Modern ears hear the phrase badly. Fear of the Lord sounds like cowering, like a God who must be placated. But the Scriptures use the phrase for the settled, clear-eyed condition of the wise, and they attach to it every good thing: wisdom, understanding, long life, confidence, even joy. Whatever it means, it is plainly not the state of being frightened.
Initium sapientiæ timor Domini.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Psalm 110 (111) · 10
Two kinds of fear
The tradition distinguishes carefully. Servile fear is the fear of punishment — the fear of a slave who behaves because of consequences. It is not nothing; Scripture allows that it can start a person moving. But it is not where anyone is meant to stay.
Filial fear is the fear of a son — not that he will be struck, but that he will wound someone he loves. It is closer to what we mean when we say we would not dream of letting someone down. This fear does not decrease as love grows. It deepens, because the more you love someone the more it matters not to grieve them.
That is why St John can say that perfect love casts out fear, and Scripture can still call the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom, without contradiction. What love casts out is the cringing. What love increases is the reverence.
Timor non est in caritate: sed perfecta caritas foras mittit timorem, quoniam timor pœnam habet.
Fear is not in charity: but perfect charity casteth out fear, because fear hath pain.
1 John 4 · 18
Why it is the beginning of wisdom
Wisdom begins with proportion — with seeing what is actually large and what is actually small. A person who has grasped what God is, and what he himself is, has got the first measurement right, and every later judgment is taken from it. A person who has not will spend a life mistaking small things for enormous ones.
This is why the fear of the Lord makes people less anxious rather than more. Once the greatest power in existence is known to be good and to be for you, the smaller powers lose their grip. The Psalms make the connection often: the one who fears the Lord is precisely the one who is not afraid of anything else.
Beatus vir qui timet Dominum… in mandatis ejus volet nimis.
Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord: he shall delight exceedingly in his commandments.
Psalm 111 (112) · 1
A gift, not an achievement
The Church numbers the fear of the Lord among the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, listed by Isaiah — wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and the fear of the Lord. It is not a mood a person works up. It is given, and it grows with the life of grace.
What it looks like
It looks like the reaction of everyone in Scripture who actually encountered God. Moses hides his face. Isaiah cries, Woe is me. Job puts his hand over his mouth. Peter, in the boat, asks the Lord to depart from him. And Peter is answered at once: Fear not (Luke 5:10) — the word Scripture gives again and again to those who meet God or his messengers. That is the pattern. The awe is right; the terror is answered.
Which is precisely the movement walked through in the meditation on His greatness — from the whirlwind to the whistling of a gentle air.
Last reviewed for accuracy on , against the Douay-Rheims Bible and the Church's own documents.