QUESTION CORNER

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 22, 1902

1203.—Heads of Leviathan.

Will you please explain Ps. 74:14? Did the Lord work a miracle, and change the flesh of leviathan into the flesh of quails for the children of Israel in the desert?

The text says nothing about quails. The leviathan is used as a symbol of Satan, the great dragon and old serpent or sea monster. His heads are the nations and empires he uses. When God called His people to the promised land, Egypt, Moab, Amalek, and others opposed their progress and sought to slay them; but God broke the power of these nations, and gave of their substance to His people. So Joshua declared, “Only rebel not against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us.” Num. 14:9. Balaam said of Israel, “He shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones.” Num. 24:8.

1204.—At the Hour of Judgment.

A correspondent sends us a clipping which notes the special positions of certain planets between Dec. 9 and Dec. 26, 1901, and gives the opinion of Dr. Annie K. Bailey, “one of the best-known women physicians of Connecticut,” that “the heavens testify by precisely the same contiguity or approximation of the planets [as at the time of the flood] as are now taking place before our eyes that the hour of His judgment is at hand.” —Danbury (Conn.) Correspondence New York Sun. Our opinion is that the foretold signs of the Word of God indicate clearly that the day of judgment is at hand; that Word tells us what signs will be indicated in the heavens. But we do not believe that any one knows anything about that day by any particular conjunction of planets. In all these things stick to the Word.

1205.—Is She an Adulteress?

A woman believing herself to be a widow of several years’ standing, marries a second time. A few years after her second marriage, she learns that her first husband, instead of dying as she had supposed, had really deserted her, obtained a divorce in a Western State, and married a second time several years previous to her second marriage. Do you think there are Scriptural grounds for considering her second marriage an adulterous union? C. A. E.

We know, on the basis of this question, no Scriptural grounds for so regarding her, or why she should be troubled in conscience over the matter.