Fear of God beginning of knowledge

The fear of the Lord has a familiar, weakened sense, in which it means little more than piety (e.g. Job 28:28; Prov. 9:10); the context forbids this weakened sense here. So far as we are to be judged by our deeds we may well be afraid of what is to come. It is in this fear that we persuade (conative, perhaps: we try to persuade) men. Compare Gal. 1:10, {Barrett, C. K. (1973). The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (p. 163). Continuum.}

If someone or something has ever “put the fear of God in you,” it likely wasn’t a positive experience. And you’d be happy if it never happened again. That cultural idiom is resoundingly negative.

But the Bible calls “the fear of the Lord” the “beginning of wisdom”—making this fear an incredibly positive, even necessary thing. What is “the fear of God” or “the fear of the Lord,” and why would we want it?

The “fear of the Lord” most often refers to a virtue that results in humble, loving obedience to God because of who he is. It can also describe a literal fear of God because of who he is.

The theme of fearing Jehovah God provides the theological framework for the book of Proverbs. The book’s stated purpose is to impart wisdom (Prov 1:2–6), but this cannot be done without the fear of the Lord (1:7). “The fear of Jehovah” is said to be “the beginning of knowledge,” while, by contrast “fools despise wisdom and instruction” (1:7; cf. 9:10; 15:33; 23:17). Thirty-one chapters later, the book concludes by praising “a woman of excellence” (31:10–31) whose culminating characteristic is that she “fears Jehovah” (31:30).

Fear should not always be considered in a bad way, as being frightened for someone. Those who fear God trust him instead of their own wisdom (Prov 3:5–8). This relates to the acknowledgment that God is the Most Highest placed and is the Maker and Owner of everything around us. When thinking of God we must recognise Him as the Highest Who clearly knows more than we do. What is more, he can be trusted.

Those who fear Jehovah God hate evil and turn from it (Prov 3:7; 8:13; 14:2; 16:6). Job also sets the fear of the Lord alongside turning aside from evil (Job 28:28), while Psalms aligns it with obedience to God’s commandments (Ps 111:10; cf. Deut 10:12)

For Proverbs, the “fear of the Lord” is the humble recognition of who God is and the appropriate human response to him. It is being always aware of one’s “absolute dependence for existence on the undeserved mercy of Jehovah.”^{{Gerald H. Wilson, “Wisdom,” in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis, ed. Willem A. VanGemeren (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1997), 4:1283.}}

Proverbs also says what comes of fearing the Lord. One result is a long, secure, and happy life. Many passages promise this:

The fear of the Lord prolongs life,
but the years of the wicked will be short. (Prov 10:27 ESV)

Proverbs 14:26–27, 15:16, 19:23, 22:4, and 29:25 pick up the same theme.

The fear of the Lord is both the foundation of wisdom and the goal of pursuing it (Prov 2:5–6). As Michael V. Fox puts it,

“Intellectual growth leads to a divine grant of wisdom and to a higher form of reverence and knowledge of God.” ^{{Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1–9: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 18a (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 308.}}

Tremper Longman further explains the “fear of the Lord” in the book of Proverbs in this video in his excellent video course, “Preaching Proverbs.”

Fearing the Lord, in other words, is the chronological starting point for acquiring wisdom.

Fox explains this perspective:

The starting point of education is an awareness of God’s presence and a concern for what is right and wrong, even prior to absorbing the particulars of religion and ethics.^{{Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 308}}

“The beginning of wisdom” could mean “first in importance.”

The fear of God, in this view, is the most important requirement for wisdom. Its foundational significance exceeds that of intellect or ingenuity. The NET Bible reflects this understanding in its translation of Psalm 111:10:

To obey the Lord is the fundamental principle for wise living; all who carry out his precepts acquire good moral insight.

It seems most likely that Proverbs has both these senses in view when it claims that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. As Ryan O’Dowd says,

The fear of the Lord begins our path to wisdom and sets the conditions for the journey as a whole.”^{{Ryan P. O’Dowd, Proverbs, Story of God Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 58}}

Bruce Waltke puts it another way in his commentary on Proverbs:

What the alphabet is to reading, notes to reading music, and numerals to mathematics, the fear of the Lord is to attaining the revealed knowledge of [Proverbs].^{{Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1–15, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 181.}}

Without the right view of God — that is, as the transcendent creator — we will set out on the wrong path to wisdom. We may learn much about the world and how to live in it, but without knowledge of

“the most basic and important thing about the universe,”^{{Tremper Longman III, “Fear of the Lord,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings, ed. Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 202}}

we can never be wise as the Bible defines it. Rather, we are fools (cf. Pss 14:1; 53:1).

But if we begin with the recognition of his sovereignty, we have the framework to understand his goodness and grace. As we choose to obey him out of love, we demonstrate “fear of the Lord” (cf. Deut 10:12).

Text based on an article by Wendy Widder