Proverbs: Fear of the Lord

High School

My senior year of high school, I took a class called "Holocaust and Genocide Studies." The first period of the day, it started at 7:15 a.m., roughly two hours before teenagers are meant to get up. But I was fascinated by the course. Dr. Buchanan, the teacher, exposed us all to the basest atrocities of humankind and the ravages or war and genocide. A combination of history, literature, psychology, and philosophy, this was one of the few classes that left a lasting impression on me after high school. To know that humankind was capable of so much evil, and that others had endured such suffering... It changed my perspective.

One of the basic questions of the class was a simple ethical quandary: Is it all right for a person to steal a piece of bread to feed his/her starving family? A moral absolutist would assert that it is wrong to steal anything at all, and therefore it is wrong for a person to steal bread, even if his/her family will die as a consequence. The Hebrew Scriptures show us that moral absolutism is not the answer - that stealing depends upon the situation that gave rise to it.

To show partiality is not good -
yet for a piece of bread a person may do wrong.
(28.21)

Now, I am only assuming here that I am applying my ideas correctly to the biblical lesson. But this interpretation seems to make the most sense to me.

Teaching

In any case, Proverbs gives us a lot of different teachings on the nature of wisdom and obedience. Unlike most of the text prior to this point, however, Proverbs emphasizes obeying human commands, rather than those of God. God does have a number of rules that are mentioned in Proverbs, but for the most part this is a teacher speaking to a pupil.

If we wish to read God into the bible (that is, place God in a place where he otherwise might not be easily noticed), we may do so by saying that God acts as the undercurrent for the entire book of Proverbs. In fact, obedience to God is stressed a number of times through the phrase "fear of the Lord." This appears every so often, which we might take as a constant subtle reminder that God is omnipresent. [I do not read it this way myself, but it is an interesting thing to think about.]

If we wish for examples, we have all these:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction
(1.7)

Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
...
therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way
and be sated with their own devices.
(1.29; 31)

[if you seek and accept the teacher's commandments,]
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
(2.5)

Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
(3.7)

The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.
Pride and arrogance and the way of evil
and perverted speech I hate.
(8.13)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
(9.10)

The fear of the Lord prolongs life,
but the years of the wicked will be short.
(10.27)

In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence,
and one's children will have a refuge.
(14.26)

The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life,
so that one may avoid the snares of death.
(14.27)

The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom,
and humility goes before honor.
(15.33)

By loyalty and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for,
and by the fear of the Lord one avoids evil.
(16.6)

The fear of the  Lord is life indeed;
filled with it one rests secure and suffers no harm.
(19.23)

The reward for humility and fear of the Lord
is riches and honor and life.
(22.4)

Happy is one who is never without fear,
but one who is hard-hearted will fall into calamity.
(28.14)

The fear of others [or "human fear"] lays a snare,
but one who trusts in the Lord is secure.
(29.25)

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
(31.30)

Fear is to be praised, fear causes happiness, fear is good and righteous. Fear's rewards are life and riches. It is good to have fear, but only fear of the Lord.

Teachers

We are told that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom, but we are also told this:

The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever else you get, get insight.
(4.7)

Is that enough tautology for you? Getting wisdom is the beginning of wisdom. That's like saying the first step to cooking spaghetti is to cook the spaghetti.

Thanks, Toothpaste for Dinner!

Thanks, XKCD!

But in all seriousness, these are serious lessons that people should obey. Probably.

Numbers 25: No other gods before me...

Numbers 25: Worship of Baal of Peor

The narrative focus returns to the Israelites who are not exactly living up to God's expectations. Having put their trust in God, the Israelites were able to defeat King Arad, King Sihon, and King Og. And the section immediately before this showed God as extremely protective of his people, who are blessed three times by the Moabite Balaam.

Worship of Baal of Peor: Numbers 25
While at Shittim, the Israelite men have sexual relations with the Moabite women. This leads to the Moabite women inviting the men home to dinner and to sacrifice to their gods, namely the high God, Baal. The Lord is not happy about this, and commands Moses, "Take all the chiefs of the people, and impale them in the sun before the Lord, in order that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel" (Num. 25.4). The Lord's anger is retributive, but at least the Lord does not threaten to abandon Israel, as the Lord has done before. No, the Lord only wants a sort of human sacrifice - not in the traditional sense of sacrifice, but more in the Christian Jesus-died-that-we-may-live sense, taking "living" to be life on earth. Moses tells the judges of Israel to kill any of their people that have "yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor."

Just then an Israelite comes by and leads a Midianite woman into his tent, right in front of Moses and the congregation of the Israelites. One can sense the ironic tension of the situation. Here is a man that has not heard the command walking to his own death hand in hand with the Midianite woman. The entire congregation comprehends the horror of what is about to take place - and the horror that awaits them too.

Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron sees this and sneaks off. He takes a spear and follows the Israelite man and Midianite woman into the tent. He kills the two in flagrante delicto, as evidenced by the fact that the spear pierces both the Israelite and the woman through the belly.

[Click to enlarge]

Years from now, when all the locations
of CSI are exhausted, the producers
will be forced to go back in time.

But here we seem to have a mixing of traditions, because the writer informs us that the killing of the man and woman stops that plague that spreads throughout Israel. No plague was threatened before, but now clearly the Israelites have been afflicted - 24,000 die from it.

It was Phinehas' swift action that saved the Israelites from God's wrath. The Lord speaks to Moses and compliments Phinehas on "manifesting such zeal" so as to turn God's anger away from the Israelites. Therefore Aaron's family is granted God's "covenant of peace," a covenant of "perpetual priesthood" awarded for Phinehas' zealous defense of God that was so great it atoned for all of Israel.

The biblical author then gives the names of the slain lovers. The man is Zimri son of Salu, head of the Simeonites. The woman is Cozbi daughter of Zur, the head of a Midianite clan. Both were important members of their nations, which in hindsight makes their deaths all the more meaningful. It was not just any Israelite, but the head of an ancestral house, that sullied himself with the Midianite woman. Corruption extends to the leadership of Israel. Also, the death of Cozbi instigates something of a blood feud between the Israelites and the Midianites. Only it is the Israelites who are on the offensive, with the justification that Cozbi was a corruptive force.

Israel has done a lot to upset the Lord while in the wilderness, and many have suffered God's wrath. But as we shall see tomorrow, the new generation that enters the promised land will have nearly as many people as the generation that fled Egypt.