The Fear of God?

A few of our followers have requested that Anamchara Books help them better understand Bible phrases that have often been misunderstood. Today we’ll begin what we plan to be an ongoing Thursday series: “Understanding Bible Talk.” The first on our list (again at the request of some followers) is the phrase the fear of God, a term that occurs frequently throughout the Hebrew scriptures, as well as occasionally in the Christian. When people read this term, they often imagine an egotistic male Deity who demands that people fall down in terrified worship before Him. Why else would we be told so much about the “fear of God”? But if we go back to the original Hebrew language, the term looks quite different.

Maybe this is what the fear of God looks like…

like joy, awe, adoration—a reciprocal relationship of love.

First, the Hebrew root word that’s often translated “fear” is yirah, a feminine-gendered word that can mean fear but can also mean reverence, awe, and respect. It’s a little like the English word jam; jam can mean a sticky situation—as in “I’m in a bit of a jam,” or “I got caught in a traffic jam”—but it can also be the sticky substance we spread on toast. Were we translating English into another language, the word we chose to use for “jam” would depend on the context. “I got caught in strawberry jam this morning,” wouldn’t make much sense, nor would “I like to eat my toast with traffic jam.” So when the translators of the Bible came to this word yirah, which could mean “fear” but could also mean “reverence, awe, and respect,” they went with fear. It made sense to them.

 This was partly because in at the time of King James’ translation of the Bible, one of the meanings of the word fear was also “awe, reverence”—so it was a good word for yirah. Later, as the word’s meaning in common usage changed, entire theologies were built around a fearful relationship with God. Those theologies included a firm belief in the fires of hell, and so sermons like Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” were used to “scare people straight.” It made sense to be afraid of a God who was likely to send you to hell if you didn’t worship him.

But if we go back to the original contexts of the word, things become more clear. Take, for example, this verse from Exodus: “Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning’” (20:20). Why would Moses tell the people not to be afraid and in the next breath tell them that fear would keep them from sinning? Wouldn’t it make more sense to say, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test, so that reverence for God will keep you from sinning”?

The Ancient Hebrew Research Center has yet another interpretation. It states that the most ancient meaning of the root word that’s been translated as “fear” was literally “flowing of the gut.” It was a physical sensation, like getting goosebumps. You might get goosebumps from watching a horror movie—but you might also get them from a beautiful piece of music or an emotion-filled moment. 

When it comes to the phrase “the fear of God,” the Research Center then goes even further, stating, “When a noun precedes another noun, the first noun is . . . connected to the second noun—two words together forming one concept.” It gives as biblical examples “the Word of God,” “the Name of God,” “the Mountain of God,” “the Law of God,” and others. In all these cases, the first word belongs to the second word. The Research Center then asks, “So why do we think the word ‘fear’ . . . is our fear and not God’s?” They’re not saying that God is fearful. Instead, since yirah means, literally, “to flow out of the gut,” they’re asking, what flows out of the “gut” of God?

Look back at the verse in Genesis. What if we were to read it like this: “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that what flows out from God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” Or we could read Proverbs 9:10—“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding”—as “What flows out of God is the beginning of wisdom. . . .” This doesn’t work for every instance where the Bible talks about fearing God, but in many cases, it does point to something very different from what we have always thought.

 The Jewish Encyclopedia has yet another take on the phrase. It says that fearing God means being in right relationship with God, practicing justice, compassion, and honesty in our human dealings. “Fear of God,” it states, “is identical with love and service,” and it cites Deuteronomy 10:12: “What does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Ultimately, we find the final answer, the one that trumps all others, in 1 John 4:18: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”