Genesis 20:11

20:11 Abraham replied, “Because I thought, ¹  ‘Surely no one fears God in this place. They will kill me because of ²  my wife.’

Psalms 36:1

Psalm 36 ³ 

For the music director; written by the Lord’s servant, David; an oracle. ⁴ 

36:1 An evil man is rebellious to the core. ⁵ 

He does not fear God, ⁶ 

Proverbs 8:13

8:13 The fear of the Lord is to hate ⁷  evil;

I hate arrogant pride ⁸  and the evil way

and perverse utterances. ⁹ 

Proverbs 16:6

16:6 Through loyal love and truth ¹⁰  iniquity is appeased; ¹¹ 

through fearing the Lord ¹²  one avoids ¹³  evil. ¹⁴ 

Proverbs 23:17

23:17 Do not let your heart envy ¹⁵  sinners,

but rather be zealous in fearing the Lord ¹⁶  all the time.

Luke 23:40

23:40 But the other rebuked him, saying, ¹⁷  “Don’t ¹⁸  you fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? ¹⁹ 

Revelation 19:5

19:5 Then ²⁰  a voice came from the throne, saying:

“Praise our God

all you his servants,

and all you who fear Him,

both the small and the great!”

[20:11]  ¹ tn Heb “Because I said.”

[20:11]  ² tn Heb “over the matter of.”

[36:1]  ³ sn Psalm 36. Though evil men plan to harm others, the psalmist is confident that the Lord is the just ruler of the earth who gives and sustains all life. He prays for divine blessing and protection and anticipates God’s judgment of the wicked.

[36:1]  ⁴ tn In the Hebrew text the word נאם (“oracle”) appears at the beginning of the next verse (v. 2 in the Hebrew text because the superscription is considered v. 1). The resulting reading, “an oracle of rebellion for the wicked [is] in the midst of my heart” (cf. NIV) apparently means that the psalm, which foresees the downfall of the wicked, is a prophetic oracle about the rebellion of the wicked which emerges from the soul of the psalmist. One could translate, “Here is a poem written as I reflected on the rebellious character of evil men.” Another option, followed in the translation above, is to attach נאם (nÿ’um, “oracle”) with the superscription. For another example of a Davidic poem being labeled an “oracle,” see 2 Sam 23:1.

[36:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “[the] rebellion of an evil man [is] in the midst of my heart.” The translation assumes a reading “in the midst of his heart” (i.e., “to the core”) instead of “in the midst of my heart,” a change which finds support in a a few medieval Hebrew mss, the Hebrew text of Origen’s Hexapla, and the Syriac.

[36:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “there is no dread of God before his eyes.” The phrase “dread of God” refers here to a healthy respect for God which recognizes that he will punish evil behavior.

[8:13]  ⁷ tn The verb שָׂנֵא (sane’) means “to hate.” In this sentence it functions nominally as the predicate. Fearing the Lord is hating evil.

[8:13]  ⁸ tn Since both גֵּאָה (ge’ah, “pride”) and גָּאוֹן (ga’on, “arrogance; pride”) are both from the same verbal root גָּאָה (ga’ah, “to rise up”), they should here be interpreted as one idea, forming a nominal hendiadys: “arrogant pride.”

[8:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “and a mouth of perverse things.” The word “mouth” is a metonymy of cause for what is said; and the noun תַהְפֻּכוֹת (tahpukhot, “perverse things”) means destructive things (the related verb is used for the overthrowing of Sodom).

[16:6]  ¹⁰ sn These two words are often found together to form a nominal hendiadys: “faithful loyal love.” The couplet often characterize the Lord, but here in parallel to the fear of the Lord it refers to the faithfulness of the believer. Such faith and faithfulness bring atonement for sin.

[16:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “is atoned”; KJV “is purged”; NAB “is expiated.” The verb is from I כָּפַר (kafar, “to atone; to expiate; to pacify; to appease”; HALOT 493-94 s.v. I כפר). This root should not be confused with the identically spelled Homonym II כָּפַר (kafar, “to cover over”; HALOT 494 s.v. II *כפר). Atonement in the OT expiated sins, it did not merely cover them over (cf. NLT). C. H. Toy explains the meaning by saying it affirms that the divine anger against sin is turned away and man’s relation to God is as though he had not sinned (Proverbs [ICC], 322). Genuine repentance, demonstrated by loyalty and truthfulness, appeases the anger of God against one’s sin.

[16:6]  ¹² tn Heb “fear of the Lord.” The term יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) functions as an objective genitive: “fearing the Lord.”

[16:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “turns away from”; NASB “keeps away from.”

[16:6]  ¹⁴ sn The Hebrew word translated “evil” (רַע, ra’) can in some contexts mean “calamity” or “disaster,” but here it seems more likely to mean “evil” in the sense of sin. Faithfulness to the Lord brings freedom from sin. The verse uses synonymous parallelism with a variant: One half speaks of atonement for sin because of the life of faith, and the other of avoidance of sin because of the fear of the Lord.

[23:17]  ¹⁵ tn The verb in this line is אַל־יְקַנֵּא (’al-yÿqanne’), the Piel jussive negated. The verb means “to be jealous, to be zealous”; it describes passionate intensity for something. In English, if the object is illegitimate, it is called “envy”; if it is correct, it is called “zeal.” Here the warning is not to envy the sinners. The second colon could use the verb in the positive sense to mean “but rather let your passion burn for the fear of the Lord.”

[23:17]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the fear of the Lord.” This expression features an objective genitive: “fearing the Lord.”

[23:40]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “But answering, the other rebuking him, said.” This is somewhat redundant and has been simplified in the translation.

[23:40]  ¹⁸ tn The particle used here (οὐδέ, oude), which expects a positive reply, makes this a rebuke – “You should fear God and not speak!”

[23:40]  ¹⁹ tn The words “of condemnation” are not in the Greek text, but are implied.

[19:5]  ²⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.