“If you, O Lord, kept track of our sins: O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, that you may be _______” (Psalm 130:3-4). The usual translation here is “feared,” but that often makes people wonder if we are supposed to be afraid of God.

As it turns out, the Hebrew word for fear (יָרֵא yareh) has several related meanings which need to be discerned according to the context. The same thing happens in English, actually: sometimes the word “fear” indicates panic or terror, and other times it only means mild regret, like when the headwaiter tells you “I fear we won’t be able to seat you for half an hour.” Whenever you see the word “fear” in English, you need to discern from the context how much terror the term actually intends to express. We’ve all had plenty of practice doing that with the word “fear” in day-to-day conversation; we immediately recognize, for example, that the headwaiter is feeling mild regret rather than terror. We need to gain that same facility with the word when we encounter it in the Bible.

Perhaps the best way to think about it is along the lines of “trembling.” The word indicates an emotion so strong it makes us shiver, perhaps in terror or dread, perhaps in wonder and astonishment; we’ll have to figure out which one from context. And indeed, with just that much of a clue we can readily see that in this psalm, dread is what we do NOT feel – instead, it’s what we WOULD feel, if God kept track of our sins and demanded that we pay for them.

That tells us that the recent translations (NIV, NRSV) have it right, when they say “there is forgiveness with you, that you may be revered.” Indeed, we could well say, “if you, O Lord, kept track of our sins, we would be so terrified, knowing we could never withstand your wrath. But because there is forgiveness with you, we tremble in awe before your great love.”

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Out of the depths we cry to you, O Lord: our souls wait for you, more than sentinels do for the morning light. We pray that you might receive our deep thanksgiving for the astonishing grace with which you have forgiven us: our hearts tremble in awe before you!