Assiah,” Deli appears as the fixed correspondence for the path of the zodiac sign Aquarius. It stands between the other heavens of the zodiac sequence—Gedi (Capricorn, Path 27) and Dagim (Pisces, Path 29)—and fits into the larger array of Ashiatic heavens that culminate in the planetary and fixed-star spheres. The cell value is simply “Deli,” confirming the name as the essential Hebrew astrological designation for the sign in the material heaven.