What Is the Fear of the Lord?
A Commentary on Proverbs 1:7 (KJV)
If you want to acquire knowledge and grow in wisdom, your quest must begin with the “fear of the Lord.” But what does that mean? Must we be terrified of God in order to have knowledge or wisdom?
Today’s verse in focus is Proverbs 1:7, which reads as follows:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7, KJV)
The Hebrew word for “fear” is יִרְאָה (yir’ah), which can be translated as “fear,” “awe,” or “reverence.” And most scholars agree that, in the context of Proverbs 1:7, it should be understood as a healthy fall-on-your-face-in-awe fear as opposed to a running-and-hiding-in-terror fear.
In other words, we’re not talking about the kind of fear in a Stephen King horror movie, but rather what Joshua experienced when confronted by a divine figure with a sword outside of Jericho:
And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host…
