WORD STUDY – OF WHOM SHALL I BE AFRAID – ממי אפחר

 

Psalms 27:1 “The LORD [is] my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD [is] the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

 

“The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid.” Yesterday I spoke of the first word for fear in this verse which was yara’ and was not a fear for one’s safety but was a fear of offending someone you love and respect.  The syntax would suggest that the way we render this first part of the verse is The Lord is my light and salvation who (else but Him) deserves my respect. 

 

This is now followed with another use of the word for fear as we learn the Lord is the strength of our life of whom shall we be fearful. The word in Hebrew for fear here is pachad which is a fear or terror.  It is a fear for one’s own safety.  This is what we usually think of when we hear the word fear.  I have never seen this word used in relationship to God.  That is I have never seen a passage that says we are to pachad God.  I know that upsets some people who maintain control out of fear, like the old saying: “Putting the fear of God into someone.”   Biblical the only word you could use is yara’ so if you are putting the fear of God into someone what you are putting into that person is the love, respect and honor to God.

 

Now if you look at both words yara’ and pachad in your lexicons you will find they both say that the word could mean reverence. However, keep in mind that there are differences in reverence.  If you use the word reverence with yara’ then that means you reverence someone such that you will do nothing to bring harm to that person, you will respect that person’s privacy, feelings and heart.  If you use the word reverence with parchad then you are showing reverence like the Hindus show reverence to their gods.  They are fearful of their gods and they reverence their gods out of fear that if they don’t they will get badly treated by their gods.

 

So this second use of the word for fear is pachad which is a fear of one’s life and safety.  We can fear many things in this life, fear of disease, criminal attacks, terrorist attacks, fear of a traffic accident, fear of a fire burning your house down; there are many fears in our chayay or life.  Chayay comes from the root word chay which is a reference to physical life. The word is used for plant life, sustenance, animals, living things.  It is life in this physical world that is temporal and will one day end.  This life continues to need strengthening; we need to eat and to exercise to keep this life going.

 

But lookie here, it is God who is the strength of our physical life.  God is the ultimate source in our even being able to exist in this physical world.  Yet people die outside of God’s plan. They take their own lives, they get murdered, they are victims of godless people who take their lives.  We can’t pin this on God.  God has given us a will of our own and that will can go contrary to God’s will.  I listened to a missionary to China last weekend tell of how he had threats against his life and indeed some actually came to kill him.  Had it not been for a divine intervention, they would have succeeded. God actually had to send an angel down to appear before this missionary’s assassins to scare them away.  God didn’t send those men in to kill that missionary, they came by another influence.  This was not God’s will and he had to send an angel down to protect him.

 

The word for strength here is ma’aovz which comes from the root word azaz.  Azaz is the name of a fortified place, a fortress, a place of safety, a safe harbor. It is also a word used for human protection.  In the Canaanite language we have the same word used to taking refuge and seeking protection.

 

There are times God cannot prevent the will of man to bring harm and death to us, but He has a whole lot of resources to protect us.   This missionary saw this angel that scared his attackers away, it was an angel dressed in white holding a big sword and it cause these missionary enemies to turn white and run.  That was azaz.  It is interesting that the word azaz is spelled Ayin Zayin Zayin.  Zayin is pictured as a sword and two Zayins equal a double edged sword.  That angel was holding two Zayins.  The letter Zayin means the protection of God.  In Semitic languages when a word or even a letter is repeated it shows emphasis. We have the ultimate protection of God, so why should we pachad or live in terror or fear?

 

It is interesting that Rabbi Solomon Hirsch, a nineteenth century Jewish linguist and Hebrew master sees a relationship between pachad and pachat.  Pachat means to diminish.  Fear diminishes our relationship with God.  The word is also related to pa’at which means to access.  Fear will limits our access to God.  That is why the enemy wants us to live in fear, that is why he wants us to pachad God or us to be in terror of God rather than yara’ God, respect and love Him as one who would never harm us.