Genesis 1:14

"And God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years,'"  Genesis 1:14 (NIV)

The QBible has "lights" translated as "luminous bodies."  That makes sense because God created light back in verse 3 during the first day.  So he's not creating light again, just sources for light.  And these lights are going to serve as a calendar, they are the way to tell time.

The NIV clearly states that these lights will serve to mark time, but the QBible doesn't seem so clear.  It translates the end of the verse:  "and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years."  So this makes it sound like two different purposes.  Not only will these tell time, but they are also for signs.  What kind of signs?  Now we have billboards for advertisements, street signs to give directions, historical markers to give information about the past, and I'm sure there are even more that I can't think of right now.  So what purpose do these signs in verse 14 serve?

The Biblecommenter has several different commentaries that speak on their understanding of the verse.  One commentator simply believes these are road map signs:  even today sailors use the stars to navigate.  Another claims them as proof of God's power and love for man, that studying the science behind the stars and other heavenly bodies will show how exact God's creation is that if even one tiny thing had been out of place life would not exist.  And another commentary goes along with the NIV's translation that it's signs to tell time by and to tell weather by.  Still another that these signs are "partly as portents of extraordinary events and divine judgments."  The previous ideas make sense, but this last one is more difficult, it almost sounds like fortune-telling. 

Of course, if we saw a huge meteor coming at the earth, scientists could make educated guesses of what the consequences of that impact would be, but is that what this is referring to?  Or is it something more?  Can we divine future events from the stars?  Is there any good from astrology?

We tend to think that the witchcraft that the Bible condemns includes not only conjuring dead spirits and casting spells and making deals with demons, but also interpreting meanings from the stars.  I don't know if these should be in the same category.  At this point in the Bible, the issue of sin has not even been addressed.  All we really know is that God is creating the universe and several of his creations are to serve specific purposes.  At this point I believe it would be wise of me to stay away from astrology and trying to interpret future events from the stars.  Besides that even if in the future I come to understand that there's nothing sinful about it, I'm most definitely not qualified for that job anyway.