a sign: something tangible that points beyond itself so a person recognizes, remembers, or trusts what God has said or done
This one Hebrew word covers a startling range, from a household mark and a battlefield banner to the rainbow, circumcision, a star, a prophet's strange behavior, and a child's name. What holds the range together is not the kind of thing the sign is but what it does: it makes something known. A sign points away from itself to a meaning, so that whoever sees it recognizes, remembers, or comes to trust a word or an act.
Because the unifying idea is meaning rather than marvel, a sign does not have to be miraculous. The rainbow existed before the flood, circumcision was practiced by Israel's neighbors, and the weekly rest is built into time itself. Scripture takes ordinary realities and invests them with covenant meaning. Some signs are wonders, but the word names the function of pointing, not the wonder.
The senses below are the recognized facets of that single function:
- a mark that identifies
- a standard that rallies
- a pledge that guarantees a covenant
- a confirmation that backs up a spoken word
- the great deliverance signs paired with wonders
- a heavenly signal
- a prophet's acted-out message
- a warning
They shade into one another by context rather than splitting into separate words.