What is the fear of the Lord?

Short answer

The fear of the Lord is reverent awe before God that leads to trust and obedience. It is not terror of a harsh master but the right response of creatures to a holy and loving Creator, and Scripture calls it the beginning of wisdom.

“Fear” sounds like an odd word to attach to a loving God. Yet the phrase “the fear of the Lord” runs through the whole Bible, and it does not mean what we first imagine. It describes a person who takes God seriously: who is amazed by who He is, trusts Him and wants to please Him.

Awe, not terror

The book of Proverbs opens its teaching with this thought.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Prov 1:7 · King James Version (1769)

The New Geneva Study Bible explains that this is not blind dread but reverent trembling before God, listening with respect to what He has revealed. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown describe it as reverent trust, love and obedience, and add that anyone who fears God will fear to sin, because he does not want to displease Him.

Albert Barnes pictures the fear of the finite before the Infinite, of the sinful before the Holy. He adds that this fear has no torment in it and fits together with a child’s love for a father. John Gill makes the same distinction: he calls it a filial fear rather than a slavish dread of punishment, a fear that grows out of knowing God’s forgiving love (Psalm 130:4).

So the fear of the Lord is not the opposite of trusting Him. Frightened people run away from what they fear; people who fear the Lord run toward Him. The same Bible that calls us to fear God also says that His mercy reaches those who fear Him (Psalm 103:11).

The beginning of wisdom

Three passages say almost the same thing, and the repetition is deliberate.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
Prov 9:10 · King James Version (1769)

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth forever.
Ps 111:10 · King James Version (1769)

Matthew Henry reads the proverb to mean that a person who does not fear God has not yet learned the first lesson; whatever else he knows, he is only at the starting line. John MacArthur explains that this reverence is the basis of all spiritual knowledge, and that a person cannot have true understanding of life until he is forgiven and honors God. John Wesley, on the psalm, calls it the only foundation of true wisdom.

The psalm goes on to say that those who do God’s commandments have good understanding. Lopukhin notes that true knowledge of God is not in the one who merely believes in Him in theory, but in the one who lives by His commandments. Fear, in other words, is not a mood. It shows itself in how we live.

The whole duty of man

Ecclesiastes spends twelve chapters looking at life “under the sun” with its pleasure, toil and uncertainty. Then it ends with a conclusion.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

Eccl 12:13 · King James Version (1769)

Henry calls this the sum of religion: to fear God and keep His commandments, with the fear in the heart as the root and the commandments as the rule. He adds that it matters because God will bring every deed into judgment (Ecclesiastes 12:14). Lopukhin observes that faith in God’s reckoning saves a person from both gloomy despair and shallow pleasure-seeking.

Christians should read this carefully. William MacDonald points out that the fear of God in Ecclesiastes is not the same as saving faith, and that believers can be thankful the Savior has freed them from a servile fear of judgment. He points to John’s words that perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Believers do not obey out of dread but out of love, and still stand in awe of the God they love.

What it means for us today

To fear the Lord is to remember who God is and who we are. It means taking Him at His word, hating what He hates (Proverbs 8:13) and refusing to treat His grace lightly. It also frees us, because a person who rightly fears God has no need to fear anyone else.

You can grow in it by reading Scripture to know God as He really is, by praying with both honesty and reverence, and by obeying Him in small things. If God seems only distant or only harsh, look at Jesus: in Him, the awe and the love of God meet.