How to Study the Bible — Reverence

A single word may or may not have the desired effect upon the mind of the reader. For instance, in a study of the Bible, we may suggest that it should be done with reverence. The word reverence may be of a wide understanding or it may be quite esoteric, limited in both scope and depth; a word assumed in meaning and left behind to capture the next word or sentence. This is where reading and studying may take divergent paths, at least in the short run, and brings us to an important lesson:

Lesson number one is to take care to process the words that are in the Bible. It is not a novel to be read over a long weekend but a detailed account of lessons, precepts, prayers, promises designed to witness God’s whisper to the heart of the humble. It is, in a manner of speaking, a great epic about love. But that’s for much later to see and understand.

Having more than one translation available is very helpful for the Bible student. Since it is assumed the reader of this website has a computer, one suggestion is to download a Bible program that has the option of adding a variety of Bible translations and especially a dictionary of the Hebrew for the Old Testament and Greek for the New Testament.

In our suggestion to study the Bible with reverence, we may look for this exact word in the Bible and see how it is used by the various translators and gain a better understanding of the nuance this word suggests, as a diligent student of the Bible. Here’s a text we found using this very word:

Lev 19:30  Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD.

The Strong’s Bible dictionary assigns H3372 as an identifying number to the Hebrew word yaw-ray’, that is, reverence. The definition given for this Hebrew word is: “to fear; morally to revere; causatively to frighten.”

There is a certain littleness one can imagine when in the presence of God, a vulnerability, a humbleness coming to the mind. Those rightly affected by such presence would indeed “fear”, but in a rectifying sort of way, or as some translators show in the Leviticus 19:30 text above cited, as “respect”, hence, reverence. This is helpful to understand when we come to such texts translated “fear” instead of “reverence” as in:

Psa 86:11  Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.

…while accepting the instruction to have no fear of men when one is looking to the Lord, to the doing of His will…

Isa 41:10  Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

…and verse 13…

Isa 41:13  For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.

Further word studies related perhaps to reverence may begin with the thought of our “strength” as being from the Lord, the Lord’s strength working in us while in and of ourselves we would otherwise be weak in the things of God, the choices we make, the life we lead, and even the words we say aloud or in silent meditation.

Try looking up some of the occurrences, particularly in the New Testament, of the following list of words and explore some translations of those texts to see more of how the Bible’s vocabulary may be used to study.

Strong (also Strength)

Ransom

Sanctify (try a partial word search such as sanctif)

Conversation

Covenant (also Promise)

Walk

Humble

Light

Holy

Grace

Mercy

Love