What Does Genesis 20:11 Mean?
And Abraham said, Because I thought, surely there is no awe of God in this place, and they will slay me for my wife's sake.
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
And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife’s sake.THE KEY
The fear Abraham says is missing in others is filtered through the fear of death already governing his own thought.
THE MEANING
When fear of death dominates your thoughts, it can make danger feel certain and make everyone around you seem without reverence for God. Here, “the fear of God” carries the sense of awe: regard for God that shapes how a person treats another. The verse holds the tension between seeing others as dangerous and recognizing that this judgment begins as a thought.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The danger I feel proves that everyone around me lacks reverence for God.
THE ROOT
יִרְאַת אֱלֹהִים
yir'at Elohim
GROWS FROM
י־ר־א
To fear or stand in awe.
“awe of God” in this verse is yir'at Elohim. The word יִרְאַת (yir’at) can carry both fear and reverent awe; with God as its object, it opens onto awe. That shade deepens Abraham’s claim: he sees reverence as the thing that would keep people from violence, while his own fear of being killed shapes what he expects from them.
ALSO GROWS
yare: To fear, be in awe.
יָרֵא
This verb shares the root and shows that the noun “fear” is bound to a response, not only an idea.
mora: Fear, reverence, or awe.
מוֹרָא
This related noun makes the reverent sense audible alongside dread.
THE PATTERN
Awe of God becomes visible in how fear and power shape a person’s treatment of others.
But the midwives stood in awe of God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them, but kept the boys alive.And he said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the young man, and do nothing to him, for now I perceive that you are in awe of God, since you have not held back your son, your only son, from me."But in every nation the one who lives in awe of him and works alignment is received by him.THE THREAD
And he said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the young man, and do nothing to him, for now I perceive that you are in awe of God, since you have not held back your son, your only son, from me."“Fearest God” uses the same ירא (y-r-ʾ) root as “fear of God” here. In this verse Abraham says he sees that awe missing in others; in the connected verse the same root names Abraham’s own relation to God, turning the phrase back toward him.
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