The Teaching on the Fear of God (Verses 12–13)

One who fears God, keeping God reverently in mind and walking before His face, conducts himself with all care and circumspection, so as not to allow anything offensive to God in word, deed, or thought—but to walk in all God’s commandments and ordinances blamelessly. Therefore the teaching of the fear of God is the teaching of the fulfillment of all God’s commandments, or of all-round good works. Holy David, however, does not depict here the entire system of deeds in which the fear of God is expressed, but takes from among them only those which are applicable at nearly every step in people’s relations with one another—in the thought that whoever keeps himself upright in these will undoubtedly be upright in all the rest as well. Such deeds are: to keep the tongue from malice and deceit, to harm no one but to do good to all, to live in peace with everyone and to spread it around oneself—verses 14–15. Since precepts and laws in their fulfillment generally require labor and self-denial, the holy Prophet, in order to dispose toward a willing walk in the deeds of the fear of God, prefixes to their indication the promise of a happy life—always desired, yet never attained without good works and a clean conscience—verse 13. He speaks as it were thus: do you wish to be happy? Then act as I will show you. In this he followed the same method that the Lord later used in His Sermon to the people on the mountain, when, setting forth the moral Christian dispositions—the formation of which requires no little labor—He attaches to each of them the promise of blessedness. Verse 12 calls to attention, given the importance of the matter of the teaching—which, however, he does not spell out: mention of the fear of God is enough to arouse attention, and the importance of this lesson is assumed to be already recognized.

Ps. 33:12. Come, children, hear me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

One made wise by long experience offers the treasures of his active wisdom, passing them on to the new generation entering life and wishing to learn how to live. This is a word addressed to all of us, from the distant past. Our own elders are as infants before the forefather David. Let all give heed!

Come, children. “This (Basil the Great) is the voice of a teacher who is sincerely well-disposed, calling to instruction with fatherly goodwill—because the pupil is the spiritual child of the teacher. One who receives from another formation in piety is as it were built up and brought into composition by him, like the forming of infants in the womb. This is why Paul—taking up again the entire Church of Galatia, which had fallen away from the teachings first delivered to it and resembled a premature birth, and forming Christ in the Galatians anew by divine power—called them children. My little children, for whom I travail again in birth until Christ is formed in you (Gal. 4:19)”.

Come—hear. “What then (Basil the Great) does our spiritual father wish to teach us? The fear of the Lord, he says, I will teach you. Since he commanded above to fear the Lord and showed the advantages of fear—saying that those who fear Him lack nothing — he now imparts a certain lesson on the fear of God. And since the fear of God is the foremost matter, he does not offer it simply, but requires special attention to it as well, saying: come, hear. That the fear of God truly is the foremost matter—even little children now know this, having learned it from the Wise Man, who says: the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord (Prov. 1:7)—both practical and contemplative wisdom. When he says beginning, he indicates that one must begin with it and that everything else will follow from it, flowing out of it. Therefore without the fear of God it is impossible to become either learned, or prudent, or good. The key to all this is found in it. Here is the one chair in the world that, teaching a single subject, teaches everything!”

When the holy Prophet says: come, I will teach — he indicates that he himself knows this knowledge. For what teacher would dare to open the chair of a knowledge he does not possess? “What (Basil the Great) is needed, for example, to be healthy—any person, even an ignorant one, can say; but how health ought to be acquired—to speak of this is the task of one who knows the are of medicine. Likewise, only one who himself has genuine fear of God can teach the fear of God”.

What a lesson for parents, educators, teachers, and all who may say to those under their guidance: children! Teach them above all else the fear of God—teach them both in word and, still more, by example. And what an accounting must those face who not only do not teach this—but unteach it—one by a fearless life, another in addition by word?!

The holy Prophet here proposes a teaching on the fear of the Lord that alone is salvific. For one must know that not every fear is good and salvific. “There is the fear of the enemy (Basil the Great), from which the Prophet prays to be delivered, saying: deliver my soul from the terror of the enemy (Ps. 63:2). That fear is the enemy’s which breathes into us a dread of death and inspires in us fear of the authority of persons. Could one who fears this be capable, in time of martyrdom, of standing against sin even to death and rendering the debt to the Lord Who died for us and rose again? There is also a certain indefinite fear breathed in by demons. And this seems to me a weakness born of unbelief; for one who believes that he has a powerful Helper fears no one who strives to trouble him”.

“What then (Basil the Great) is the saving fear—the sanctifying fear—the fear deliberately and not out of weakness implanted in the soul? Would you like me to explain the properties of this fear? When you are being drawn toward some sin, picture in your mind the dread and unbearable tribunal of Christ, where on a high and exalted throne sits the Judge, while all creation trembles before His glorious appearing, and each of us is brought for examination of what he has done in life; then—the fearsome and grim angels appointed over one who has done much evil in his life, whose very gaze is fiery and whose breath is fiery by reason of the cruelty of their will, and whose faces are like the night in their sullenness and hatred of men; then—an impassable abyss, deep darkness, a fire that is not bright, which holds consuming power in darkness but is devoid of radiance; then—a certain venomous and flesh-devouring worm, consuming greedily, never satisfied, producing by its consumption unbearable torments; then—the most cruel of all torments—eternal mockery and eternal shame. Fear this—and, chastened by this fear as by a certain bridle, restrain the soul from evil desires”.

He promises to teach the fear of God—but “to teach (Basil the Great) not everyone, but only those who wish to hear him. Hear—you whose ears of the heart are open, who are simple-hearted, full of childlike faith, children who through the adoption of baptism have become close to God and have been vouchsafed to become children of light through new birth. For the Prophet’s school is not his own school but the school of the Holy Spirit. The ruling Spirit, Who regenerates to sonship with God, speaks through the mouth of the Prophet—as he himself confessed: the Spirit of the Lord speaks through me, and His word is upon my tongue (2Sam. 23:2)”.

“Come then (Blessed Augustine), let us hear Him! Let us open our hearing, let us open our heart. Let not our hearing be open while our heart is closed. God speaks through the Prophet. Who would not wish to hear Him?”

Ps. 33:13. Who is the man who desires life, who loves to see good days?

Life here is happy life—the same as good days. For to an unhappy person life is not life, and is sometimes worse than death. The Prophet wishes to point to the means of living on earth happily and peaceably. Having in mind to utter lessons of strict morality, he entices the hearer to listen to them and then to decide to carry them out in actual deed—pointing to this as the condition for a happy life. “He rouses (Theodoret) to endeavors, having proposed, as a most worthy reward, a life free from grief and most greatly to be desired”.

He strikes the most tender and sensitive string. Who does not want a happy life and good days? For what then are all our cares, and toward what do all our labors tend? But not everyone truly understands wherein happiness lies and how it is to be attained. And this is what holy David promises! To teach us how to live on earth—as happily as possible. The rules he proposes are indeed conditions of a quiet and untroubled life in human society. Do not speak evil, do not flatter and do not be deceitful, harm no one, do good to everyone as much and as best you can, live peaceably with all—and you will be at peace, you will be respected and loved, and no one will offend or wrong you. Therefore you will continually see good days and live, rejoicing in life.

Such is the first thought suggested by the words of this verse! But, limiting ourselves to this one alone, we would scarcely exhaust the full breadth of the prophetic promise. It is true that those who live according to his teaching enjoy for the most part a quiet life; yet it not infrequently happens that the very fulfillment of these lessons disturbs their peace and turns their good days into evil ones. Therefore it is more accurate to hold that the holy Prophet does not confine the fulfillment of the promised prosperity and well-being to the present life—especially since afterward he extends the fruits of such a God-fearing life beyond the limits of this life. In this, our guide will be holy Apostle Peter. In the third chapter of his First Epistle he urges Christians not to return evil for evil, but on the contrary to bless—grounding this in the fact that Christians are called to inherit a blessing (1Pet. 3:9). This inheritance is of course the one given in eternity. But in the following verse he applies to this very end the words of the prophet David: for, he says, one who desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and so forth (1Pet. 3:10). What he previously called a blessing, here he calls life and good days. Therefore there is no doubt that in this life holy Apostle Peter saw eternal life, and in good days—a blessed eternity.

Having learned from the Apostle, holy Basil the Great and Blessed Augustine connect this same thought with the words of the Prophet.

“The Prophet asks (Basil the Great): does anyone desire life—not this common life in which the irrational creatures also live, but true life, that is not cut short by death? Christ is the true life, and our true life is abiding in Christ. Likewise, good days are not the days of this world. The days of this age are evil, for the whole world lies in the evil one (1Jn. 5:19). For this reason the Apostle also commands to redeem the time, for the days are evil (Eph. 5:16). Now we are not in life, but as it were in death. Which is why the Apostle prayed, saying: who will deliver me from this body of death? (Rom. 7:24). There is another life to which the Word calls us. Our present days are evil, but there are other days—good ones—that are not interrupted by night. God Himself will be the eternal light for them, illumining them with the radiance of His glory. Therefore, when you hear of good days, do not think that what is promised to you is said of the present life; for those days that the visible sun produces are perishable, and the perishable cannot be a fitting gift for the imperishable. If the soul is imperishable, so too the gifts of the soul must be imperishable. For the form of this world is passing away (1Cor. 7:31)”.

“The holy Prophet asks (Blessed Augustine): who desires good days? Who? Is not everyone ready to answer: I? Who does not love life and does not wish to see good days? Is not the daily complaint heard: how long must we endure? Day by day things grow worse and worse. It was better in the days of our fathers. But if you were to ask your fathers, they too would have complained about their days: our fathers were blessed, while we—our days are bitter and evil. Show us, O Lord, good days! But you seek good days in the wrong place. You seek a good thing, but not in the right place. It is as if someone sought a righteous man in a place where there is none—he would be told: you seek a good man—seek, but not here; here you will seek in vain, you will never find him here. So too here. You seek good days—a good thing. Let us seek together, but not here. But how, you say, did our fathers have them here? You are mistaken. On earth everyone lived in labor and affliction. Read the Scriptures, which are written for our comfort and instruction, and you will be persuaded of this. In the days of Elijah—a terrible famine, such that mothers were roasting their own children (2 Kgdms. 6:26–30). Abraham had good days—but within, in the heart, while outwardly, just like everyone else, he endured famine and attacks (Gen. 12–25). And did holy Paul have good days—when it is known that he passed them frequently in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness (2Cor. 11:27)? But let not the servants grieve. The Master Himself had no good days in this age. He too endured reproach, blows, the Cross, and every evil. Therefore do not look for good days on earth when you hear the Prophet’s promise. A different, endless age is coming—there will be good days there”.