θαυμάζω (g2296)
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θαυμάζω is the verb that the Synoptic writers reach for when they want to say that something has just shifted underfoot. A miracle has happened, a saying has landed, a tomb is empty, and the witness is left in a posture for which English has only the older, slightly archaic word wondering. It is not amazement at a spectacle; it is the involuntary response of a mind whose categories have been disturbed.
Etymology
From g2295 θαῦμα (thauma), “a wonder, a marvel,” itself thought to derive from a Proto-Indo-European root *dheH₂u-, “to look at, to behold.” The verb form expresses the experience of being struck by what one beholds. The cognate stem appears in English theater, by way of θεάομαι, “to look upon.”
Usage
A workhorse verb in Koine narrative. It appears around forty-three times in the New Testament, almost always to mark the response of a character or crowd to something Jesus has done, said, or undergone. The Septuagint uses it more sparingly, often for the human response to divine action.
The verb is grammatically transitive when paired with an object of wonder, but it appears most often intransitively, leaving the cause implied by the surrounding narrative. The participial form (θαυμάζων) is especially common as a transitional cue: the character departs the scene wondering, and the narrative moves on, leaving the reader to sit with the astonishment.
Examples
- Luke 24:12. Peter departs from the empty tomb θαυμάζων (wondering) at what had come to pass. The narrative does not resolve his wonder; it simply leaves him in it.
- Mark 6:6. Jesus himself θαύμασεν (marveled) at the unbelief of his hometown. One of the rare uses where the subject of wonder is Christ.
- Matthew 8:27. The disciples θαύμασαν (marveled) after the storm was stilled, asking, “What manner of man is this?”
- Revelation 17:6. John θαύμασα (wondered) with great wonder (θαῦμα μέγα) at the vision of the woman on the beast.
Related
- g2295 θαῦμα, the noun; the wonder itself, the thing wondered at.
- g1568 ἐκθαμβέω, a more intense verb, “to be utterly astonished,” used of the women at the empty tomb in Mark 16.
- g1611 ἔκστασις, the noun naming the state of being put outside oneself by what one has seen.
Synonyms
- g1605 ἐκπλήσσομαι, “to be struck out of one’s senses,” used for crowds confronted with Jesus’ teaching.
- g1839 ἐξίστημι, “to be beside oneself,” a more displacing experience, often translated “amazed.”
Antonyms
Koine has no direct lexical antonym for θαυμάζω. The closest semantic opposites are verbs of unmoved disbelief or settled hardening: g4645 σκληρύνω, “to harden,” and g569 ἀπιστέω, “to disbelieve.” The opposite of wonder, in this lexical neighborhood, is not skepticism but the inability to be disturbed.