Fear (also used as infinitive); morally, reverence
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יִרְאָה (yirah) is the Hebrew noun for fear, reverence, and awe — the entire register of the creaturely response to the living God. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 42 H3374 uses, while the wider fear/reverence root family appears across many contexts, from the terror of standing before divine holiness to the quiet, daily orientation of the heart toward YHWH as sovereign and judge.
Reader summary
Full entry for יִרְאָה (H3374) · Open the biblical lexicon
יִרְאָה (yirah) is the Hebrew noun for fear, reverence, and awe — the entire register of the creaturely response to the living God. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 42 H3374 uses, while the wider fear/reverence root family appears across many contexts, from the terror of standing before divine holiness to the quiet, daily orientation of the.
The BSB source-word alignment has 45 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include the fear (12), in the fear (5), fear (3), . . . (2), and fear (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 20:11. Its strongest book concentrations include Proverbs (14), Psalms (8), Isaiah (6), Job (5).
יִרְאָה (yirah) is the Hebrew noun for fear, reverence, and awe — the entire register of the creaturely response to the living God. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 42 H3374 uses, while the wider fear/reverence root family appears across many contexts, from the terror of standing before divine holiness to the quiet, daily orientation of the heart toward YHWH as sovereign and judge. The word is not primarily about emotional dread but about the moral and relational posture of a person who recognizes who God actually is. The OT's fundamental claim about yirah is stated three times: 'The fear of YHWH is the beginning (reshit) of wisdom' — Proverbs 1:7, 9:10, and Job 28:28. Yirah is not the enemy of wisdom; it is wisdom's starting point.
Proverbs 1:7 gives yirah its foundational epistemological statement: 'The fear of YHWH (yirat YHWH) is the beginning (reshit) of wisdom; fools despise wisdom and instruction.' The reshit (H7225, beginning, first principle) is not merely a chronological starting point but the foundational principle on which wisdom rests. Without yirat YHWH, what presents itself as wisdom is actually fool's knowledge — confident but wrong about the most important things. The fear of YHWH realigns the knower with reality by placing YHWH at the center of the world.
Deuteronomy 10:12-13 gives yirah its covenantal definition: 'And now, Israel, what does YHWH your God require of you but to fear YHWH your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of YHWH, which I am commanding you today for your good?' The yirah of Deuteronomy is not isolated emotional trembling but the motivational root of the entire covenantal life — fear, walk, love, serve, keep. The yirat YHWH produces the walk.
Isaiah 11:2-3 places yirah at the center of the messianic endowment: 'the Spirit of YHWH shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of YHWH (yirat YHWH). And his delight shall be in the fear of YHWH.' The Servant's yirah is not reluctant submission but delight — the messianic king delights in the fear of YHWH. This is yirah as the posture of glad, whole-hearted acknowledgment of who YHWH is.
Psalm 34:9 gives yirah its experiential promise: 'Oh, taste and see that YHWH is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear YHWH (yiru et YHWH), you his saints, for those who fear him (yere-av) have no lack!' The yirah that YHWH calls his people to is not an abstract posture but an experiential confidence — those who fear him lack nothing. The yirah-life is the life of sufficiency.
For the preacher, יִרְאָה (yirah) names the fundamental orientation that makes everything else in the covenant life possible.
The local Hebrew index currently counts about 42 H3374 noun uses and about 329 H3372 root-verb uses. The Torah uses yirah for the creaturely terror before divine holiness (Exod 20:20) and the covenantal requirement to fear YHWH (Deut 6:13, 10:12). The Psalms use it for the blessed condition of those who fear YHWH (Ps 25:12, 34:9, 111:10, 128:1). Proverbs builds its entire epistemology on the yirat YHWH as wisdom's foundation (1:7, 9:10).
Job defines wisdom as yirat Adonai (28:28). Isaiah uses it for the messianic delight in yirah (11:3) and the Servant's quiet instruction (50:10). Malachi uses it for the covenant community that spoke of YHWH together — 'those who feared YHWH' (3:16). The word defines the character of the covenant person.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.
The foundational epistemological statement: yirat YHWH is the reshit (beginning/first principle) of wisdom. The contrast with the fool is immediate: the fool despises the wisdom that begins with yirah, which means the fool has rejected the foundation before building anything. All knowledge that does not begin with the fear of YHWH is knowledge constructed on a false base.
The practical application is stark: no amount of intelligence, education, or experience replaces the yirat YHWH as the starting point of genuine wisdom about the world and about life.
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 covenantal summary of yirah: the single question ('what does YHWH require?') answered with the five-fold response — fear, walk, love, serve, keep. Yirah is the first and generative requirement: the fear of YHWH produces the walk, animates the love, energizes the service, and undergirds the keeping of the commandments. The yirah is not an additional requirement alongside the others but their motivational root. Moses's rhetorical 'only this' (raq) emphasizes that the requirement is unified and not burdensome.
Fear the Lord, you His saints, for those who fear Him lack nothing.
The experiential invitation to yirah: 'Oh fear YHWH (yiru et YHWH), you his saints, for those who fear him (yere-av) have no lack.' The fear of YHWH is not a posture of deprivation but of abundance — the yirat YHWH is paired with tasting that YHWH is good, with the blessing of the one who takes refuge, and with the guarantee of no lack. The preacher who presents yirah only as trembling terror has missed Psalm 34's texture: the fear of YHWH is the orientation from which the good life springs.
And He will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what His eyes see, and He will not decide by what His ears hear,
The messianic delight in yirah: the Spirit-endowed king whose delight (reach, H7306, to smell, to delight in) is in the yirat YHWH. The messianic figure does not merely perform yirah as duty but delights in it as the orientation of his whole being. The practical fruit is the quality of judgment that follows: 'he will not judge by the sight of his eyes' — his judgments are not surface-level impressions but penetrating, righteously calibrated by the yirat YHWH.
NT application: Christ embodies the perfect yirat YHWH of Isa 11, the one on whom the Spirit rests (Matt 3:16) and whose judgments are just.
At that time those who feared the Lord spoke with one another, and the Lord listened and heard them. So a scroll of remembrance was written before Him regarding those who feared the Lord and honored His name.
The community of yirah: 'those who feared YHWH' (yirei YHWH) spoke to one another, and YHWH listened and a book of remembrance was written. In the context of Malachi's rebuke of Israel's cynicism and liturgical hypocrisy, the remnant of yirat YHWH distinguishes itself by speaking together — their conversation is the evidence of their yirah. The book of remembrance for yirei YHWH is the OT's anticipation of the Lamb's book of life. The community of yirah is the community YHWH recognizes.
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Hebrew word. Fear of God moves from terror to reverent awe; the foundation of wisdom and obedience in OT theology
Fear of God moves from terror to reverent awe; the foundation of wisdom and obedience in OT theology
fear (also used as infinitive); morally, reverence BDB: fear Usage: × dreadful, × exceedingly, fear(-fulness).
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 8 selected witnesses from 42 lexical occurrence verses.
יִרְאָה is built from this root:
This is the book’s controlling axiom. Without covenant reverence, “wisdom” becomes self-rule, pride, and eventually moral collapse. Isaiah 33:1-12
The refusal described is ultimately refusal of the fear of the Lord. That is why the consequences are not merely practical but spiritual. Nehemiah 5:1-13
The goal of seeking wisdom is relational reverence toward God, not mere mental sharpness. Nehemiah 5:14-19
The fear of the Lord forms the foundation of all wisdom. Nehemiah 7:1-4
Nehemiah appeals to fear of God as the moral anchor for just behavior within the community. Proverbs 1:1-7
Nehemiah’s ethical restraint flows from fear of God, showing that true reform begins with reverent accountability. Proverbs 1:20-33
Fear of God anchors leadership decisions and guards against complacency. Proverbs 2:1-11
Marks the posture that treasures God’s wisdom and salvation. Proverbs 9:7-12
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
יִרְאָה (yirah) is the OT's most comprehensive description of what it means to be properly oriented toward God. It is not merely an emotion (though it includes emotional awe) and not merely an intellectual acknowledgment (though it includes right knowledge) — it is the whole-person posture of recognizing who YHWH is and ordering one's life accordingly. Proverbs 1:7's claim that yirat YHWH is the reshit of wisdom is the foundational challenge to every secular epistemology: wisdom does not begin with unaided reason, empirical observation, or accumulated experience — it begins with the fear of YHWH that places YHWH at the center of the knower's world.
The preacher who teaches yirah must hold together the terror and the tenderness: Exodus 20:20 ('Moses said to the people, Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin') holds both in a single breath — do not be afraid with the fear of terror, but have before you the fear of YHWH that keeps you from sin. The two registers of yirah are not contradictory: the reverential awe that keeps a person rightly calibrated is not the same as the slavish terror that paralyzes.
Isaiah 11:3's messianic delight in yirah gives the congregation the telos: not duty-fear but delight-fear, the fear that is glad to be before a holy and good God. And Psalm 34:9's 'those who fear him have no lack' gives yirah its fruit: not deprivation but sufficiency.
Prov.1.7
יִרְאָה (yirah) is the noun form of the verb יָרֵא (yare, H3372, to fear, to reverence). The word covers the full semantic range from creaturely terror before divine holiness (Exod 19:16, the people trembled at Sinai) to the filial reverence of the covenant community (Ps 103:13, 'as a father shows compassion to his children, so YHWH shows compassion to those who fear him').
The construct phrase yirat YHWH (the fear of YHWH) appears dozens of times and is the OT's most important compound for the covenant posture. The NT equivalent phobos theou (G5401, fear of God) appears in 2 Cor 7:1, Rom 3:18, and 1 Pet 1:17. Hebrews 12:28-29 — 'let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe (deos kai eulabeia), for our God is a consuming fire' — is the NT's most direct heir of the OT's yirah theology at the sanctuary.
First Peter 1:17 ('conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile') is the direct pastoral application of Deut 10:12 to the NT sojourner community.
The NT's yirah-theology runs through Luke 1:50 ('his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation' — quoting OT yirah language), Acts 9:31 ('walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit'), and the repeated calls to fear-of-God in the epistles. Revelation 14:7 — 'Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come' — is the final great-yirah call, the angel's proclamation to the whole earth.
Proverbs 1:7's wisdom-foundation is taken up in 1 Corinthians 1:20-21: the 'wisdom of the world' that does not begin with the fear of God is shown to be foolishness — and 'the foolishness of God' in the cross is wiser than human wisdom. The messianic yirah of Isaiah 11:3 is embodied in Christ, on whom the Spirit rested (Mark 1:10-11), and whose delight was in doing the Father's will (John 4:34).
Hebrews 5:7 applies yirah-language directly to Christ: 'he offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence (eulabeia).' The Son's yirah is the ultimate expression of the messianic delight in fearing the Father.
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