What Does Exodus 9:30 Mean?
But as for you and your servants, I perceive that you will not yet stand in awe before the face of the LORD God.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But as for thee and thy servants, I know that ye will not yet fear the LORD God.THE KEY
The verse separates seeing what God does from standing in awe of who God is.
THE MEANING
You can recognize what is happening and still not yet stand in awe of the LORD God. Awareness of power and reverence remain distinct responses.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that unmistakable evidence automatically becomes reverence.
THE ROOT
תִּירְאוּ
tira’u
GROWS FROM
ירא
To fear; when directed toward God, to stand in awe.
“stand in awe before the face of” in this verse is tira’u. The root ירא (y-r-ʾ, to fear or stand in awe) can name both fear and reverent awe. Here, directed toward the LORD God, it carries the sense of awe: seeing what is happening does not mean that response has arrived.
ALSO GROWS
yir’ah: Fear or awe
יִרְאָה
This noun from the same root shows that the verse’s response is a posture, not simply information about God.
nora: Awe-inspiring, fearsome
נוֹרָא
This branch describes what evokes awe, linking the response in the verse with the reality that inspires it.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s reality draws people and communities toward awe, a response the text can also name as absent.
And Israel saw the great hand that the LORD did upon the Egyptians, and the people stood in awe of the LORD, and they leaned their weight on the LORD and on his servant Moses.Let all the earth stand in awe of the LORD, and let all who settle in the inhabited world tremble before him.Then the assemblies had wholeness throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were built up. And walking in the awe of the LORD and in the comfort of the Set-Apart Breath, they were multiplied.THE THREAD
And Israel saw the great hand that the LORD did upon the Egyptians, and the people stood in awe of the LORD, and they leaned their weight on the LORD and on his servant Moses.The same Hebrew root ירא (y-r-ʾ, to fear or stand in awe) appears in both verses. One names awe as withheld; the other names it as the people’s response to what they see.
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