Wonderful

Wonderful.  Without listing them, because he assumed his readers knew, the ancient historian, Herodotus, wrote of “the seven great architectural achievements in the world.” This dusty sentence gave rise to our notion of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Six of them are long gone, but the Seven Wonders were probably: (1) The Great Pyramid of Giza [Egypt], (2) The Lighthouse of Alexandria [Egypt], (3) The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [Bodrum, Turkey], (4) The Colossus of Rhodes [Greece], (5) The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus [Turkey], (6) The Statue of Zeus at Olympia [Greece], and (7) The Hanging Gardens of Babylon [Iraq]. These engineering feats and expressions of opulent wealth were famous because they were gaudy and large. But the Bible uses the word wonders in an entirely different sense.

Biblical wonders were predominantly divine acts of cosmic, historical, or redemptive magnitude. The first time the word wonderful appeared in the Hebrew text was when God repeated to Abraham and Sarah his promise that they would have a son together in their old age (Gen. 18:14). “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Jeremiah, too, used wonderful in the same sense: “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you” (Jer. 32:17, 27). Too hard captures the disturbing sense of the word (Hebrew: pela’) elsewhere translated as wonderful.

Wonder is incredible in the most literal sense: unbelievable, defying physical explanation. Witnesses to wonders have a similar response. They do not whisper to their neighbor while they balance their teacups, “How lovely; you should be so proud.” Instead, wonder terrifies and rattles onlookers. Witnesses are shaken, not exactly in a friendly way.

This fear element should cast biblical wonder in a different, more accurate light. On the eastern shore of the Red Sea, Moses sang a new song: “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? (Exo. 15:11). On the way to conquer Jericho, Joshua reminded the people what God had promised them, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you (Josh. 3:5). After dialoguing with God from inside the whirlwind, Job said, “Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 42:3). Messiah would be known by the titles: “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6). Wonder-working, therefore, identifies God.

In the New Testament, the same concept of wonderful endures (Greek: thaumasios and teras), which makes the rejection of Jesus by the religious rulers even more egregious. Jesus did and said things only God does and says, yet: “The chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did … and they were indignant” (Matt. 21:15). But for others, God’s wonders cured their disbelief and solidified their wobbly knees. “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know” (Acts 2:22). Infinitely more than politely charming or comfortably endearing, his name is wonderful!