EDIT: This article is in desperate need of an overhaul. While there are no factual errors (that I know of), I’ve learned enough additional context to add this disclaimer. Probably the best way to understand the phrase “fear of the Lord” is “reverent fear”. I’ll overhaul this article when I get time, but unfortunately that probably won’t be soon (hence the disclaimer).
For much of my life, I was confused by the phrase “Fear of the Lord.” The Bible says God is love, He tells us to call Him Abba and He lets us “come boldly into the throne room“… yet we should fear Him?
What sense does that make?
When I hear the word “fear”, I think of dread or terror at an immanent threat to me or my loved ones. However, that’s not what the Bible means by the “fear of the Lord”. In the original language, it can mean something quite different.
(Rather like looking at the Greek makes it clear why “lusting” in Matthew 5:27-28 doesn’t make all men adulterers)
To understand, we’ll need to look at the difference between Hebrew and English.
Differences between Hebrew and English
I must remind you that the Old Testament was written by Hebrews, to Hebrews, in a Hebrew culture, and in the Hebrew language. Therefore, if you want to understand what it means, you need to look at what the Hebrews say it means, specifically what their words mean.
You have to understand that ancient Hebrew is a very “word poor” language.
I don’t mean that as an insult (it’s not) but the Hebrew language has relatively few words. This proper linguistic context is essential to understand what the “fear of the lord” actually means.
(And I’m a huge fan of context; as you can see in my articles on Revelation, Tithing, and why the Great Commission is not what you’ve been taught.)
For context, let’s talk more about the total word count of the Hebrew language:
The academy of the Hebrew language estimates 45,000 words, in addition to 30,000-35,000 word compositions (school in Hebrew is book-house בית-ספר, for example), which totals the estimate in 75,000-80,000 meaningful expressions of either words or word compositions. Note that this estimate includes many biblical words still used today.
Hebrew only has ~45k words. If you include compound words you can boost that number, but it’s somewhat disingenuous to do so. Combining the Hebrew words for “book” and “house” gives you the “book-house”, which means school, but it’s still using the same basic ~45k words.
By contrast, English has a massive word count
The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words included as subentries. Over half of these words are nouns, about a quarter adjectives, and about a seventh verbs; the rest is made up of exclamations, conjunctions, prepositions, suffixes, etc. And these figures don’t take account of entries with senses for different word classes (such as noun and adjective).
This suggests that there are, at the very least, a quarter of a million distinct English words, excluding inflections, and words from technical and regional vocabulary not covered by the OED, or words not yet added to the published dictionary, of which perhaps 20 per cent are no longer in current use. If distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach three quarters of a million.
Source: Oxford Dictionaries.com – How many words are there in the English language?
A quarter million (or more) vs ~45k.
Yeah, big difference.
And it doesn’t even include all the super-technical words that scientists use; that’s just words in common use. By contrast, Hebrew has very few words.
Because Hebrew has so few words, each word has a lot of meanings. A great example of this is our English word “fair”.
It has more meanings than you can shake a stick at, and here are some of them: (many of the definitions below lifted from the Merriam Webster dictionary definition of fair)
- marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism
- not very good or very bad : of average or acceptable quality
- not stormy or foul (fair weather)
- not dark (fair skin)
- pleasing to the eye or mind especially because of fresh, charming, or flawless quality
- superficially pleasing
- clear or legible (a letter written in a fair hand)
- ample (a fair estate size)
- A temporary outdoor amusement park (going to the fair)
All of those definitions share a common thread of being good or nice, but that’s about where the similarities end. Now, a native English speaker has no trouble deciphering which meaning of “fair” is intended because of the context surrounding it. However, if English isn’t your first language, you would probably find our word “fair” absolutely maddening.
Nearly all Hebrew words are like our word “fair”.
(At least, most of the ones I’ve looked up are that way.) They all have many meanings because again, Hebrew has a low total word count. Because of the low word count, each word has many meanings.
What the Hebrew word for “fear” means
Let me be clear; “fear” is perfectly valid translation of the Hebrew word “יָרֵא” (yare, pronounced “yaw-ray”). It’s correctly translated “fear” many, many times and it certainly can mean fear. However, it doesn’t only mean fear. Remember, it can have other meanings that are only peripherally related to “fear”. The list of meanings goes like this:
- fear
- stand in awe
- stand in fear, reverence honor.
In an alternate form, it means:
- Be fearful
- cause astonishment and awe
- inspire reverence, godly fear, and awe
(Note: One of the cool things about word with multiple meanings in the ability to mean more than one thing at a time. For example, You can simultaneously use the word “yare” to mean awe, astonishment, and reverence. If an a enemy army had just appeared, you could use “yare” to mean fear and astonishment.)
“Yare” means as many or as few of those things as the context dictates.
It can mean only one, or all at the same time.
If you want to know what it means in a specific context, then ask someone who speaks the language as their native tongue. It just so happens, we can do that easily with a quick Google search. the following is an excerpt from the Jewish Encyclopedia article on “fear of God”:
Who fears God will refrain from doing the things that would be displeasing to Him, the things that would make himself unworthy of God’s regard. Fear of God does not make men shrink from Him as one would from a tyrant or a wild beast; it draws them nearer to Him and fills them with reverential awe. That fear which is merely self-regarding is unworthy of a child of God.
According to the Jews – who were “entrusted with the oracles of God” according to Romans 3:2 – the “fear of the Lord” means reverential awe. It doesn’t describe the fear that makes you run from danger; it describes the “reverential awe” that we should have toward God. I don’t expect you to take my word for it, let’s look at some places where it’s translated revere.
(I won’t bother listing verses that show it means fear because there are so many and it’s generally agreed upon.)
Verses that show yare can mean “revere”
Leviticus 19:3
3 Every one of you shall reverence (yare) his mother and his father, and you shall keep My sabbaths; I am the LORD your God.
Virtually no one would think you should be afraid of your parents. However, the Bible is very clear that children should honor their parents, and revere is certainly in the ballpark. I didn’t fear my father, but I greatly respected him. Revere is certainly accurate when I was younger.
Moving on.
Leviticus 19:32
32 ‘You shall rise up before the grayheaded and honor the aged, and you shall revere (yare) your God; I am the LORD.
Joshua 4:14
14 On that day the LORD exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; so that they revered (yare) him, just as they had revered (yare) Moses all the days of his life.
(I’m pretty sure the people didn’t fear Joshua or Moses.)
Nehemiah 1:11
11 “O Lord, I beseech You, may Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and the prayer of Your servants who delight to revere (yare) Your name, and make Your servant successful today and grant him compassion before this man.” Now I was the cupbearer to the king.
As you can see, “revere” is a perfectly legitimate translation of the Hebrew word yare (and most Bible translations agree on this).
God made everything and He is a being of truly unlimited power; reverential awe is perfectly appropriate. Further, it makes some Bible verses make so much more sense.
Proverbs 9:10
10
The fear ofrevering the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
That makes sense to me; fear… not so much.
If you revere God you will pursue Him and want to be more like Him – which is extremely wise. I could make a good case that imitating God’s character is where wisdom begins. I’d have a much harder time making a case that being afraid of God is the beginning of wisdom.
There are other verses where the same principle applies. I could give examples ad nauseam, but I think you get the point. Yare can mean fear, awe, or reverence, and most of the time it does mean fear. However, it doesn’t always mean fear.
The other reason I like “revere” more than fear
You can fear something, but not respect it.
My wife fears spiders, but has zero respect for them. I know people who are afraid of God, but don’t respect Him in the slightest. They truly “fear the Lord”… But that doesn’t mean they have much respect for Him. But revere is different and it encompasses the idea of respect.
Here is the definition of the word “revere” according to dictionary.com.
to regard with respect tinged with awe; venerate:
The word revere – in my mind – conjures up that “reverential awe” that the Jewish encyclopedia described. Revere means a profound amount of respect; so much that it borders on and/or includes awe or amazement. That sounds exactly like how we should view God to me.
That sounds like the “beginning of wisdom” too.
Further, a definition of revere for yare means we want to draw close to Him.
We want to be near the people we respect; we flee from things we fear. Pick a person whom you greatly admire and respect; wouldn’t you want to spend more time in their presence? Wouldn’t you want to know them more intimately?
Further, if that high respect is “tinged with awe” then wouldn’t you want to draw closer to God all the more?
By contrast, fear drives people away (or paralyzes them).
I think the idea that we need to fear God is a natural consequence of bad doctrine concerning Jesus’ work on the cross. Most people think God punished Jesus so He didn’t have to punish us. That idea is patently unbilical, which I show in my article on why Jesus died and what His death accomplished.
Understanding why Jesus really died will make you want to draw closer to Him. Thinking of God as a ruthless, vindictive judge who doesn’t destroy you only because He already punished someone else (Jesus) wouldn’t tend to make people want to be near Him. (and besides, Romans 2:4 says “it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance”; kindness, not wrath.)
What About “Fear of the Lord” in the New Testament?
The Greek word translated fear is “φόβος” (phobos), the root word of our word phobia. (as in claustrophobia, arachnophobia, etc.). Interestingly, it seems to have the same usage and meaning as its Hebrew counterpart.
Usage: (a) fear, terror, alarm, (b) the object or cause of fear, (c) reverence, respect.
Thayer’s Greek Lexicon lists the meanings as:
- fear, dread, terror;
- reverence, respect (for authority, rank, dignity)
One example where “fear” is certainly not the intended meaning is:
1 Peter 3:1-2
1 In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives,
2 as they observe your chaste and respectful (phobos) behavior.
Unless you think wives should be scared of their husbands, I don’t think fear is in view here. Again, I think the idea is the same as when the Hebrews were told to revere their father and mother. It’s respect – not terror/dread – that’s in view.
(Again, unless you think wives should literally be afraid of their husbands.)
Another verse:
1 Peter 3:15
15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence (phobos);
Acts 2:43
43 Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe (phobos); and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.
Matthew 28:8
8 And they left the tomb quickly with fear (phobos) and great joy and ran to report it to His disciples.
(Great fear and great joy seem impossible to go together. However great joy with great awe (or reverence); I could definitely see that.)
Acts 9:32
31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear (phobos) of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.
Here we have believers enjoying peace and the comfort from the Holy Spirit… while going on in fear? Again, I think reverence or awe is a better translation because it makes way more sense.
To be clear, most of the time phobos does mean fear/dread/terror etc. However – like the Hebrew word yare – it doesn’t always mean fear. Like yare, it can mean a sense of reverence or awe and I think that’s the intended meaning when it’s used as the “fear of the Lord”.
I think this because:
1 John 4:18
18 There is no fear (phobos) in love; but perfect love casts out fear (phobos), because fear (phobos) involves punishment, and the one who fears (phobeó*) is not perfected in love.
(*phobeó is a verb form of phobos, in this case a participle)
If:
- “God is love” as 1 John 4:8 says (just 10 verses before),
- and if perfect love casts out fear,
- then we should have no reason to “fear” God.
However, we should definitely revere God and awe is certainly appropriate too.
Conclusion
Fear is a perfectly accurate translation of the Hebrew word yare, but hardly the only one. The Jews have long held that it’s reverence and awe that we owe to God, not “fear”. Further, it just makes so much more sense in many places. That applies to the Greek word for fear (phobos) also.
So whenever you’re reading the Bible and see the phrase “fear the Lord”, ask yourself if “revere the Lord” makes more sense. (since they are the same word in Hebrew and Greek)
Odds are, “revere the Lord” is the better translation.
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That was good…I am currently involved in the deconstruction of my image of God. He is a lot nicer than I used to believe!
The Dennis Prager vid was great…It all makes sense…It’s another load off my back.
I enjoyed you’re content.. thank you for sharing
You’re welcome. 🙂
A very helpful explanation of a rather controversial point … thank you for taking the time to help make it’s meaning clear. John Barnes
Hi Berean Patriot,
I can across this article while I was preparing my sharing on The Fear of the Lord from the Book of Proverbs. I love the way you have unpacked the original Hebrew/Greek word and challenged conventional understandings which have unfortunately caused some to doubt the infallibility and inspiration of God’s word.
Thank you again for your research and sharing; I look forward to seeing more.
God bless you brother!
Hi Berean Patriot, can you please direct to me to article where you said you the “real reason why Jesus died and what his death on the cross accomplished.”
I unpublished that article a while ago. I was going through the Bible and ran across a couple verses that made me question the article’s conclusions. I’m not sure they’re wrong, but I wasn’t sure enough of them to keep the article up.
It boils down to this: Ezekiel 18 says it’s wrong to punish one man for another man’s sins, even if they are as closely related as father and son. That made me question the “God punished Jesus instead of us” theory of why Jesus died. I can’t reconcile that with with Ezekiel 18. On the other side are places like Isaiah 53. I hoe that’s enough to get you started. If not, email me (address on the contact page)and we’ll talk further.
Thank you. Love reading this as it helps to understand more when we go back to the original language the scriptures were written.
Thank you this clears the doubt I have, and I can now have confidence in explaining the phrase ” fear of the Lord”
I think you should rethink this article. Consider Luke 12:4-5:
“I tell you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear the One who, after you have been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him!”
This is quite plain. Or are we to believe that Jesus isn’t saying that we shouldn’t fear men, but rather that we shouldn’t “revere” them?
I think the earthly analogy of our own fathers is instructive. He loves you, you love him. However, if you do something wrong, or are considering doing something wrong, you fear him. And it’s completely reasonable and logical to do so. Not too complicated.
You make a good point, and this article does need some re-touching. As I’ve been looking at it lately, I think “reverent fear” is probably a better translation than simply revere or fear alone. I’m swamped now, but I’ll try to get to it soon.
Thank you for this…exactly what I needed to understand this further. I love your heart, view of God…so right on!
I appreciate your effort to search through the Scriptures and try to figure this out. However, your discussion is found wanting in light of the point that Dana Hata makes in his comment. I think it is completely appropriate to fear a loving, earthly father, if you have disobeyed him, as a loving father will mede out appropriate discipline to teach his child. When the Bible speaks of the fear of the Lord, the double meaning of the Hebrew word makes the most sense: reverence and fear. The best definitions I have come across for this are: “That fear is…the convergence of awe, reverence, adoration, honor, worship, confidence, thankfulness, love, and, yes, fear” (R. Strimple) and [It] “fills us with a sovereign respect for God, and makes us dread, above all things, to offend Him” (Jaques Forget). I look forward to reading your update on this article. God bless.
Abba does NOT mean daddy . it means Father in a more personal way , like ie [ My Father ] . I belong to Him & He [God] is my God . Abba does not mean daddy or da da or pa pa or any other small child like endearment . the man who originally interpreted abba this way realized his error after have it pointed out to him by a number of other bible scholars of his day . He repented openly of his error .
I made a slight edit to remove the reference. I’ve done some looking and realized that a while ago, but had forgotten that I had used “Daddy” for Abba in this article. Thanks for reminding me.
Excellent article brother. I truly believe you have perfectly described fear in its proper context of the verses given. It is my understanding that we as children of God are not to be afraid of Him, especially since the sin issue has been settled once for all at the cross by our Savior Jesus. And we have been crucified with Christ and it is not longer we who live but Christ lives through us. This does not that mean that there is not consequences for our actions. For we should operate in the Spirit of wisdom and understanding in the knowledge of His will. Being born again of the Spirit of God we are now a New Creation and we walk led by Spirit of God in the newness of life. We have this opportunity to know him intimately as our Abba/Father. And I truly believe that he has no problem with us calling him Daddy or Papa. This is more than a term of endearment this is the heart of our Heavenly Father as we have been accepted in the Beloved. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God. We are all members of the Body of Christ being of the same mind, the Mind of Christ. Love you all brothers and sisters. Shalom!
Brother, I appreciate your endeavor, I got a lot out of it. I would like to add what I believe to be truth also. The Hebrew word and Greek word in context of the culture and times is always extremely important. What did the person mean who was speaking and what was his listeners understanding of what he was saying. This applies to the original speaker and his original audience. Hebrews, A split culture, those of the ‘Faith of Abraham’ and those of no faith. Fear would have a dual meaning. Remember the Jewish Believers (in the Faith of Abraham), did not have a new nature nor the infilling of the Holy Spirit as is understood of NT Believers, because Christ had not yet been crucified and resurrected and the Holy Spirit had not yet been poured out on the Believers,(in the faith of Abraham) The Psalms give us an excellent insight into how ‘fear of the Lord’ was handled by the believing (in the Faith of Abraham), Jews in that culture, at that time,(before Messiah). For the Believers, (in the faith of Abraham), for themselves, reverential Awe out of love and obedience to God’s revealed way, for the Jewish non believer, not so much if any at all. Now we spring forward into the NT, There were no NT Scriptures until about 45-50AD, up until that time it was the oral ‘Apostles Teaching’. The Apostles taught the OT Scriptures interpreted by The Holy Spirit for NT believers, Christ Body, The Church. Fear of the Lord was understood, For believers, to be reverential awe and obedience out of faith and love for Him, knowing that special, intimate relationship and revelation of Himself and His love for them. For the NT era unbeliever, God loves all of us and is willing to pour His love(salvation)out to any who will Repent, that means any who will call upon The Lord. There is no fear in Love, God’s love for us, but if someone knows the truth and continues to reject, then be careful because there is a line to not cross, that is the Fear of the Lord for an unbeliever who refuses to repent, and it is a real fear, not reverent awe. The interpretation of Scripture always has to evolve in the context of our relationship with our Lord and our brothers and sisters. There is no private interpretation of Scripture, The Holy Spirit is our only Teacher, and He uses many different ways and means to do so.
Absolutely a beautiful study thank you so much for all your efforts
Thank you for the article. In regards to Luke 12: 4 – 5 and whether this relates to fear as expressed in the wisdom passages, I see no need for correction. Equally this can seperate out contextually in its own, as you have suggested as being possible. I also balk at the idea that children must fear their parents (chastisement or punishment) when they have done something wrong. I think we have moved beyond such retributive and objectively disproven best practice parenting models – which leads to a greater understanding of God and his ever loving nature for his learning and growing and stumbling children.
In Noah’s day, all the people who would die had neither fear or awe of our Creator God. God looked and all He could find was no one who would love Him or Fear Him, thus the deluge. Was that God’s Anger on display, or His disgust with man’s evil ways? People who live in absolute sin today, need to know that just as it was in Noah’s day, the Grace of God, and a healthy understanding of His interpretation of Fear is what really matters. Christians today, as well need to understand that our actions and thought life is all recorded in heaven, the same place where names are recorded in The Book of Life. Some in The Bible had knee shaking experiences with God. Who among us today can say, theirs was not a Fear Experience?
You are contending that alternate words are “really” intended and to take this position you are using words that were available to the translators as well. Why did they not use “revere” if today you are suggesting that, given the context of the whole passage, this alternate word is what is a better choice? You can’t use an alternate word today that was ALSO available to the translators and in the same breath say those translators looked at the context and chose “fear” as the best available substitute. I realize that fearing and loving the same thing is extreemely difficult, and justifiably so, and that religious leaders have this and many other difficultiies facing them, but the logic of your approach to explaining how this is possible, pushes us seekers (agnostics) even further away unfortunately. And we are sad for it.
In Hebrews 12:28 there is another greek word for godly fear. It is Strong’s 2124: eulabeia. meaning to take well or use caution. Also in Hebrew OT when you look up fear or “yare” it can also mean to flow or pour out. Just an fyi when you have the unction to redo the article.