Hebrew Word Study – Appropriate – Yapah. יפה  Yod Pei Hei 

Ecclesiastes 3:11: “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.” KJV

Ecclesiastes 3:11: “He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, without the possibility that mankind will find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.” NASB

I have to admit that when I read the NASB version, which I was told was the closest translation to the Hebrew, I was really disappointed.  I grew up with the KJV and memorized all my Scripture verses in the KJV.   King James was the only version of the Bible allowed in our house and even my younger brother who is now a linguist with Wycliffe Bible Translators used to say as a toddler: “Can ye open the door?”   So, I was adamant that the NASB was just plain wrong and had miss translated what I read: “He will make everything appropriate in His time.” 

I loved that phrase; “He will make everything beautiful in his time” and it seemed to me to be a real desecration of God’s word to exchange that beautiful word beautiful to appropriate.  Where were those translators’ hearts and souls when they translated this?  How could they render something so important about God’s timing to something so mundane as appropriate?  Yes, sir, God will make everything adequate, decent or acceptable in His time.  That is how I viewed the word appropriately.  To me to make everything beautiful meant it all turns out right and lovely.  Birds are singing, flowers are blooming and the aroma of grandma’s biscuits is still the best in the world. That’s what I think when I hear the word beautiful.  Use the word appropriately and I think not wearing my baseball cap in a sanctuary is appropriate. Saying certain words are not appropriate.  I remember as a small child running in the aisle of the church after service and being stopped by white-gloved ladies who would admonish me saying that it was not appropriate to run in God’s house. Hence, I associate the word appropriate with some unattainable form of behavior. God was a strict, no-nonsense God who does not tolerate behavior that is not appropriate. Ah, but that word beautiful conjured up pictures of peace, joy, and happiness. 

Is the NASB wrong for using appropriate rather than beautiful?  Well, let’s just take a little linguistical journey with this word beautiful.  Webster defines it as pleasing the senses. But it also means to have a very high standard, excellence.  So, what did King Solomon have in mind when he said that God will make everything beautiful in His time.  Did he mean that God will bring everything to a high standard of excellence as the NASB suggest or did he-man that God will make everything pleasing to our senses in His time?  Well, the word in Hebrew is yapah which Strong tells us means fair, beautiful, and/or handsome.  Yea for Strong’s.  The Brown Driver’s Briggs tells us it means fair and beautiful.  You sing it BDB and I’ll hold the hymn book. But, of course, the New America Standard Bible says fitting or appropriate.  In this, I take the stand of my father who used to say: “You can use those modern translations if you like, but for me, I take the Bible.” He said this as he held up his Scofield Reference King James Version. 

But there are more roads to travel on our linguistical journey. First, let’s examine the English word beautiful.  We use it in many different contexts.  Someone will point to his new car and say ‘Ain’t she a beaut?” Why they always use the feminine pronoun may suggest why he refers to his car a beautiful.  We associate beauty with feminine qualities. We don’t say a man is beautiful, we say he is handsome.  My dad was a fisherman and he loved to fish.  His most common expression when he pulled up a Muskie from the lake with its sharp, threatening teeth and beady little eyes would be to declare” “Ain’t she a beaut?”  No “she” wasn’t a beaut, she (if it was a she) was slimy, ugly, slippery, slithery, greasy, mucky, clammy and ready willing and able to bite my finger off.  In the words of Margaret Hungerford aka The Duchess: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” 

I recall when I was teaching, a student came to me after his wife gave birth to a little girl and proudly showed me a picture of this red, greasy, slippery wrinkled form of a human being and pointing to himself declared: “Papa!  Ain’t she beautiful.”  I lied and said yes. Well, maybe not a real lie. In Judaism, a lie is when you say a falsehood to achieve selfish results at the expense of another person.  All I did was confirm what my student passionately believed.  I could have said; “I believe you believe she is beautiful.”  But I was a busy professor and did not have time for much more than a “yes.”  

We have the passage in Genesis 12:11 where Abraham tells his 65-year-old wife that she is a beautiful woman, using the word yapah.  But then we all know that Abraham was a man of peace and peacemaking starts first in the home. But, hey, in the eyes of a  husband who has loved his wife for over half a century that woman is still beautiful.  When I was fifteen I had the biggest crush on this girl in my classroom.  I mean even today I dream about her. She was the most beautiful girl in the entire high school of over 5,000 students. She occasionally gave me a little smile and once even spoke to me.  I thank God to this day that I did not faint as I came very close to it.  If a panic attack mimics a heart attack, then I know what a heart attack is like.  I continue to think about her even to this day.  In fact, I searched the internet and Facebook and found her Facebook page where she displayed a picture of herself and her husband.  I was delighted to read her post which spoke of her relationship with God and wondered if she ever thought of that religious, shy, quiet boy who turned white as a sheet when she spoke to him.  My point is the picture showed her as a 70 years old woman and she still practically caused my pacemaker to malfunction. Yeah, she is just as beautiful as she was over a half-century ago. 

I think, however, if I had not read of her faith and Christian walk with God I might not have considered her so beautiful.  However, to imagine her loving God, raising her children to love God, and having a loving husband who appreciated her and loved her made her appropriate to me. As I looked at this picture of this 70-year-old woman who loves the same Jesus I love she was beautiful and in God’s timing he made everything appropriate, right, perfectly fitted for her. 

So, as far as I am concerned, the KJV and the NASB are in agreement, they just use different words to express the same thing.  In His time he will make all things appropriate and/or beautiful. Because when something is appropriate, fitted together perfectly it’s beautiful.  When you empty the box of a jigsaw puzzle all those little pieces do not look beautiful and they are not appropriate.  But when you put that puzzle together and every piece is appropriately placed, you have a beautiful picture.  So too in our lives with God. Our lives sometimes seem like a jigsaw puzzle, not too beautiful, but if you give God His proper time he will put those pieces together where they fit and are appropriate and the results will be beautiful.

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