FEAR, a painful apprehension of danger. It is sometimes used for the object of fear; as, “the fear of Isaac,” that is, the God whom Isaac feared, Gen. xxxi, 42. God says that he will send his fear before his people, to terrify and destroy the inhabitants of Canaan. Job speaks of the terrors of God, as set in array against him, Job vi, 4; the Psalmist, that he had suffered the terrors of the Lord with a troubled mind, Psalm lxxxviii, 15. Fear is used, also, for reverence: “God is greatly to be feared” in the assembly of his saints. This kind of fear, being compatible with confidence and love, is sometimes called filial fear; while “the fear which hath torment,” being the result of conscious guilt, and the anticipation of punishment, is removed by that “love” to God which results from a consciousness of our reconciliation to him.
The filial fear of God is a holy affection, or gracious habit, wrought in the soul by God, Jer. xxxii, 40, whereby it is inclined and enabled to obey all God’s commandments, even the most difficult, Gen. xxii, 12; Eccl. xii, 13; and to hate and avoid evil, Nehemiah v, 15; Prov. viii, 13; xv, 6. Slavish fear is the consequence of guilt; it is a judicial impression from the sad thoughts of the provoked majesty of the heaven; it is an alarm within that disturbs the rest of a sinner. Fear is put for the whole worship of God: “I will teach you the fear of the Lord,” Psalm xxxiv, 11; I will teach you the true way of worshipping and serving God. It is likewise put for the law and word of God: “The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever,” Psalm xix, 9. The law is so called, because it is the object, the cause, and the rule of the grace of holy fear.
FEASTS. God appointed several festivals among the Jews. 1. To perpetuate the memory of great events; so, the Sabbath commemorated the creation of the world; the passover, the departure out of Egypt; the pentecost, the law given at Sinai, &c. 2. To keep them under the influence of religion, and by the majesty of that service which he instituted among them, and which abounded in mystical symbols or types of evangelical things, to convey spiritual instruction, and to keep alive the expectation of the Messiah, and his more perfect dispensation. 3. To secure to them certain times of rest and rejoicings. 4. To render them familiar with the law; for, in their religious assemblies, the law of God was read and explained. 5. To renew the acquaintance, correspondence, and friendship of their tribes and families, coming from the several towns in the country, and meeting three times a year in the holy city.
The first and most ancient festival, the Sabbath, or seventh day, commemorated the creation. “The Lord blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it,” says Moses, “because that in it he had rested from all his work,” Gen. ii, 3. See [Sabbath].
The passover was instituted in memory of the Israelites’ departure out of Egypt, and of the favour which God showed his people in sparing their first-born, when he destroyed the first-born of the Egyptians, Exod. xii, 14, &c. See [Passover].
The feast of pentecost was celebrated on the fiftieth day after the passover, in memory of the law being given to Moses on Mount Sinai, fifty days after the departure out of Egypt. They reckoned seven weeks from the passover to pentecost, beginning at the day after the passover. The Hebrews call it the feast of weeks, and the Christians, pentecost, which signifies the fiftieth day.
The feast of trumpets was celebrated on the first day of the civil year; on which the trumpets sounded, proclaiming the beginning of the year, which was in the month Tisri, answering to our September, O. S. We know no religious cause of its establishment. Moses commands it to be observed as a day of rest, and that particular sacrifices should be offered at that time.
The new moons, or first days of every month, were, in some sort, a consequence of the feasts of trumpets. The law did not oblige people to rest upon this day, but ordained only some particular sacrifices. It appears that, on these days, also, the trumpet was sounded, and entertainments were made, 1 Sam. xx, 5–18.
The feast of expiation or atonement was celebrated on the tenth day of Tisri, which was the first day of the civil year. It was instituted for a general expiation of sins, irreverences, and pollutions of all the Israelites, from the high priest to the lowest of the people, committed by them throughout the year, Lev. xxiii, 27, 28; Num. xxix, 7. See [Expiation, Day of].
The feast of tents, or tabernacles, on which all Israel were obliged to attend the temple, and to dwell eight days under tents of branches, in memory of their fathers dwelling forty years in tents, as travellers in the wilderness. It was kept on the fifteenth of the month Tisri, the first of the civil year. The first and seventh day of this feast were very solemn. But during the other days of the octave they might work, Lev. xxiii, 34, 35; Num. xxix, 12, 13. At the beginning of the feast, two vessels of silver were carried in a ceremonious manner to the temple, one full of water, the other of wine, which were poured at the foot of the altar of burnt offerings, always on the seventh day of this festival.