What fear of the LORD actually means
Fear of the LORD translates the Hebrew yare, a verb that runs from being frightened to holding someone in awe. In the wisdom books it describes taking God seriously enough to order your life around him. Which end of the range applies depends on the passage, and Hebrew makes no distinction the way English does.
Where the word comes from
Exodus 20:20 uses the root twice in one sentence, pointing in opposite directions. The people have just watched the mountain smoke and heard the thunder, and they are backing away. Moses tells them not to be afraid, and then tells them the whole point is that the fear of God would be on them. Whatever the second one means, it is not the first one, and the Hebrew writer felt no need to reach for a different word.
Shiphrah and Puah stood in front of the king of Egypt and did not do what he had told them. Exodus 1:17 gives the reason: the midwives feared God, so they let the boys live. The verb there is yare, roughly 330 occurrences across the Hebrew Bible, with the noun yirah alongside it, and the same root covers Adam hiding in Genesis 3:10 and Israel backing away at the sea. As the participle yere Elohim, God-fearing, it becomes a description of character, and Job carries it in the first line of his book. In the midwives it produced defiance of a king, which English "fear" would not predict.
Deuteronomy places the word in a list that makes its social sense clear. In 10:12 Israel is asked to fear Yahweh, walk in his ways, love him, and serve him with everything they have. Ancient Near Eastern treaties use the same vocabulary of a vassal toward his overlord, where "fear" names loyal service and recognition of who holds the power, not a state of alarm.
A cousin form, nora, is the passive participle: awe-inspiring, the kind of thing that produces yirah in whoever sees it. It is applied to God's acts at the sea in Psalm 106:22 and to God himself in Deuteronomy 7:21, and in Psalm 139:14 it sits inside the phrase English readers know as "fearfully and wonderfully made."
Why "fear of the LORD" gets in the way
English "fear" has narrowed. It now means being scared, and it has lost the older sense that survives in "God-fearing" and in phrases like putting the fear of God into someone. So Proverbs 1:7 lands as advice to start your education by being frightened of God, which is a strange thing to say to a young man about to be taught how to lend money and choose friends.
That reading then collides with the rest of the Bible. First John 4:18 says perfect love drives out fear. Isaiah keeps saying "do not be afraid" with that same root, at 41:10, 41:13, 43:1 and 43:5 among others. A reader who takes fear to mean fright has to conclude that scripture is instructing them to feel two incompatible things about the same person.
The overcorrection is its own problem. Translating every instance as "reverence" sands away passages where the terror is real and intended. Scholars are not agreed on how much dread stays in the word even in the wisdom books, and a translation that decides once and applies the decision everywhere is hiding a live question from the reader.
What this translation prints instead
The NGET reads each occurrence in place. Psalm 111:10 prints "Standing in awe of Yahweh, that is where wisdom starts." Psalm 128:1 has "everyone who lives in awe of Yahweh," using an ongoing posture because the psalm is describing a whole life. Psalm 112:1 has "holds Yahweh in reverence," and Psalm 118:4 uses "everyone who honors Yahweh," where the line is a call to worship.
In Deuteronomy the wording leans toward respect, since the covenant context is about loyalty. Deuteronomy 6:2 asks that three generations "live in deep respect for Yahweh," and 6:24 has Israel "stand in awe of Yahweh our God," for their own good. Proverbs 3:7 prints the imperative flatly: respect Yahweh, and walk away from what is destructive.
Where the text means fright, the translation says fright. Isaiah 41:10 opens "Do not be afraid." Psalm 106:22 calls what happened at the sea "terrifying acts." Psalm 119:120 keeps both halves in one line, a body that shudders and a person standing in reverence. Psalm 130:4 is the passage that shows why the range matters: it is forgiveness, not punishment, that leaves the psalmist held in awe.
Read it in place
Ahab had called Obadiah, who managed his household. Now Obadiah deeply revered Yahweh.
1 Kings 18:3
One of the wives of a man from the prophets' group cried out to Elisha, "Your servant, my husband, is dead. You know he was someone who deeply respected Yahweh. Now the creditor is coming to take my two boys as slaves."
2 Kings 4:1
Ish-bosheth couldn't say another word to Abner, because he was terrified of him.
2 Samuel 3:11
He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
Genesis 3:10
Questions people ask
What does the fear of the Lord mean in the Bible?
It means taking God seriously enough that it reorders how you live. The Hebrew yare spans everything from being frightened to holding someone in high regard, and in the wisdom books it names a posture of awed respect that produces loyalty and good judgment. In Exodus 1:17 it is what makes the midwives defy Pharaoh, so it clearly is not cowering.
What does fear of the Lord mean in Proverbs 1:7?
Proverbs opens by naming its own starting point: knowledge begins with taking God seriously. The book then teaches practical skills, how to handle money, friendships, speech and sex, on the assumption that you cannot get any of it right while thinking the universe answers to you. By chapter 6 the same book is warning against guaranteeing a neighbor's loan and telling the reader to go and watch an ant, which is the sort of instruction that opening line underwrites.
What does fear of the Lord mean in Hebrew?
The verb is yare and the noun is yirah. One word covers the whole range from terror to reverence, so Hebrew makes no lexical split where English has two separate ideas. Exodus 20:20 uses the root twice in one sentence, first telling the people not to be afraid and then saying the fear of God should stay on them.
What does "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" mean?
It means wisdom has a prerequisite, and the prerequisite is recognizing who God actually is. The Hebrew word for beginning, reshit, carries both "first in sequence" and "chief part." Proverbs 9:10 repeats the claim. The point is that skill at living depends on an accurate estimate of your own size relative to God's.