To fear ; morally to revere ; causatively to frighten
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יָרֵא (yare) is the Hebrew verb for fear and reverence — a single word that covers both the terror-of-the-holy and the reverent-awe-of-the-beloved. The English word 'fear' has lost most of its awe-dimension in modern usage; the Hebrew yare still holds both together: the trembling of one who has encountered real power and the reverence of one who has been undone by holiness.
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Full entry for יָרֵא (H3372) · Open the biblical lexicon
יָרֵא (yare) is the Hebrew verb for fear and reverence — a single word that covers both the terror-of-the-holy and the reverent-awe-of-the-beloved. The English word 'fear' has lost most of its awe-dimension in modern usage; the Hebrew yare still holds both together: the trembling of one who has encountered real power and the reverence of one who has been.
The BSB source-word alignment has 315 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include be afraid (72), fear (44), feared (13), and awesome (12), and fear (7).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 3:10. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (45), Deuteronomy (37), Isaiah (25), 1 Samuel (21).
This entry includes 6 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
יָרֵא (yare) is the Hebrew verb for fear and reverence — a single word that covers both the terror-of-the-holy and the reverent-awe-of-the-beloved. The English word 'fear' has lost most of its awe-dimension in modern usage; the Hebrew yare still holds both together: the trembling of one who has encountered real power and the reverence of one who has been undone by holiness. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 329 occurrences in the OT.
Proverbs 1:7 places the fear of the Lord at the beginning of all wisdom: 'The fear of the Lord (yir'at YHWH) is the beginning of wisdom; fools despise wisdom and instruction.' The yir'ah here is not slavish terror but the foundational orientation that rightly orders all other knowledge — seeing reality from beneath God rather than from a position of independent evaluation. The person who fears the Lord has the right starting point for all thinking; the fool who does not fear God has no coherent framework because they have placed themselves at the center.
Genesis 22:12 gives the most concentrated example of yir'ah in narrative: 'now I know that you fear God (yere Elohim), seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.' The fear of God that Abraham demonstrates is the willingness to obey God absolutely, including in the thing that cost him everything. This is yir'ah as the motivating force of obedience: not the terror of punishment avoided but the awe of the God who is worth obeying even when obedience is the hardest thing imaginable.
The wisdom tradition consistently develops the yir'at YHWH as the orienting principle of human life: it is the beginning of wisdom (Prov 1:7), its crown (Prov 9:10), the thing that prolongs life (Prov 10:27), what keeps one from evil (Prov 16:6), and the source of what the Lord shares with those who fear Him (Ps 25:14). The yir'ah-tradition is the OT's answer to the deepest human question: where do I find the framework for living well? The answer is: in the awe of the God who made you, sustains you, and calls you.
For the preacher, יָרֵא is the word that restores the dimension of awe to the God-relationship — and insists that genuine love of God is not only warmth and affection but also the trembling recognition of who He is.
יָרֵא is currently indexed about 329 times in the local Hebrew index. In narrative, it describes the fear of approaching God or the holy (Moses at the burning bush, Isaiah in the temple). In the wisdom tradition, yir'at YHWH is the foundational human orientation. In the law, it is the required posture toward God and toward parents. In prophecy, it is both the present call (fear the Lord) and the eschatological hope (all nations will fear the Lord).
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.
The epistemological claim of the wisdom tradition: yir'at YHWH is the reshit (beginning, foundation, first principle) of all wisdom. Not the culmination of wisdom after a long journey, but the starting point without which the rest cannot properly begin. The person who does not fear God is epistemologically disordered — they are working with the wrong framework from the start.
The fool despises instruction precisely because they have not yet placed themselves in the right relationship to the one who knows all things.
“Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him,” said the angel, “for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from me.”
The enacted definition of yir'at Elohim: withholding nothing from God, even the most costly thing. The test of Abraham's fear is not formal religious observance but the absolute availability of everything he had — his son, his promise, his future. The declaration 'now I know that you fear God' names this as the definitive moment: the fear of God is demonstrated at the point of maximum cost, not in comfortable circumstances.
And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God by walking in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
The summary of the covenant requirement: yir'ah (fear), halakh (walk), ahav (love), abad (serve). The fear of the Lord is listed first — not as an alternative to love but as its companion and foundation. In the OT, yir'ah and ahavah are not competing orientations but complementary ones: you love the God you stand in awe of, and you stand in awe of the God you love. The four verbs together describe the totality of the covenant relationship.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him—the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.
The fear of the Lord as one of the Spirit's sevenfold gifts on the coming Davidic king. The Messiah will delight in the fear of the Lord (v. 3 — 'his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord'). This is the royal ideal: the one who governs rightly is not the one who has the most power but the one who most deeply fears the God above all power. Isaiah's vision of the ideal king is a vision of perfect yir'ah — which the NT reads as fulfilled in Christ, who was anointed with the Spirit and 'grew in wisdom and stature' (Luk 2:52) in exactly this vein.
But with You there is forgiveness, so that You may be feared.
One of the most counterintuitive statements in the Psalter: God's forgiveness is what makes Him worthy to be feared. The Niphal form of yara here (nora — to be feared, to be held in awe) points toward the appropriate response to encountering God's mercy: not taking it for granted but standing in deeper awe. The person who is forgiven by God is not liberated from awe but more deeply drawn into it — the God who could have judged and chose to forgive is worthy of the most intense yir'ah.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Hebrew word. Fear and reverence converge: respect rooted in awe of God's power, not mere terror.
Fear and reverence converge: respect rooted in awe of God's power, not mere terror.
to fear; morally to revere; causatively to frighten BDB: fear Usage: affright, be (make) afraid, dread(-ful), (put in) fear(-ful, -fully, -ing), (be had in) reverence(-end), × see, terrible (act, -ness, thing).
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 5 selected witnesses from 329 lexical occurrence verses.
יָרֵא is a primitive root - no further derivation.
The enemy’s strategy centers on inducing fear; faithful obedience redirects fear toward reverence for God. Isaiah 37:1-7
It highlights the global recognition of the Lord’s majesty and authority. Isaiah 50:10-11
The Lord commands freedom from fear grounded in his promise. Isaiah 8:9-15
Defines covenant loyalty rooted in reverent trust. Micah 7:14-17
Reverent fear of God displaces panic and grounds faithful obedience. Nehemiah 6:1-14
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
יָרֵא is the OT's word that gives God His proper weight in the life of the person who knows Him. The contemporary tendency is to make God primarily safe, comfortable, and non-threatening — to domesticate Him into a companion who is mostly affirming and rarely demanding. The OT's yir'at YHWH is the correction: this God is holy, He is the Creator of all things, He holds all existence in being, and the appropriate first response to encountering Him is the trembling of one who has perceived something infinitely greater than themselves.
Moses takes off his sandals at the burning bush; Isaiah cries 'woe is me, I am undone'; Job puts his hand over his mouth when God speaks from the whirlwind. This is yir'ah. The wisdom tradition then gives yir'ah its practical content: this trembling before the holy God is not paralysis but foundation — it is the starting point for wisdom, the ground of obedience, the source of the instruction that leads to life.
Proverbs 1:7's claim is not that you should be afraid of God in a way that makes you cower; it is that orienting yourself rightly toward God — knowing who you are before Him — is the only starting point from which everything else can be understood. The NT does not abolish yir'ah; it deepens and expands it. The 'fear of the Lord' appears in Acts 9:31, 2 Corinthians 7:1, and Ephesians 5:21 as a characteristic of the NT community.
Forgiveness, far from eliminating awe, deepens it: Psalm 130:4 says that God's forgiveness is what makes Him worthy to be feared.
Prov.1.7
יָרֵא is a stative verb in Hebrew — it describes a state of being (being in fear) rather than an action taken. The related noun yir'ah (fear, reverence) and the noun yir'at YHWH (fear of the Lord) are central to the wisdom tradition. The participle yere (one who fears) appears in yere YHWH (those who fear the Lord) — the OT's descriptor for the covenant-faithful community (Ps 22:23; 25:14; 31:19; 103:11-13, 17; 147:11).
The Niphal form nora (to be feared, awesome) is used for God in the Psalms: 'terrible (nora) are you, O God, from your sanctuary' (Ps 68:35). The English translation challenge is real: 'fear' in modern English has nearly lost its awe-dimension and reduced to terror-avoidance. The Hebrew yare holds together what the English has separated: the trembling of genuine awe in the presence of holiness and the reverence of devoted relationship.
Both are always present in yir'at YHWH.
The fear of the Lord in the NT is not abolished but deepened and Christologically focused. Matthew 10:28 — 'fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell' — preserves the NT's own demand for proper yir'ah toward God. Acts 9:31 describes the early church 'walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.' Second Corinthians 7:1 calls believers to 'cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.'
Ephesians 5:21 calls the community to submit to one another 'out of reverence for Christ.' The NT's yir'ah is Christologically specified: it is the awe of those who have seen God in Christ, who was the one on whom Isaiah 11:2's Spirit of the fear of the Lord fully rested. Paul's 'work out your salvation with fear and trembling' (Php 2:12) is the NT's direct appropriation of the OT's yir'at YHWH — the trembling posture of those who are working with what God Himself has worked in them (Php 2:13).
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