Magen Dawid

Picture is copied fron the Jewish Encyclopedia and it shows the logo of the first Jewish organisation who adopted the Star of David as its logo in 1873.
I tried to find out what the Jewish Encyclopedia (1901-1906) has to say about the Star of David but searching for these words or for Magen David yielded nothing, because the article was under the title MAGEN DAWID. Later I found out that I could have found the article by searching for Shield of David.
Anyhow, the article was written by Joseph Jacobs and Ludwig Blau long before the Star of David found its central place in the Israeli flag. It was fascinating to reveal how fresh and informative is the article even today.

It starts by describing the form of the emblem:

The hexagram formed by the combination of two equilateral triangles;

Then goes on to describe its usages:

used as the symbol of Judaism. It is placed upon synagogues, sacred vessels, and the like… In the synagogues, perhaps, it took the place of the mezuzah

Close to the end of the article it refers to the source of the name:

and the name "shield of David" may have been given it in virtue of its protective powers.

It refers to the adoption of the shield of David as a Jewish national emblem:

1. Adopted as a device by the American Jewish Publication Society in 1873
2. the Zionist Congress of Basel
3. "Die Welt" (Vienna), the official organ of Zionism.
4. By other bodies.
5. The Chebra Kaddisha of the Jewish community of Johannesburg, South Africa, calls itself "Cebra Kaddisha zum Rothen Magen David," following the designation of the "red cross" societies.

The main part of the article is dedicated to the history of the Magen Dawid:
1. Introduction
2. Archeological artifact 
3. Literary sources
4. Cabala
5. Charles IV.
6. Usage by other cultures:
a. Hindus
b. Christians
7. The hexagram’s relation to the pentagram
8. Bibliography

Enigmatic sign in India

Picture is courtesy of Shira Golding who published it on Flickr under the title "Magen David available here".

The Dimensions

The following paragraph is from a new chapter, The Time Space Correlation, which doesn’t appear on Dr. Asher Eder’s book The Star of David, which was published in 1987 in English in Jerusalem by Rubin Mass Ltd.

In daily life we see space as composed of the three dimensions length, width, and height. If we wish to see time as the fourth dimension as customary in modern science, the relation between time and movement would become the fifth dimension (depicted by line b-c of the figure), and movement itself the sixth dimension (line a-b). However, it would then be more appropriate to speak of movement as the first dimension, time the second, and the relation between them as the third dimension, while length, width, and height would be the fourth, fifth, and sixth dimension respectively.

35-10. 9- Change or halt of movement.
In case the forces underlying the movements should change in their magnitude or in their relations to each other, time would change accordingly (e.g. the days and/or the years would become longer or shorter). Consequently, also life would be different, provided the changes would not be too drastic, as mentioned already in par. 4.
In case all movement in the universe would come to a halt, the dimensions of space (length, width, height), and along with them time, would collapse, for the existence of these depends on the movements and their underlying forces. This would be paramount to absolute death. It is for this reason that sphere shaped clusters of stars (which do not spiral like galaxies) are considered by science as lifeless.
All this shows that time and space are two different, yet related functions of the movements and their underlying forces which keep up the universe, and give it life.

35-1. 11- Our world
The world we live in, or, to be more correct, what our senses perceive as world, is depicted by the hexagon g-h-i-k-l-m, i.e. the middle field with its six edges (1+6). This world is indeed characterized by the number 7 -- as e.g. the 7 colors, 7 notes in music, 7 days, 7 chaqras, and in accordance therewith the seven- branched Menorah as a symbol of harmony and peace for man on earth. Within this frame, the Holy Scriptures do not teach history as linear sequence of events; they rather show us man's story - "his story" in light of the Divine.
The small triangles 1-6 around the middle field could depict the beyond, while the sign "oo" may indicate infinity, eternity.
The small triangle a-k-i could depict the first moments after the supposed "Big Bang". Probably it will forever remain beyond our capacity of research and comprehension. Before creation, or the "Big Bang" in modern terminology, there was anyway no time, nor were there movements or physical laws of the sort we know.
35-12. The curved lines.
We are accustomed to see the lines g-h, k-l, etc, as straight lines while in fact they are bent like their corresponding lines g'-h', k'-l', etc. In case we prolong the line: endlessly, it would go around the globe and return to its starting point, i.e. it is in fact a bow as part of a huge circle, the degree of its bend being equal to that of our globe.
In case we would allow the line to leave the globe and go on endlessly in the universe, i.e. if it would travel uninterruptedly through the space bent in itself, it would likewise return to its starting point. (There are indeed astronomers who are of the opinion that the farthest galaxies we see through our telescopes might be our own one and those nearest to ours - as if we would so-to-speak look into our back).
35-13. 12- The center
In the hexagram, the centers of the two equilateral triangles merge, and their harmonious joining forms the hexagon, the symmetric middle field. In our figure its center is marked by the number 7.We may see it as the hub, and resting place, in time and space, these being depicted by the lines a-b and a-c, while our "world view" of them may be represented by the line b-c.
This mathematical resting place, the center of the hexagram, and the center of our innermost being are essentially congruent and one. The more we bring the rest of our being closer to this center, the more we will be in harmony and peace with ourselves and with our surrounding, and the less we will feel a self-imposed time pressure.
Observing Shabbat every seventh day is in fact a sanctification of a certain time unit (equal approximately to one revolution of the globe) during which we abstain from the labor of the six days of the week - i.e we cease to operate forces of labor - and enter for a full day into the calm, or rest, enhanced by prayer and the like (the Hebrew word for prayer, תפילה, tefilah, could well be rendered as tuning into the Divine). Indeed, our sages summarized the essential difference between a slave and a free person in one word: time. A slave's time is not his own. True, a spiritually strong person may feel free in his thoughts even if he is enslaved by a Pharaoh, or be imprisoned by (former) Gestapo or KGB, but he is not free in time and movement. He cannot use his energies freely.
In our graph, we may freedom see symbolized by the number 7 (the hub of the wheel, so-to-speak. See also fig. 52). Geographically, this place of "Divine rest" is located in the "Even Shetiah", the center of Mount Moriah, or Temple Mount. As time and space are linked, so should Shabbath and the Sanctuary be linked. If separated, both of them suffer - a picture of our present world.

35-14. C. Shortcomings of the design
1.) Since the hexagram is merely a geometrical figure, it cannot fully depict the universe which is a multi-dimensional entity.
2.) The universe seems to expand (and perhaps may eventually contract). A geometric figure cannot depict such movements. It cannot show the actions and interactions of the different forces either. Besides, we should well keep in mind that there might be forces operating in the universe which are not yet known to us; nor do we fully know those which we think we know as e.g. electricity, gravity on the so-called material level; and love, hatred, will power etc on the so-called spiritual level. I use the word so-called because there is no clear-cut separating line between these two levels.
3.) The figure does not show the deflection of light rays in the universe caused by other heavenly bodies, and what that means for calculating the distances between them.
4.) Dot "a" of the figure depicts the creative force although the latter cannot be limited or described by a point. It could better be described as the primary starting point. Due to the hexagram's symmetry, it could be marked at anyone of its six points. In turn, this gives us a hint that actually we cannot "fix" the Creator and the beginning of Creation to a point of our choice.
5.) The "age of the universe" (as mentioned above in par. B,3) is calculated on the base of measurements taken from the situation our globe is in at present: a second is the 86400th part of a day, i.e. of the period needed by the globe for one revolution; and a kilometer is the 40000th part of the length of the equator. The speed of light is given by approximately 300000 km/sec (i.e. a flash of light would go seven and a half times around our globe within one second). Does our globe, and consequently also its equator, expand in the same rate as the universe? If so, would that change also "c", the constancy of the speed of light, and consequently also the "measure" of the distances in the universe? The hexagram cannot say anything about these questions. It pertains to the situation on our globe.
6) All this shows us that the hexagram is foremost a symbol for our situation on earth.