Along the Road

I have become a marvel to many, for You are my strong refuge.  Psalm 71:7  NASB

Marvel – You didn’t intend to become a celebrity.  You thought you’d just go about your life and mind your own business.  But things happen.  People see what you’ve done.  They hear about your choices.  They recognize your face.  Suddenly, you’re an advertisement, a picture postcard for a cause—or a mistake.  Along life’s road, you’ve become a billboard.

That’s the idea behind the Hebrew môpēt.  It means “wonder, sign, miracle,” but its etymology is important.  It comes from the word yâphâh, which means “to be bright, to be beautiful.”  In other words, it’s about something that shines, something that you can’t miss, something conspicuous.  Like that big, lighted billboard along the highway.  No matter how fast you’re traveling, your eyes are drawn to it.  It shouts a message.  So, by the way, do you.

There’s something else unusual about this Hebrew word.  It’s the only Hebrew word that uses this particular combination of consonants.  That’s ironic.  Here we have a word that essentially means “to stand out, to be noticed, to be striking” and it’s constructed of letters that are in combination precisely that.  They stand out because there is nothing else like them.  Once again Hebrew form has function.  You can’t read this word in English and see the same thing it implies in Hebrew.

When the poet writes “I’ve become a marvel,” he doesn’t mean that he sought fame.  He means that people just can’t believe their eyes when they see him.  He should be dead.  He should be disgraced.  He should be punished.  He should be a nobody.  And yet, here he is.  On the billboard.  How did all that happen?  Well, God did it.  There is no other explanation.  How did a shepherd become a king?  How did an adulterer retain the throne?  How did a man survive all his enemies?  How did he become famous and feared?  God did it.  Even he stands amazed that such a spotted sacrifice could have been used in this way.  It’s a miracle, a marvel—a sign.  A sign that God didn’t give up on him.  A môpēt; a completely unusual, never-to-be-repeated sort of thing.  Something that others will look at and exclaim, “What an amazing God we have who did all this with such a man!”

Môpēt is a very unusual word.  There is no other word like it.  Ah, but that isn’t so strange when you think about it.  There is no one else like you.  You are just as unusual as môpēt.  The combination of all those letters that make up who you are will never happen again.  You are a one-of-a-kind billboard along life’s highway.

Shine!

Topical Index: môpēt, wonder, miracle, sign, Psalm 71:6