This verb can describe fear or dread, and a passage may also use its range for reverent trembling. Job 3:25 names what Job feared as the disaster that has overtaken him, expressing anguish in his opening lament.
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Full entry for פָּחַד (H6342) · Open the biblical lexicon
This verb can describe fear or dread, and a passage may also use its range for reverent trembling. Job 3:25 names what Job feared as the disaster that has overtaken him, expressing anguish in his opening lament.
The BSB source-word alignment has 25 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include be afraid (2), overwhelmed (2), and you will be afraid (1), are afraid (1), be brought to terror (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Deuteronomy 28:66. Its strongest book concentrations include Isaiah (8), Psalms (5), Jeremiah (3), Job (3).
This verb can describe fear or dread, and a passage may also use its range for reverent trembling. Job 3:25 names what Job feared as the disaster that has overtaken him, expressing anguish in his opening lament. Isaiah 12:2 confesses trust in God as salvation and the consequent refusal to be afraid within a song of received comfort. Proverbs 28:14 commends continuing reverence in contrast to a hardened heart.
The verb therefore cannot make every experience of fear morally identical. Its object, cause and literary setting matter. Job's statement does not say that his fearful thoughts caused his losses, and the proverb does not command constant panic. Trust can answer dread, while reverence remains responsive to God. Teaching should distinguish those movements and avoid judging a frightened reader's standing with God from an emotion alone.
Job voices dread after disaster, Isaiah sings trust in salvation and Proverbs commends reverence against hardness. The three witnesses require different evaluations rather than a universal verdict on fear.
For the thing I feared has overtaken me, and what I dreaded has befallen me.
Job says that what he feared has arrived within a lament of lost rest; he does not supply a causal law that fearing an event makes it happen.
Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. For the Lord God is my strength and my song, and He also has become my salvation.”
Trust and freedom from fear belong to praise of God as salvation after the statement that His anger has turned away and comfort has come.
Blessed is the man who is always reverent, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble.
The proverb contrasts ongoing reverence with hardness of heart after a saying about confession, so the commendation concerns responsiveness rather than uninterrupted panic.
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.
Hebrew word. Fear rooted in sudden alarm or startlement; emphasis on reactive dread rather than reasoned caution.
Fear rooted in sudden alarm or startlement; emphasis on reactive dread rather than reasoned caution.
to be startled (by a sudden alarm); hence, to fear in general BDB: dread Usage: be afraid, stand in awe, (be in) fear, make to shake.
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 1 selected witness from 25 lexical occurrence verses.
פָּחַד is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Reverent awe characterizes restored relationship.Hosea 3:1-5
Job 3:25 is sometimes treated as though Job announced a mechanism by which fear produces the feared event. In its setting, he is lamenting the calamity that has overtaken him and the absence of rest. A report that dread has met disaster is not an explanation that his thoughts caused it. Isaiah 12 offers a different voice, praising God as salvation after anger has turned away and comfort has been received.
Proverbs 28:14 commends reverence against hardness, placing responsive awareness beside the preceding call to confess and renounce sin. Teachers should neither shame distress nor empty trust of its object. The passages call readers to God with honesty and responsiveness, while rejecting a formula that treats their emotional strength as control over future events.
Job.3.25
Fear language takes its force from the object and discourse. A lament's dreaded calamity differs from wisdom's commended reverence, and positive trembling with joy cannot be flattened into identical emotional states.
Job's lament, Isaiah's praise and Proverbs' reverence show why the setting of fear matters. Mark 4:40-41 moves from Jesus' question about fear to the disciples' awe at His authority. This is a thematic contrast, not a claim that one Hebrew verb translates each Greek expression or that emotion itself determines saving faith.