A SIGN — a mark, token, or wonder that points beyond itself to authenticate a word or a promise. The word covers two distinct kinds of sign in this translation. The first is the AUTHENTICATING WONDER: God gives Moses three OTOT to make Israel believe (Exodus 4:8-9) — the staff-serpent, the leprous hand, the water-to-blood — and the same word later names the plagues themselves, the great 'signs and wonders' of the Exodus. The second is the COVENANT MARKER, a standing mark that seals a relationship rather than proving a message: the rainbow, 'set between me and the earth' after the flood, binding God to every living thing (Genesis 9:12-13); circumcision, cut into Abraham's own flesh, binding one family line (Genesis 17:11); and the sabbath, kept on the calendar itself, binding the nation redeemed from Egypt — 'a sign between me and you throughout your generations' (Exodus 31:13, already on these pages). A sky-mark, a body-mark, a time-mark, one for each covenant's scale. Either way, a sign is not the point; it is a finger pointing at the one who gives it. → first discussed at Exod 4:8