Deuteronomy 8:6:“Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord they  God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.”

I John 4:18: “There is no fear in love; but completed love casteth out fear: Because fear hath torment.  He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

I believe I should note something before starting this study that many Christians do not realize and that is that Hebrew grammar was not really turned into a science until the Masoretes added vowel pointings to the twenty two letters of the Hebrew Alphabet in the seventh century AD.  The first Hebrew grammar books were not written until just a few hundred years ago. Until that time you only had four letters in the Hebrew Alphabet that work interchangeably as consonants and vowels. Grammar was sort of a side note to consider.  In other words sometime in the Middle Ages Christians scholars turned  the study of the Hebrew Bible, a beautiful document of poetry,  into a scientific journal.  By poetry I mean reading a document and using your heart and not a scientific formula  to understand what it means.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not about to throw my KJV or ESV out the window.  I  mean  I use my English Bible as much as the next person and every day God speaks to me through it.  Also, I have practically memorized my Hebrew grammar book which has been a constant companion for  35 years. Hebrew grammar is built upon almost 3,000 years of oral tradition.

So I find great value in the use of Hebrew grammar and with that said I would like reference it in this passage.  Deuteronomy 8:6 promises many blessings if we do three things:  we keep God’s commandments,(I understand that), walk in His ways (I understand that), and fear Him (that I do not understand).   I mean I understand what it is to fear.  When we had our snow storm last week and I had to rev up my disability bus to take the disabled to their medical  appointments, I felt fear as I considered moving wheel chairs through a foot of snow.  They don’t put snow tires on those things.  When we use the English word fear we think of a distressing emotion aroused by impeding danger (Webster).   Now that definition fits well with I John 4:18:  A completed love with  God, that is a love where He loves us and we love Him in return, should not produce a distressing emotion.  But if this completed  love of God cast out all fear, why are we commanded to fear God.  Sounds contradictory to me and it is.

The word used in the Hebrew for fear as in fearing God in Deuteronomy 8:6 is leyire’ah.  Now the original manuscripts had no vowels and so the word is really spelled Lamed, Yod Resh and Hei.  The Lamed I can understand, that is old ancient grammar and it is obviously the preposition to, but what the blazes is the Hei  doing at the end.   The Masoretes did the most obvious thing, they stuck a Qammets under the Aleph and turned it into an infinitive construct.   Now an infinitive construct is used after a preposition, in this case the Lamed, and is inflected  with a pronominal suffix which is the Qammets Hei  to indicate that it is the subject or object.    The object being  the feminine pronoun her which is not at all compatible with the final pronoun used in this passage which is the masculine pronoun him.  What was Johannes Reuchlin who published the first Hebrew grammar in the 16^th century thinking?  What were Davidson, and Brown Driver Briggs thinking to attach the English word fear to this?

The answer to that and this mysterious Hei would be the bases for a doctrinal dissertation which would involve discussions with esoteric rabbis in orthodox communities in this country, Europe and Israel.  It would involve time spent at the Vatican to review the Ugaritic and other Semitic documents from which the ancient Hebrew has its roots.  I suspect that after all that research one will find that in the twenty first century it is a grave error to attach the English word fear to this Hebrew word which comes from a Semitic root word yara’.    It appears that modern translators tend to follow in lock step with tradition and insert the word fear for yara’  paying little attention to the fact that this English word fear has gone through some changes in the last 500 years. Any student of Shakespeare will tell you that  the old English use of the word for fear  was more commonly used to express the idea of respect more than a distressing emotion due to an impending danger.  Our lexicons are over one hundred years old and tend to be a bit outdated and still use the old English concept of fear.

The word yara’ which we flippantly just render as fear as in fearing for the safety of one’s own gizzard actually had a much different meaning in the Ancient Semitic culture and when a person living 2,000 years ago heard the word fear they heard something that our twenty first century Western cultured mind did not hear.   The  word is spelled with a Yod which represents  one who will do justly, love kindness and walk humbly before God. The next letter is the Resh  which shows an adherent  to the core values or commands of God and the final Aleph as one who seeks a unity and oneness with God, who yolks himself to God.  As to why that mysterious Hei was added in Deuteronomy 8:4 I suspect it was there to represent the  broken letter which is a symbol of the  breath of God, the life giving element of God, the letter by which He created the World.  I personally see a Messianic  symbol of Jesus Christ and to fear or yara’h God is to accept the sacrifice of His Son, the ultimate symbol of His love.  Yara‘ (fear) has nothing to do with dread, or a distressing emotion that originates from concern for one’s own welfare.  It has everything to do with what is  just and kind in God’s eyes, to walk humbly before Him, keep His commandments and seek unity and oneness with Him.  Ultimately, the Semitic root of the word yara’  can be summed up with the word respect.  So are we wrong to translate the word as fear?  Of course not.  I respect my disabled clients whom I would be moving in a wheel chair from their home to my bus in a foot of snow.  I do suffer fear, not for my safety, I am in no danger, I am big and strong and can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  But I am terrified that I may injury my fragile client.   You see in its Semitic origins the word yara does not mean a fear for one’s own gizzard, but a fear for the welfare of another.  The fear I feel with my clients is yara’.  They are my responsibility and I fear for their wellbeing while in my care.

So too is it to yara’ or fear God.  When He chooses to love us He has given us his heart.  Just like when a woman gives a man her heart or a man gives a woman his heart, that person who has accepted the heart of their beloved has a tremendous responsibility.  One little slip, one miss chosen word can wound that heart. One thoughtless act can break that heart.  If a man truly loves his wife and has accepted the gift of her heart, he will live in constant fear of wounding or breaking that heart.  For in a true love relationship, if he breaks her heart, he will break his own.  When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, He gives us His heart. His heart is just as vulnerable as ours, we were made in His image, and our hearts are just as tender as His.  He places in our hands the greatest gift of all, His heart.  We are given a great responsibility for just one little slight can wound or break His heart. If we truly love Him we will respect His heart. We will fear yara’ wounding or breaking His heart. That is what a first century person understood what it meant to fear God,  not to be afraid or terrified of what God will too to them if they sin, but what they will do to the heart of God is if they sin.