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The fear in question many exegetes recognize as awe, reverence, respect—a range of meanings that qualify apprehensiveness, even intimidation and dread. Actually, the fear of the Lord in its various historical presentations evokes accountability. The burden of proof?

In one setting, positive, this accountability completes thematically a piece of original wisdom literature. Eccle 12:13–14,

The end of the matter; all has been heard.

Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.

For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing,

whether good or evil.

This mandate to fear God revokes all legitimacy to and excuse for the dark compulsions of covetousness sought out, tested, and found wanting throughout Ecclesiastes. The Author and the author forcefully reveal that even for the source of sinning the LORD God requires accounting. This forms the fear of the Lord’s burden.

In another setting, negative, for this accountability 2 Kgs 17:34 serves appropriately to engage the covenant community at the approaching condemnation in yir’ath Yahweh,

To this day they do according to the former manner.

They do not fear the LORD, and they do not follow

the statutes or the rules or the law or the command-

ment that the LORD commanded the children of Ja-

cob, whom he named Israel.

Remembering the religiosity of the Ten Tribes, the people held in Assyrian captivity, the LORD God warned Judah of impending grief, the Babylonian captivity. Through this fear, or the refusal thereto, the Savior God shaped history, not only of the covenant community, also of the Eastern Mediterranean world, the turbulent theatre of 1–2 Kings.

In a third setting, also negative, and laden with prophetic tensions, the LORD formed the transition of the Church from the past through the present into the future for the formulation of the New Testament history. Mal 3:5,

Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will

be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the

adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against

those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the

widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust

aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD

of hosts.

Out of the hostilities of covetousness, which stokes up the sinning condemned, the Savior withdrew the faithful, Mal 3:16–18, to generate the greater hope in the Incarnation.

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Earlier, Jacob fleeing revengeful Laban named the LORD the Fear of Isaac, Gen 31:42, 53, thereby to alarm his father-in-law against any trespass of the boundary into Canaan; he too, though an outsider to the covenant history and community the LORD God held responsible for anti-covenantal works.

Scripturally, the fear of the Lord stands forth as a technical term, a linguistic unit, consistent in meaning. Deut 6:2, 13, 10:20, 28:58; Job 28:28; Ps 111:10; Prov 1:7; Isa 11:2; etc. Beginning in the Church and weighing even vast accumulations of hidden sins, in the fear of Lord the Savior God holds all accountable.

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In the New Testament the phobos theos translated into godly fear, Acts 10:2; Rom 3:18; 2 Cor 5:11; Heb 5:7; etc. In the Hebrews passage reverence weakens the original.

All children are responsible to parents.

All employees are responsible to employers.

All church members are responsible to office bearers.

All slaves are accountable to respective masters, Tit 2:9.

In the more profound sense, of grace, all in Christ he holds accountable to accomplish the works of faith, or the unaccomplished works of faith, the broken commandments. Thereto Christians are slaves, Rom 6:15–9, slaves of righteousness, to do all and only what is right in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thereto, he bought his, 1 Cor 6:20, with blood. All in Christ are his so much that they find the purpose of life only in him, through accountability. The Lord’s earnestness in this accountability holds at the center of heart, soul, mind, and strength.

2015