trembling brought on by fear: the shudder of terror that grips a body, a crowd, or the heart, and by extension the anxious trouble taken on another's behalf
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This word names trembling, but not the shiver of cold or excitement. It is the trembling of fear: the shudder that runs through a person when dread strikes. It is what seized Isaac when he learned he had blessed the wrong son (Genesis 27:33), what fell on Daniel's companions so that they fled to hide (Daniel 10:7), and what swept through an enemy camp until the very ground shook (1 Samuel 14:15).
The trembling shows up two ways. Sometimes it is a sudden public panic, as when the princes of a fallen city strip off their robes and clothe themselves in shudders instead (Ezekiel 26:16). Sometimes it is an inner dread: the fear of other people that traps a person (Proverbs 29:25), or the terror that turned a longed-for night into horror (Isaiah 21:4). The prophet Jeremiah sets it right beside plain dread (פַּחַד), a cry of terror where there should have been peace (Jeremiah 30:5).
In one place the word bends in a gentler direction. When the prophet Elisha tells the woman of Shunem that she has gone to "all this trembling" for him, he does not mean she was afraid; he means the anxious care and trouble she took on his behalf (2 Kings 4:13). What ties this to terror is the same inner agitation, here turned outward as concern for someone rather than fear of something.
Nuances
1aa shudder of terror: sudden, overwhelming fear that makes a body, an army, or a ruler tremble and quake
Gen 27:331Sa 14:15 (2×)Pro 29:25Isa 21:4Jer 30:5Ezk 26:16Dan 10:7
1banxious care: the trouble and concern one goes to on someone else's behalf
Names the outward, physical shaking that terror produces: a body that quakes violently, a whole camp seized and the ground quaking with it.Gen 27:331Sa 14:15Dan 10:7
Softens toward agitated worry and anxious fussing over someone, the restless concern of a person who cannot settle rather than raw terror.2Ki 4:13Pro 29:25
Both
Both stand together in one cry of panic, where the dread and the trembling it sets off are voiced side by side as the sound of a people undone by fear.Jer 30:5
Names the dread that one side inspires in another, falling on nations as "the dread of you" so that enemies are paralyzed before Israel and its God.Exo 15:16Deu 2:25Deu 11:25
Hardens into a fixed title for God himself, "the Dread of Isaac," the awesome one whom the patriarch reverently feared.Gen 31:42Gen 31:53
Stands as the raw emotion of alarm itself, the terror by night or the sudden panic that comes over a person when calamity strikes.Job 4:14Psa 91:5Pro 1:27
רַעַדthe physical shudder or shaking itself; this word adds the freight of the terror behind the shaking.
Names terror as a weapon God unleashes on an enemy, a dread that falls from outside and leaves people frozen, "still as a stone."Exo 15:16Exo 23:27Jos 2:9
Describes a crushing dread that settles over a single person like a weight or a closing darkness.Gen 15:12Psa 55:4Psa 88:15
Can name the sheer dreadfulness a fearsome creature or ruler radiates, the awe its raw power inspires in others.Job 41:14Job 39:20Pro 20:2
חֲרָדָהHaradah is a biblical name written exactly like חֲרָדָה, the common Hebrew word grouped here.
Puts the fear in the body, as a shaking an onlooker could watch: an old man shakes violently when he hears what he has done, and men beside a river flee to hide themselves.Gen 27:33Dan 10:7
Spreads through a crowd or an army all at once, catching everyone together: a whole camp panics until the ground itself shakes, and the rulers of a fallen port put on shuddering the way they had worn their robes.1Sa 14:15Ezk 26:16
Hits at the moment the blow lands or the sight arrives, when the dreaded thing is already present rather than still expected: the watchman's longed for night is turned to terror by what he has just seen.Isa 21:4
Can turn outward into the trouble and concern a person goes to on someone else's account, rendered "trouble" or "care" when a prophet thanks the woman who has looked after him, a use the anxiety word never carries.2Ki 4:13
Both
Both belong to the prophets' vocabulary for the end of peace: Jeremiah sets each in an oracle where quiet or peace is exactly what has been lost.Jer 49:23Jer 30:5
Both reach the far end of fear, standing in siege and invasion scenes where survival itself is in doubt, so neither should be softened into mere nervousness.Ezk 4:161Sa 14:15
Names the inner state itself, a weight pressing on the heart that a kind word can lift, with nothing happening to the body at all.Pro 12:25
Always leans forward, at trouble that has not arrived, so it can push people to act in advance to head the trouble off: the eastern tribes give it as their reason for building an altar.Jos 22:24
Stretches over time rather than striking once, naming the low dread of week after week of weighed out bread and measured water.Ezk 4:16Ezk 12:19
It names the shaking in the body of the frightened person, the violent start that runs through someone the moment dread lands.Gen 27:33Dan 10:7
It can be an inner or audible fear rather than a public spectacle: a cry of terror, a night of pleasure turned into dread, or the fear of other people that traps a person.Jer 30:5Isa 21:4Pro 29:25
It stretches in one place to the anxious trouble a person goes to for somebody else, where no fear is involved at all.2Ki 4:13
Both
Both name dread strong enough to shake a person, not calm worry and not the respectful fear owed to God.Deu 28:25Dan 10:7
Both turn up in prophetic scenes of judgment on a city or a nation, where a whole population is caught up in the shock at once.Ezk 23:46Ezk 26:16
The horror belongs to the onlookers, not to the people it falls on, and Hebrew goes further and calls the wrecked people themselves the horror.Deu 28:25Jer 15:4Ezk 23:46
It lives almost entirely inside one set sentence of judgment, in which God hands a nation over to be a horror to every kingdom on earth.Jer 24:9Jer 34:17
It comes in a list of what the watching world does, alongside appalled silence, hissing, cursing and mockery, so being publicly seen in ruin is part of the disaster.2Ch 29:8Jer 29:18
Names the trembling itself as a thing that arrives from outside and falls on people, so the text can measure it and call it great or violent.Gen 27:331Sa 14:15Dan 10:7
Covers a panic that breaks out over a whole group at once and scatters it: an enemy camp, the princes of a fallen city, the men standing beside a prophet.1Sa 14:15Ezk 26:16Dan 10:7
Stretches to anxious trouble taken on someone else's behalf, the fussing care of a host who has put herself out for a guest, with no fright in it at all.2Ki 4:13
Can be worried about the wrong thing: fear of what other people may do becomes a snare that catches the one who feels it.Pro 29:25
Both
Both describe the body reacting to dread rather than a calm reading of the danger: a lurching heart, shaking limbs, and no peace anywhere.1Sa 4:13Jer 30:5
English Bibles render both with the same handful of words, usually "trembling" or "afraid", so a reader cannot tell from the translation which of the two is on the page.Jdg 7:3Gen 27:33
Points at the shaking person rather than the shaking, so it works as a label you can hang on a group: the people who tremble at what God has said.Ezr 9:4Ezr 10:3Isa 66:5
Names a reverence God praises rather than a terror he sends. The one who listens for his word with a shudder is the very person he says he will look to.Isa 66:2Isa 66:5
Marks the soldier too shaken to fight, so that his trembling becomes the test that sorts him out of the army and sends him home.Jdg 7:3
Names the shaking of a person's own body: Isaac shudders with "a great trembling" when he learns he blessed the wrong son, and the men standing with Daniel are so shaken that they run for cover.Gen 27:33Dan 10:7
Can be worn or heard, a dread visible on people and audible in their voices: the rulers of Tyre strip off their embroidered robes and put on trembling like clothing, and the prophet reports hearing a cry of it.Ezk 26:16Jer 30:5
Covers the private fear one person has of another person, the kind that traps whoever gives in to it: "the fear of man lays a snare."Pro 29:25
Has a warm use as well as a frightened one: the anxious trouble someone takes on another's behalf. Elisha asks the woman of Shunem what can be done for her, since she has gone to all this care for him.2Ki 4:13
Both
The two words touch inside one battle story, splitting the fear from its results: the dread that falls on the Philistine camp until the ground shakes is trembling, and the wreckage it produces, every sword against its fellow, is tumult.1Sa 14:151Sa 14:20
Both are announced by the prophets as something God brings on a people, not as ordinary nerves: Tyre's rulers will sit on the ground clothed in trembling, and a great tumult from the LORD comes on the nations that fought Jerusalem.Ezk 26:16Zec 14:13
Both stand as the flat opposite of peace: a cry of terror is heard, "dread, and no peace," and in the years of many tumults there was no peace for anyone going out or coming in.Jer 30:52Ch 15:5
Names the collapse of order in a crowd or an army rather than a feeling inside anyone: the Philistine soldiers end up with every sword against its fellow, and on the coming day people seize one another's hands and fight.1Sa 14:20Zec 14:13
Shades into the damage itself, which is why translators often reach for "destruction" or "havoc": the blow on the Philistine city is a deadly one, and God promises to throw the nations into a great one until they are wiped out.1Sa 5:111Sa 5:9Deu 7:23
Can label a long stretch of time or a whole place rather than one moment of fright: years when nobody could travel safely, palaces where onlookers are told to come and see them, and a city known for being full of it.2Ch 15:5Amo 3:9Ezk 22:5
Names the unsettled misery attached to what a person owns or undertakes: better a little with reverence for the LORD than great treasure with this turmoil in it, and the curse that dogs everything a disobedient people puts a hand to.Pro 15:16Deu 28:20
ḥaradah in the other biblical languages
τρόμοςGreek“trembling”the Greek word for the physical trembling of fear, close to this word's bodily shudder.
The Hebrew word widens to a shared panic that falls on a whole camp or people and routs them. A trembling broke out in the Philistine host and shook the very ground (1 Samuel 14:15), and the princes of the sea "clothe themselves with trembling" and sit stunned at Tyre's fall (Ezekiel 26:16). The Greek word stays the trembling of a single body.1Sa 14:15Ezk 26:16
The Hebrew word can soften all the way to anxious care or solicitude for another person, with no fear in view. Elisha tells the Shunammite she has gone to "all this care" on his behalf (2 Kings 4:13). The Greek word never reaches this sense of troubling oneself over someone.2Ki 4:13
Both
Both name the bodily trembling that seizes a person in a sudden moment of fear or awe. A great trembling fell on Daniel's companions so that they fled to hide themselves (Daniel 10:7), and trembling gripped the women who ran from the empty tomb (Mark 16:8).Dan 10:7Mrk 16:8
Both attach to a companion "fear" word as a fixed pairing that deepens the dread. The prophet hears "a voice of trembling" set beside "fear" (Jeremiah 30:5), just as the New Testament binds the word into the standing phrase "fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12).Jer 30:5Php 2:12
In the New Testament the trembling usually loses the note of raw terror and marks a humble, reverent seriousness before God or a master. Servants obey "with fear and trembling" (Ephesians 6:5), believers are to work out their salvation the same way (Philippians 2:12), the Corinthians welcomed Titus "with fear and trembling" (2 Corinthians 7:15), and Paul preached in weakness "and much trembling" (1 Corinthians 2:3). This worshipful, submissive shading is a facet the Hebrew word never carries.Eph 6:5Php 2:122Co 7:151Co 2:3
ἔκστασιςGreek“amazement”the term the Septuagint chose for this word's panic scenes, a person driven out of their normal senses by terror.
It is trembling driven by terror or dread: panic that physically shakes a body, an army, or a city. The overwhelming here is fear, not wonder.1Sa 14:15Ezk 26:16Dan 10:7
It can soften to anxious care or worried attentiveness, the fretting effort someone spends on another's behalf. The Greek word never bends this way.2Ki 4:13
Both
Both name a person being seized and overwhelmed, driven out of normal self-possession by something too strong to master. This is why the Septuagint reached for the Greek word to render the Hebrew word's panic scenes, even though the two land on opposite feelings.Gen 27:33Mrk 5:42
In the New Testament it usually names wonder: people are amazed and awestruck at God's power, not afraid of it. This is the dominant note that the Hebrew word never carries.Luk 5:26Act 3:10
It can also name a trance or vision, a state in which ordinary awareness gives way and God shows something. This revelatory sense has no counterpart in the Hebrew word.Act 10:10Act 11:5Act 22:17
What scholars say about ḥaradah
The noun derives from the root חרד "to tremble, be terrified," and the standard lexica (HALOT, BDB, DCH) agree on a twofold range: (1) trembling, quaking, terror, whether the bodily panic of a crowd or army (1 Samuel 14:15;Ezekiel 26:16) or the emotional dread of an individual (Isaiah 21:4;Proverbs 29:25); and (2) an extended sense of anxious care or solicitude, attested only at 2 Kings 4:13, where the verb and noun together denote the trouble taken on another's behalf. The phrase חֶרְדַּת אֱלֹהִים in 1 Samuel 14:15, literally "a trembling of God," is widely read as a superlative, "a very great panic," though some take it as terror sent by God; TDOT and the commentaries note both readings without treating the word's core sense as disputed.