Most definitions of ‘the fear the Lord’ seem either to define ‘fear’ as a microwaved form of ‘respect’, or to define ‘fear of the Lord’ without actually defining ‘fear’ ─ all the content deriving from ‘the Lord’ rather than what it means to ‘fear’.

Can I try one out on you?

When you ‘fear’ something, every thought and movement and ligament of your being is directed towards the object of your fear.

If I’m in the same room as a lion, I won’t do anything without thinking about that lion. Every decision is oriented by the lion. Every thought = ‘LION’.

Even who I am is now defined in relation to my fear, not the other way around.

I’m in the same room as the lion, the lion isn’t in the same room as me.

‘Fearing’ something means that the object of your fears has become fully impressed onto every inch of who you are, and every hour of what you do.

It’s as though you’ve been made the object in a sentence where you used to be the subject.

Generally, this only happens when we face danger. It tends to only be negative experiences and bad things that so thrust themselves into our imagination that our whole lives become re-oriented, with every thought and action now taking that experience or object into account.

‘The fear of the Lord’ that is ‘the beginning of wisdom’ comes about for the opposite reason.

To fear the Lord means to have encountered one so wise, so righteous, so vastly good, that everything about who you are is now reoriented towards that one devastating fountain of glory.

To fear the Lord means every thought, movement, & ligament of your being is directed towards Him.

You are now the object of a sentence in which you were once the subject.

Wisdom has its reference point. Holiness knows true north. Fear means your life is no longer your own.

If any other being does that to you, it is horrifying. But fearing the Lord is life itself.

If that’s true, then fear isn’t so much beefed up respect as it is full-bodied reorientation.