StrongerBible

mora

מוֹרָא

HebrewH4172“fear, terror, ...”

Appears 12 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 9:2Deu 4:34Deu 11:25Deu 26:8Deu 34:12Psa 9:20(21)Psa 76:11(12)Isa 8:12Isa 8:13Jer 32:21Mal 1:6Mal 2:5
Root family
Word studyResearch-grademo-RAHnoun

What mora means

the fear a mighty figure inspires in others, and so also the one who is feared or the deed that produces the fear

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

Hebrew has several words for fear, and this one usually looks at fear from the outside. Its close relative, the word behind the phrase "the fear of the LORD" (יִרְאָה), names what a person feels, the fright or the reverence inside them. This word more often names the fear that comes off someone strong: the dread of human beings that falls on the animals after the flood, the panic that spreads through a country ahead of an advancing army. That one starting point explains everything else the word does.

Once fear is thought of as something a powerful figure gives off, it is a short step to naming the figure himself. Isaiah tells Judah not to be afraid of what everyone around them is afraid of, and then says that the LORD of hosts should be their dread instead: God is to be your fear. By the same logic the word can name the respect a master is owed, and Malachi uses it that way when God asks a careless priesthood where the honor due to him has gone.

The same step from fear to the thing that causes it gives the word its most familiar use. Four times, always in the phrase "great terror," it names what God did to bring Israel out of Egypt, and it stands at the end of a fixed series of exodus language: a mighty hand, an outstretched arm, signs and wonders, and great terror. Here the word has traveled the whole distance from feeling to event, because the awe simply is the plagues and the sea.

Because the word is rare, only twelve verses in all, its shade in any one verse is read mostly off the words standing beside it. Next to other terror words, one for sudden panic (פַּחַד) and one for shattering dread (חַת), it means fear pressed down on someone from outside; next to covenant and honor, it means reverence.

Nuances

1athe dread a powerful party casts over others: the fear you inspire, not the fear you feel
TranslatabilityApproximate
Gen 9:2Deu 11:25Psa 9:20(21)
Psa 9:20

Whether this word appears in Psalm 9:20 at all. The consonants can be pointed as this noun, "terror," or as an unrelated noun meaning "teacher, lawgiver," and BDB records both readings while judging that neither is altogether satisfactory. Modern scholarship remains divided.

  • contested"Terror": "Set terror over them, O LORD." The Masoretic pointing reads the word this way, Aquila and Jerome follow it, and the parallel line's request that the nations know they are only human fits a prayer for dread.; BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. מוֹרָה, on Psalm 9:21 Hebrew (9:20 English), citing the Masora, Aquila, and Jerome; New Revised Standard Version, Psalm 9:20
  • contested"Lawgiver": "Appoint a lawgiver over them, O LORD." The Septuagint read the consonants as the word for a teacher or lawgiver and rendered it nomothetes.; Septuagint, Psalm 9:21 (νομοθέτην); R. G. Bratcher and W. D. Reyburn, A Handbook on Psalms (United Bible Societies, 1991), on Psalm 9:20
1bthe honor and respect owed to a superior
TranslatabilityApproximate
Mal 1:6
1cthe one who is to be feared: the rightful object of dread, above all God himself
Psa 76:11(12)Isa 8:12Isa 8:13Mal 2:5
1dan overwhelming display of power: the great terror God worked in bringing Israel out of Egypt
Deu 4:34Deu 26:8Deu 34:12Jer 32:21

What scholars say about mora

מוֹרָא is a mem-preformative noun of the maqtal type from the root יר״א, with the regular contraction of an original mawraʾ to môrāʾ, exactly parallel to מוֹשָׁב, מוֹלֶדֶת, and מוֹרָשׁ (BDB; HALOT; Klein; cf. Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar §85 on nouns formed with preformatives). BDB's four-sense grid (fear/terror; reverence; object of reverence, especially God; awe-inspiring spectacle or deed) has become the standard scaffolding and is refined rather than replaced by HALOT and DCH. Stähli (TLOT 2:568-578) and Fuhs (TDOT 6:290-315) treat the noun within the wider semantic field of יר״א and resist a hard fright versus reverence bifurcation, holding that the same lexeme covers the continuum and context fixes the point on the scale. The most important lexical observation is that מוֹרָא tends to denote fear from the standpoint of the one who causes it, over against יִרְאָה for the subjective attitude and פַּחַד for sudden trembling dread; hence its ready slide into "object of reverence" and "awe-inspiring deed." Distribution is concentrated in Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic and prophetic exodus tradition, where מוֹרָא (גָּדוֹל) closes the stereotyped series of mighty hand, outstretched arm, signs and wonders (Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11, on the Exodus phraseology; plural מוֹרָאִים גְּדֹלִים at Deut 4:34). Deuteronomy 34:12 is an interpretive, not text-critical, crux: the phrase elsewhere bound to divine action in Egypt is predicated of Moses and governed by עָשָׂה, and commentators divide over whether the awe belongs to Egypt, to Israel at Sinai and the wonders, or functions as a summary of Moses' unique prophetic standing (Tigay, JPS Deuteronomy, on 34:10-12). Psalm 9:21[20] is a vocalization crux (מוֹרָא versus מוֹרֶה), with the Masora, Aquila, and Jerome against the Septuagint's νομοθέτην; BDB concludes that neither reading is altogether satisfactory, the NRSV adopts "fear," and the UBS Handbook recommends the Septuagint's "lawgiver." Genesis 9:2 belongs to the Priestly recasting of the human and animal relationship after the flood, correlated with the new permission to eat meat (Wenham, Genesis 1-15, on 9:2); the Septuagint there renders the pair with φόβος and τρόμος. Isaiah 8:12-13 turns the noun into something close to a divine epithet, comparable to פַּחַד יִצְחָק, with deliberate play on noun and cognate verb; Malachi 1:6 and 2:5 supply the reverence uses, read by Hill as covenant-loyal priestly honor. Comparatively the root is West or Northwest Semitic rather than common Semitic: Ugaritic attests yrʾ (DULAT), while Aramaic across all periods uses דחל and Akkadian uses palāḫu and adāru (CAD). BDB's old appeal to an Assyrian îrû is not accepted in modern lexicography, and the Arabic waraʿ link is phonologically imperfect (aleph against ayin) and should be presented as proposed only. With just twelve tokens, every general claim about the word rests on a small sample and leans heavily on parallelism (חַת, פַּחַד, בְּרִית).

Where scholars disagree about mora

Whether the word's twelve uses are best set out as distinct senses or as one continuous range. The lexicons divide them into fear or terror, reverence owed, the object of reverence, and the awe-inspiring deed; the theological dictionaries answer that the fear vocabulary of this root cannot be cut cleanly into fright and reverence at all.

  • majorityFour distinguishable senses, with the twelve verses distributed among them. This grid originates with BDB and is refined rather than replaced by later dictionaries.; BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. מוֹרָא, senses 1-4; Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), s.v. מוֹרָא; David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, s.v. מוֹרָא
  • minorityOne lexeme covering a continuum from fright to reverence, where context alone fixes the point on the scale, so a hard split between senses misrepresents the word.; H.-P. Stähli, ירא yrʾ to fear, in Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (TLOT) 2:568-578; H. F. Fuhs, יָרֵא yārēʾ, in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) 6:290-315
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. מוֹרָא (H4172) and s.v. יָרֵאlexicon
  • Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), s.v. מוֹרָאlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, s.v. מוֹרָאlexicon
  • H.-P. Stähli, ירא yrʾ to fear, in Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (TLOT) 2:568-578theological-dictionary
  • H. F. Fuhs, יָרֵא yārēʾ, in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) 6:290-315theological-dictionary
  • Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11, Anchor Bible 5 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), on the Exodus phraseologycommentary
  • Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), on 34:10-12commentary
  • Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary 1 (Waco, TX: Word, 1987), on 9:2commentary
  • Andrew E. Hill, Malachi, Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), on 1:6 and 2:5commentary
  • R. G. Bratcher and W. D. Reyburn, A Handbook on Psalms (United Bible Societies, 1991), on Psalm 9:20handbook
  • Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, s.v. יראlexicon
  • Wilhelm Gesenius, Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, §85 (nouns with preformatives)grammar
  • G. del Olmo Lete and J. Sanmartín, A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition (Leiden: Brill), s.v. yrʾlexicon
  • The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), s.v. palāḫu and adārulexicon
  • Manuel Malul, More on paḥad yiṣḥāq (Gen. 31:42, 53) and the Oath by the Thigh, Vetus Testamentum 35 (1985): 192-200article

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of מוֹרָא

m s absolute

הַמּוֹרָא, וּבְמוֹרָא, לַמּוֹרָא, מוֹרָא, מֹרָא

Deu 34:12, Jer 32:21, Psa 76:11, Mal 2:5, Deu 26:8

m s construct

וּמוֹרַאֲכֶם, מוֹרַאֲכֶם

Gen 9:2, Deu 11:25, Isa 8:13

f s absolute

מוֹרָה

Psa 9:20

m p absolute

וּבְמוֹרָאִים

Deu 4:34

m s construct

מוֹרָאִי

Mal 1:6

m s construct

מוֹרָאוֹ

Isa 8:12