H3373
ירא
yârê'
yaw-ray'
From H3372; fearing; morally reverent: - afraid, fear (-ful).

H3374
יראהyir'âh
yir-aw'
Feminine of H3373; fear (also used as infinitive); morally reverence: - X dreadful, X exceedingly, fear (-fulness).

As has been stated before, DD, reverence is the key to the equation. This is only my opinion, but I think for every pound of reverence and respect there is to be an ounce of fear...or perhaps 2. I think sometimes that though I see the purpose of why YY says what it does about fear and reverence, I think that it overstates that fear cannot exist in the vacuum of love (my words). As we know YHWH gave us human relationships as a dress rehearsal for our relationship with him. I love my father, but when I was young I also feared him...a tiny bit. I revered him, worshipped him, wanted to be just like him. All I wanted to do was spend some time with him...go fishing, play baseball, take walks, take trips to the junkyard...whatever. I wanted to be in his world..see things from his P.O.V. At the same time I feared his justice. My father is not and never was a harsh man. He is and was fair, levelheaded, calm, and lenient to a fault. But I feared his innate authority and justice. I didn't want to displease him moreso because of my reverence, but in the back of my mind was the knowledge that a swat or raised voice could be a distinct possibility. At a certain point I stopped fearing my Mother...but all she had to do to keep me in line was tell me,"I'll tell your father about this when he gets home." I think I remember getting spanked maybe 2 times, but I knew what I was doing was wrong and I knew very well that my Father would be within his rights to discipline me. I think the fear comes from the fact that Yahuweh is Melech (king) ha olam (of the universe). He is not only our Father but our sovereign. In the realm we are in now as mortals the fear of Yahuweh comes from the fact that He is completely righteous and though His mercy outweighs His justice, He still does have and will execute perfect justice...we however are inherrently flawed and completely reliant on His mercy realizing that we are deserving of his justice. Paul/Shaul to paraphrase basically said we are to recieve our grace with trembling not with license. That's the paradox that I find so queer about mainline Christian thought...Fear God....but laugh in His face by mocking his commandments, make His name insignificant, and take his grace for granted....well I guess in that light I would be fearful too...come to think of it. I think another big equation of the fear factor is the fear of saddening, disappointing, and displeasing the One who is our Father...not as much the fear of the One. But understanding all of this YHWH is not a wizard of Oz elohim...like Allah...one who tries to strike terror in his creation and put up a blood curdling display for the sake of worship and indeed fear. The fear of Yahuweh serves a purpose...it's a means to an end...that we would walk uprightly and be blessed in the here and now and the olam haba. You know the old addage..."This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you". I think that YHWH has extreme displeasure in chastising, disciplining, and condemning people...infact I don't think...He says as much.


Eze 18:31 “Cast away from you all the transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Yisra’ĕl?
Eze 18:32 “For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” declares the Master יהוה. “So turn back and live!”

But that doesn't mean He won't however....as we have seen from the record of the scriptures.

A healthy level of...wary respect is beneficial...but should that be the overriding factor in our relationship with YHWH?

YHWH Imakhem

Shalom

P.S. As it relates to Pro 1:7-Pro 1:7 The fear(Yir'ah) of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge.

Those who despise YHWH, make Him insignificant or inconsequential...may think that have knowledge...but they are foolish and vain. These are the children who stick out their tongues and despise their parents...even when their parents are trying to give them discipline out of love...They feel completely justified in their actions and are so brimming with self righteousness that they are for all intensive purposes lost.

Those who take YHWH seriously, know His Word to be truth, revere Him, have a healthy level of respect for his power and his righteousness...and most of all love him...have opened the door to true knowledge.

Yirah as a whole for that reason seems to me that in our laymans terms...to take seriously...would be a good way to describe it.

Hello DD,

Yir'ah is a good thing! So is reverence! Both can keep you alive! I am glad that you found Yahweh through Yada and KP, just as I have via their writings. But I was drawn to it because of reverence of Truth, and fear of losing self. If I did not fear destruction, I would be a few coins short of a dollar in my noggin! I feared that the Creator will pass me over instead of hovering over me. I feared that His wrath upon the world may spill over into my lap. But reverence brought me closer to Him. I sought Him because I knew that He is Truth, and is an Elohim of Mercy and Compassion and does not want to destroy those whom He loves and who love Him. I learnt from young that He is Love, and He loves us in spite of what we are. So I began to love Him and revere Him and started seeking His Wisdom and understanding so that I may find peace within. And it was with this reverence of Him that I began to understand the things that are of Him. Hence my signature line. For some, Yir'ah is all there is in knowing Him, but that is just the first step leading to understanding Yahweh.

Shalom Aleichem

Bitnet, that was a great analysis of what it is to "fear" in the presence of Yahweh. It's not that we're afraid of Him (in so many words), it's that we're afraid of what can happen to us and to the world we have to live in if we or those near to us don't treat Him with due reverence. I think David was truly terrified when he prayed, "Take not your Holy Spirit from me." He'd see that very thing happen to Saul, and it wasn't a pretty sight.

It occurred to me that we might get a valuable lesson about yireh from studying 19th century mining techniques. Before the invention of dynamite, the best explosive one could use was nitro glycerine. (It was Nobel's dynamite that made nitro safe.) A miner tasked with extracting ore from a mountainside "loved" nitro glycerine, but he also "feared" it. It was extremely useful, but one had to handle it with respect---if he didn't, it could blow up at the most inopportune moments. Now if we can learn to handle a dumb chemical with respect while valuing it for the positive things it can do for us, why can't we find the same kind of balance with Yahweh? It is He who gives us the capacity to "move mountains" in our spiritual experience. But just because He seeks a warm, close relationship with us, we should not treat Him with flippant disregard or undue familiarity. Anybody remember the fifth commandment? People who treats Yahweh like a jackass treats a case of nitro glycerine are apt to discover that He, like the explosive, reserves the right to kick back.

kp

Hi Bitnet,

The line you say is factual reads:""Yir'ah means fear, and that's all it means ", therefore why would anyone translate Yirah as "reverence" as you do in your signature line?



I don't see how it matters what it means to me or you. What's the definition of the word?

"Under the fear definition we find: "be afraid, be frightened, be in a state of great distress, be concerned over the infliction of pain or a dire circumstance, be intimidated."

"Under the revere definition we find: "reverence, vererate, show profound respect for someone, honor someone with status and authority, revere one's parents."


Night and day. I don't buy it for a second that they mean the same-sorry. Infact, they are opposites.



I don't buy that either. Seeing Dad swing the axe is cool. You may have respect and reverance for him for doing that, but you only have "fear" when there is an element of unstability in him whereas he may do something to you with or w/o the axe. Yahuweh isn't unstable,unjust, or unfair. He will never "lose it" -thus I have zero fear of God.

I didn't even think of that, Swalchy. Chances are pretty good that you are right.

Bitnet, if what I quoted above about יראה being translated yireh instead of yirah and it means "to see", then your signiture line could be, "Seeing Yahuweh is the beginning of Wisdom." And would that not be the truth? If you don't see him, or are not aware of his existence, then you can neither revere or fear him.

That's the foremost thing to keep in mind, that the Maoretic vowel pointings can not always be trusted. Remember that there were no vowels in the originals. So, when we look at a word, we need to look at all the different vowel combinations with those letters. Yada has shown this many times in YY, if I remember correctly.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I just ran across (again) a passage in which yare (the verb form related to the noun Yir'ah) really does mean "be afraid." It's in a Millennial passage from Isaiah: "All your children shall be taught by Yahweh, and great shall be the peace of your children. In righteousness you [Israel] shall be established; You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear (yare); And from terror, for it shall not come near you." (Isaiah 54:14) Bottom line: We've gotta pay attention to the context, and use the brains God gave us.

kp