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.’

Genesis 22:12

22:12 “Do not harm the boy!” ³  the angel said. ⁴  “Do not do anything to him, for now I know ⁵  that you fear ⁶  God because you did not withhold your son, your only son, from me.”

Genesis 42:18

42:18 On the third day Joseph said to them, “Do as I say ⁷  and you will live, ⁸  for I fear God. ⁹ 

Psalms 111:10

111:10 To obey the Lord is the fundamental principle for wise living; ¹⁰ 

all who carry out his precepts acquire good moral insight. ¹¹ 

He will receive praise forever. ¹² 

Proverbs 1:7

Introduction to the Theme of the Book

1:7 Fearing the Lord ¹³  is the beginning ¹⁴  of moral knowledge, ¹⁵ 

but ¹⁶  fools ¹⁷  despise ¹⁸  wisdom and instruction. ¹⁹ 

Proverbs 23:17

23:17 Do not let your heart envy ²⁰  sinners,

but rather be zealous in fearing the Lord ²¹  all the time.

Proverbs 24:21

24:21 Fear the Lord, my child, ²²  as well as the king,

and do not associate ²³  with rebels, ²⁴ 

Ecclesiastes 8:2

8:2 Obey the king’s command, ²⁵ 

because you took ²⁶  an oath before God ²⁷  to be loyal to him. ²⁸ 

Matthew 22:21

22:21 They replied, ²⁹  “Caesar’s.” He said to them, ³⁰  “Then give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” ³¹ 

Romans 13:7

13:7 Pay everyone what is owed: taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

Romans 13:2

13:2 So the person who resists such authority ³²  resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will incur judgment

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ³³  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Ephesians 5:21

5:21 and submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. ³⁴ 

[20:11]  ¹ tn Heb “Because I said.”

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

[22:12]  ³ tn Heb “Do not extend your hand toward the boy.”

[22:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “and he said, ‘Do not extend…’”; the referent (the angel) has been specified in the context for clarity. The order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[22:12]  ⁵ sn For now I know. The test was designed to see if Abraham would be obedient (see v. 1).

[22:12]  ⁶ sn In this context fear refers by metonymy to obedience that grows from faith.

[42:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “Do this.”

[42:18]  ⁸ tn After the preceding imperative, the imperative with vav (ו) can, as here, indicate logical sequence.

[42:18]  ⁹ sn For I fear God. Joseph brings God into the picture to awaken his brothers’ consciences. The godly person cares about the welfare of people, whether they live or die. So he will send grain back, but keep one of them in Egypt. This action contrasts with their crime of selling their brother into slavery.

[111:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the beginning of wisdom [is] the fear of the Lord.”

[111:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “good sense [is] to all who do them.” The third masculine plural pronominal suffix must refer back to the “precepts” mentioned in v. 7. In the translation the referent has been specified for clarity. The phrase שֵׂכֶל טוֹב (shekhel tov) also occurs in Prov 3:4; 13:15 and 2 Chr 30:22.

[111:10]  ¹² tn Heb “his praise stands forever.”

[1:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “fear of the Lord.” The expression יְהוָה יִרְאַת (yir’at yÿhvah, “fear of Yahweh”) is a genitive-construct in which יְהוָה (“the Lord”) functions as an objective genitive: He is the object of fear. The term יָרַא (yara’) is the common word for fear in the OT and has a basic three-fold range of meanings: (1) “dread; terror” (Deut 1:29; Jonah 1:10), (2) “to stand in awe” (1 Kgs 3:28), (3) “to revere; to respect” (Lev 19:3). With the Lord as the object, it captures the polar opposites of shrinking back in fear and drawing close in awe and adoration. Both categories of meaning appear in Exod 20:20 (where the Lord descended upon Sinai amidst geophysical convulsions); Moses encouraged the Israelites to not be afraid of God arbitrarily striking them dead for no reason (“Do not fear!”) but informed the people that the Lord revealed himself in such a terrifying manner to scare them from sinning (“God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him in you so that you do not sin”). The fear of the Lord is expressed in reverential submission to his will – the characteristic of true worship. The fear of the Lord is the foundation for wisdom (9:10) and the discipline leading to wisdom (15:33). It is expressed in hatred of evil (8:13) and avoidance of sin (16:6), and so results in prolonged life (10:27; 19:23).

[1:7]  ¹⁴ tn The noun רֵאשִׁית (re’shit) has a two-fold range of meaning (BDB 912 s.v.): (1) “beginning” = first step in a course of action (e.g., Ps 111:10; Prov 17:14; Mic 1:13) or (2) “chief thing” as the principal aspect of something (e.g., Prov 4:7). So fearing the Lord is either (1) the first step in acquiring moral knowledge or (2) the most important aspect of moral knowledge. The first option is preferred because 1:2-6 focuses on the acquisition of wisdom.

[1:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “knowledge.” The noun דָּעַת (da’at, “knowledge”) refers to experiential knowledge, not just cognitive knowledge, including the intellectual assimilation and practical application (BDB 394 s.v.). It is used in parallelism to מוּסָר (musar, “instruction, discipline”) and חָכְמָה (khokhmah, “wisdom, moral skill”).

[1:7]  ¹⁶ tn The conjunction “but” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is implied by the antithetical parallelism. It is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[1:7]  ¹⁷ tn The term אֱוִיל (’evil, “fool”) refers to a person characterized by moral folly (BDB 17 s.v.). Fools lack understanding (10:21), do not store up knowledge (10:14), fail to attain wisdom (24:7), and refuse correction (15:5; 27:22). They are arrogant (26:5), talk loosely (14:3) and are contentious (20:3). They might have mental intelligence but they are morally foolish. In sum, they are stubborn and “thick-brained” (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 6).

[1:7]  ¹⁸ tn The verb of בָּזָה (bazah, “despise”) means to treat things of value with contempt, as if they were worthless (BDB 102 s.v.). The classic example is Esau who despised his birthright and sold it for lentil stew (Gen 25:34). The perfect tense of this verb may be classified as characteristic perfect (what they have done and currently do) or gnomic perfect (what they always do in past, present and future). The latter is preferred; this describes a trait of fools, and elsewhere the book says that fools do not change.

[1:7]  ¹⁹ sn Hebrew word order is emphatic here. Normal word order is: verb + subject + direct object. Here it is: direct object + subject + verb (“wisdom and instruction fools despise”).

[23:17]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ tn Heb “the fear of the Lord.” This expression features an objective genitive: “fearing the Lord.”

[24:21]  ²² tn Heb “my son,” but there is no indication in the immediate context that this should be limited only to male children.

[24:21]  ²³ tn Heb “do not get mixed up with”; cf. TEV “Have nothing to do with”; NIV “do not join with.” The verb עָרַב (’arav) is used elsewhere meaning “to exchange; to take on pledge.” In the Hitpael stem it means “to have fellowship; to share; to associate with.” Some English versions (e.g., KJV) interpret as “to meddle” in this context, because “to have fellowship” is certainly not what is meant.

[24:21]  ²⁴ tn The form rendered “rebellious” is difficult; it appears to be the Qal active participle, plural, from שָׁנָה (shanah), “to change” – “those who change.” The RV might have thought of the idea of “change” when they rendered it “political agitators.” The Syriac and Tg. Prov 24:21 have “fools,” the Latin has “detractors,” and the LXX reads, “do not disobey either of them,” referring to God and the king in the first line. Accordingly the ruin predicted in the next line would be the ruin that God and the king can inflict. If the idea of “changers” is retained, it would have to mean people who at one time feared God and the king but no longer do.

[8:2]  ²⁵ tc The Leningrad Codex (the basis of BHS) reads אֲנִי (’ani, 1st person common singular independent personal pronoun): “I obey the king’s command.” Other medieval Hebrew mss and all the versions (LXX, Vulgate, Targum, Syriac Peshitta) preserve an alternate textual tradition of the definite accusative marker אֶת־ (’et) introducing the direct object: אֶת־פִּי־מֶלֶךְ שְׁמוֹר (’et-pi-melekh shÿmor, “Obey the command of the king”). External evidence supports the alternate textual tradition. The MT is guilty of simple orthographic confusion between similar looking letters. The BHS editors and the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project adopt אֶת־ as the original reading. See D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 3:582–83.

[8:2]  ²⁶ tn The phrase “you took” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for smoothness.

[8:2]  ²⁷ tn The genitive-construct שְׁבוּעַת אֱלֹהִים (shÿvu’at ’elohim, “an oath of God”) functions as a genitive of location (“an oath before God”) or an adjectival genitive of attribute (“a supreme oath”).

[8:2]  ²⁸ tn The words “to be loyal to him” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[22:21]  ²⁹ tn Grk “they said to him.”

[22:21]  ³⁰ tn Grk “then he said to them.” τότε (tote) has not been translated to avoid redundancy.

[22:21]  ³¹ sn Jesus’ answer to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s was a both/and, not the questioners’ either/or. So he slipped out of their trap.

[13:2]  ³² tn Grk “the authority,” referring to the authority just described.

[1:1]  ³³ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[5:21]  ³⁴ sn Eph 5:19-21. In Eph 5:18 the author gives the command to be filled by means of the Holy Spirit. In 5:19-21 there follows five participles: (1) speaking; (2) singing; (3) making music; (4) giving thanks; (5) submitting. These participles have been variously interpreted, but perhaps the two most likely interpretations are (1) the participles indicate the means by which one is filled by the Spirit; (2) the participles indicate the result of being filled by the Spirit. The fact that the participles are present tense and follow the command (i.e., “be filled”) would tend to support both of these options. But it seems out of Paul’s character to reduce the filling of the Spirit to a formula of some kind. To the extent that this is true, it is unlikely then that the author is here stating the means for being filled by the Spirit. Because it is in keeping with Pauline theology and has good grammatical support, it is better to take the participles as indicating certain results of being filled by the Spirit. See ExSyn 639.