What Does Exodus 20:14 Mean?

Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin." Moses' pastoral response to the community's Sinai-terror is the Decalogue's most important interpretive comment: "Do not be afraid...

that the fear of him may be before you." The apparent paradox: do not be afraid... so that you will fear: resolves into the two kinds of fear the Bible distinguishes: the servile fear that paralyzes ("do not be afraid of that") and the filial fear that motivates ("so that the fear-respect of him will be before you"). Terror-fear is destructive; reverent-fear is the covenant's motivating principle.

"God has come to test you": the Sinai theophany's terrifying character is a test: does Israel's encounter with YHWH's overwhelming holiness produce reverent covenant faithfulness or faithless abandonment? The test is whether the community that cannot Bear the direct divine voice will nonetheless carry the covenant's demands in their daily life.

The Sinai test is the final wilderness test in a sequence of tests (Marah, Sin, Rephidim, now Sinai): each test is designed to establish trust, and the Sinai test is the most fundamental: trust in the covenant mediator to receive YHWH's commands and transmit them faithfully even when the community cannot receive them directly.

Proverbs 1:7 ("the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom") and Proverbs 9:10 ("the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the LORD") formalize Moses' Sinai teaching: the covenant-fear that Moses prescribes at Sinai is the starting point of the wisdom tradition's entire project. The fear that the Sinai theophany produces, the reverent awareness of YHWH's overwhelming holiness that prevents sin, is the beginning of the wise life that Proverbs cultivates. Moses' "that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin" is Proverbs 1:7 in narrative form.