THIS WORD FEAR AS TAKEN FOR GOD HIMSELF.

FIRST. OF THIS WORD “FEAR,” AS IT RESPECTETH GOD HIMSELF, who is the object of our fear.

By this word fear, as I said, we are to understand God himself, who is the object of our fear: For the Divine majesty goeth often under this very name himself. This name Jacob called him by, when he and Laban chid together on Mount Gilead, after that Jacob had made his escape to his father’s house; “Except,” said he, “the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty.” So again, a little after, when Jacob and Laban agree to make a covenant of peace each with other, though Laban, after the jumbling way of the heathen by his oath, puts the true God and the false together, yet “Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac” (Gen 31:42,53).

By the fear, that is, by the God of his father Isaac. And, indeed, God may well be called the fear of his people, not only because they have by his grace made him the object of their fear, but because of the dread and terrible majesty that is in him. “He is a mighty God, a great and terrible, and with God is terrible majesty” (Dan 7:28, 10:17; Neh 1:5, 4:14, 9:32; Job 37:22). Who knows the power of his