A Biblical Contradiction?

How blessed is the man who fears always, but he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity. Proverbs 28:14 NASB

Fear always – How can a man be blessed if he is always afraid? This just doesn’t seem to make any sense. If perfect love casts out fear, and we are exhorted to enter into that place of perfect love, of rest for the troubled soul, then why does Solomon tell us that the man is who constantly afraid is the lucky one? It surely looks like a contradiction, doesn’t it?

To resolve this problem we need to examine the Hebrew vocabulary and its implications. First, there’s the word ‘ashre (translated “blessed”). Long ago we noticed that this word stands in contrast to barak, the other Hebrew word for “blessed.” ‘ashre is a derivative of ‘asar, the verb for “to go straight, to walk.” As a reminder, we should pay attention to the distinction between these two verbs. “For one thing bārak is used by God when he ‘blesses’ somebody. But there is no instance where ʾāšar is ever on God’s lips. When one ‘blesses’ God the verb is bārak, never ʾāšar. One suggestion to explain this sharp distinction, i.e, that ʾāšar is reserved for man, is that ʾāšar is a word of envious desire, ‘to be envied with desire is the man who trusts in the Lord.’ God is not man and therefore there are no grounds for aspiring to his state even in a wishful way.”^[1] TWOT points out that ‘ashre demands that a man “do something.” Therefore, the translation should capture the idea that “as a result of some action, this man is filled with bliss.” We could even translate the opening of the verse as, “Happy (overjoyed) is the man.”

But this makes the apparent contradiction even more startling. How can the man who fears constantly be overjoyed? The answer is found in the theology of pāḥad.  “pāḥad serves as a strong verb of fearing with emphasis either on the immediacy of the object of fear or upon the resulting trembling. The verb may refer to the kind of fear aroused by a paḥad ‘terror’ (see below). Most of its occurrences are in poetic passages so that it could be considered a strong, poetic synonym for yārāʾ (q.v.).”^[2] This is the same word used in Genesis 31:42 that describes YHVH as the “dread” of Isaac. It seems a long way from “happy.”

Moses Luzzatto provides the answer. “A man may be apprehensive every moment of the day lest he stumble and commit some deed that is wholly, or in part, opposed to the glory of God’s name.”[3] In other words, “fearing” is that state of mind attained when we are so concerned with the glory of God’s name that we dread doing anything that would diminish His magnificence. Being in such a state is, in fact, overwhelmingly joyful because it means that we are constantly aware of Him and thinking of His honor at every moment. True bliss is to be continually in His awareness, and that comes when we are caught up in magnifying Him at all times. In other words, we are so concerned with Him that we dread sin.

Unfortunately, most of us, most of the time, are concerned with ourselves, our lives, our circumstances, our friends, our world. We are not trained in spiritual awareness. We do not think, “How am I honoring God now?” We carry on in our spiritual somnambulism. Life is our personal nightmare and God is absent.

How do we learn to be happy in fear? Well, we could start with a serious engagement with the text. We could start with real study of Torah. We could start with self-revealing prayer. There are plenty of places to start. But nothing will happen to our sleepwalking until we start!

Are you ready to wake up?

Topical Index: Proverbs 28:14, pāḥad, fear, dread, blessed, ‘ashre, barak, Luzzatto

^[1] Hamilton, V. P. (1999). 183 אָשַׁר. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament.

^[2] Bowling, A. (1999). 1756 פָּחַד. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament.

[3] Moses Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim, p. 260.