Volume 1
A dictionary of the Bible : dealing with its language, literature, and contents, including the Biblical theology / edited by James Hastings ; with the co-operation of John A. Selbie.
- Date:
- 1909-10
Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Credit: A dictionary of the Bible : dealing with its language, literature, and contents, including the Biblical theology / edited by James Hastings ; with the co-operation of John A. Selbie. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
885/898 page 857
![beautiful and well favoured' (nx-jo ns;, lit. ' fair to be seen.' So evilfaYouredness, Dt 17^ {vi i;!?, lit. ' evil thing'). In Jos 1120 favour means scarcely more than mercy, 'for it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, and that he might destroy them utterly, and they might have no favour' (njili?! : in Ezr 9S the meaning is the same, but EV give ' grace'; everywhere else the Heb. word means 'intreaty')- Cf. Elyot, The Gooernour, ii. 298, 'And they, which by that lawe were condemned, were put to dethe without any fauour. J, HASTINGS. FAVOUR The interest of the biblical use of this word resides chiefly in its relation to the term grace. It has not, like that term, obtained any doctrinal significance. WhOe x^? in the LXX (Vulg. gratia) is its prevailing equivalent, it is used'only six times in JsT to tr. that word (see also Lk 1'-* Kexapi-rujfi^vr], ' highly favoured '; marg. ' graciously accepted' or ' much graced '). Grace, in fact, while including favour, implies much more. And it comes as a free gift (' Gratia, nisi gratis sit, non est gratia'), while favour may be won or deserved. To obtain favour is to please, to show favour is to be pleased. In OT the distinction is, however, hardly per- ceptible. The instinct of the translators led them, it is true, to avoid the adjective ' favourable' as a rendering of l«n (' gracious ') used only of God (with the one possible exception of Ps 112^. See Cheyne, The Book of Psalms, in loc.), but the verb and its other derivatives are often represented by ' favour.' Thus [n, 38 times rendered ' grace,' is 26 times tr* ' favour.' Nor is the sense of strengt]i,en- ing help, so prominent in the former word, alto- gether absent from the latter. (See Ps 5'^ ' with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.') Eight other Heb. roots, implying kindness, good- will, pity, are represented in the AV by ' favour.' The most frequent of these is p^T = acceptance, rendered 15 times 'favour.' For ipn loving-kind- ness, ' favour' is employed only 3 times. The LXX vary much more than the Eng. tr., the idea of pity pronouncing itself in Aeos, while that of goodwill comes out in eiooKia, d^Xij/ia, Tp6- atiiirov (o'JS). So in the Vulg. we find ^nisericordia, voluntas, vultus. A. S. Aglen. FEAR.—For the theology of Fear see next article. Some obsolete or archaic uses deserve notice. 1. Following the Heb. idiom, 'my fear,' 'thy fear,' etc., stands for tlie ' fear of me,'' of thee,' etc.: Ex 23^ ' I will send my fear before tliee' ('ns^-, RV 'my terror'); Job 9'* 'let not his fear terrify me ' (inox, RV 'his terror'); Jer 2' 'my fear is not in thee ' ('nins). Similarly Ps 90'^ ' even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath' (^inx-):?, RV ' according to the fear that is due unto thee,' so Perowne; Del.* Cheyne, 'the fear of thee,' with the same meaning ; De Witt, ' But who has yet learned the power of Thine anger. And Thy wrath as measured by the reverence due Thee?'); Is 63 'O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy Avays, and hardened our heart from thy fear ?' (^nN-j^-p, so RV ; Del. ' so that we fear thee not,' evidently the geni- tive of the object; Orelli, ' that it fears not thee '); Mai 1' ' if I be a master, where is my fear ? ' ('!<3io). Earlier VSS contained this idiom yet oftener, as Gn 9^ Wye. (1382) ' youre feer and youre tremblyng be upon alle the beestis of erthe' (1388 'youre drede and tremblyng,' AV 'the fear of you and the dread of you ). 2. After another Heb. idiom * The suffix, says Delitzsch, is either the genitive of the sub- ject, i.e. according to Thy fearfulness (nN!;, as in Ezk 118); or of the object, 'acc. to the fear that is due unto thee.' The latter way of taking it is more natural in itself (cf. v.8, Ex 202, Dt 220), and here characterizes the knowledge that is so rarely found as a knowledge that is determined by the tear of God and truly religious. ' fear' is used for the object of fear, that which is feared: Gn Sl''^ ' tlie God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac ' (ins, RV ' Fear,' as a proper name : but to personify is to miss the idiom, of which Spurrell (Notes on the Text of Gen.) gives examples from Pesh. Targ. etc.), so v.=^, Ps 31 'I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neiglibours, and a fear to mine acquaint- ance' (ins); Is 24'8 ' he who fieeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit' (ins); Ps oS 'There were they in great fear, where no fear* was' (dv* ins n;.i-ti'7 inj-nqs); Pr 1-^ ' I will mock when your fear cometh' (Dsin?); Is 8^^- ' neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. Sanctify the Lord of Hosts liimself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread ' (DjNiiD . . . iNiiD); Ps 34'' ' I sought tlie Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears' ('niiup); Pr 10^ 'The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him' (y^i nii:p); Is 66^ ' I also will choose their delusions, and bring their fears upon them' (oniUD). Cf. Pr 10^^ Cov. ' The waye of the LORDE geueth a corage vnto ye godly, but it is a feare for wicked doers'; Herbert, The Temple, 120, 1. 29— ' Call in thy death's-head there, tie up thy tears.' 3. There are two kinds of fear, a ' slavish feare, and a sonlike feare' (Hieron, Works, i. 130). The latter is now used only of our relation to God. But it was formerly applied to the reverence due to any superior, as Ro 13'' ' Render to all their dues : tribute to whom tribute is due ; custom to whom custom ; fear to whom fear.' Cf. Knox, Hist. 194, ' we deny neither Toll, Tribute, nor fear, to her [tlie Queen Regent] nor her officers.' Aseham (Toxophilus, B. fol. 35, ed. 1545) says that a priest should have ' a bodye ful of manlye authoritie to fear ill men.' i. The article being formerly used freely with abstract nouns, we find ' a fear,' Ezk 3013 < J .^yjii p^(; a_ fg^^j. in ^\^Q la^ud of Egypt' (nN-]:, RV retains) ; Ad. Est 15^ ' in a fear' (a-ywvii.ffa'i, RV ' in an agony '). In the quotation from Ascham above, the verb to fear is used in the active sense of put fear into, terrify. This meaning, though it occurs but once in AV, is common in the earlier VSS and in Eng. writers of the time. Thus Lv 263'' Wye. ' the sown of a fleynge leef shal fere hem'; Dn 411 Cov. ' 0 Balthasar, let nether the dreame ner the inter- pretacion thereoff feare the '; 2 Co 10 Gen. 1560, ' This I say that I may not seme as it were to feare you with letters' (so Wye). Cf. Elyot, The Govcrnour, i. 247, 'the good husbande, whan he hath sowen his grounde, settethe up cloughtes or thredes, which some call shailes, some blenchars, or other like showes, to feare away birdes, which he foresceth redy to de- uoure and hurte his corne.' So Foxe, Actes and Mon. i. 436 (ed. 1583), 'A wonderfuU and terrible earthquake fell through out al England : wherupon diuers of the suffraganes being feared by the strange and wonderfull demonstration, doubting what it shoulrl meane, thought it good to leaue of from their determin- ate purpose'; Spenser, FQ it. xii. 25— ' For all that here on earth we dreadfuU hold. Be but as bugs to fearen babes withall. Compared to the creatures in the seas enthrall.' More, Utopia (Rob. tr, Lumby's ed. p. 145, 1. 25), expresses his ideal of toleration in the words, ' They also which do not agree to Christes religion, feare no man from it, nor speake against any man that hath received it.' Tindale, Worka. i. 7, says Scripture is ' a comfort in adversity that we despair not, and feareth us in prosperity, that we sin not'; and Expositions, 148, 'fearing you with the bug of excommunication.' From Shaks. take Tarn, of Shrero, i. ii. 205— 'Have I not in a pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpet's clang ? And do you tell me of a woman's tongue. That gives not halt so great a blow to hear As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire? Tush 1 tush 1 fear boys with bugs.' * Earle (Psalter of 1639, p. 291) says that in this example ' fear' is used in the ancient sense of PjER. sudden alarm, shock of danger. But that sense seems to have been droppe(i very early, long before the days of Coverdale, who first usen ' fear' here (Wyclif as usual having ' dread '), and the Heb it the same as in the other passages quoted above.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24749163_0001_0885.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
