The Fear of God

In Hebrew, when two nouns are placed together they are referred to as being in the "construct state" - meaning that these two words should be considered one – the first occurring or preceding noun being a possession of the subsequent noun. A few very quick examples from the Hebrew text:


The word of Jehovah [dabar yhwh] (Genesis 15:1)
The voice of Jehovah [qowl yhwh] (Genesis 3:8)
The face of Jehovah [paniym yhwh] (Genesis 4:16)
The mount of Jehovah [har yhwh] (Genesis 22:14)
The name of Jehovah [shem yhwh] (Genesis 4:26)
The eyes of Jehovah [`ayin yhwh] (Genesis 6:8)
The garden of Jehovah [gan yhwh] (Genesis 13:10)T
he angel (messenger) of Jehovah [mal'ak yhwh] (Genesis 16:7)
The way (path or road) of Jehovah [derek yhwh] (Genesis 18:19)
The mount of Jehovah [har yhwh] (Genesis 22:14)


The subsequent noun (or yhwh in the above examples) in the Hebrew construct state, would be most familiar to English speakers as a "possessive noun". In English, possessive nouns are used to show possession (owning, or having). They are words that would normally be nouns, but are used as adjectives to modify a noun or pronoun. Possessive nouns tell you who or what the modified noun or pronoun belongs to. Example:

The subsequent noun (or yhwh in the above examples) in the Hebrew construct state, would be most familiar to English speakers as a "possessive noun". In English, possessive nouns are used to show possession (owning, or having). They are words that would normally be nouns, but are used as adjectives to modify a noun or pronoun. Possessive nouns tell you who or what the modified noun or pronoun belongs to. Example:


The dog's collar is too large.


The word "dog's" is the possessive noun. It tells you that the noun "collar" belongs to the dog. The dog owns, or possesses the collar. In English we add an "'s" to the end of a singular noun to make it possessive. In ancient Hebrew, it is somewhat similar, except that the modified noun always occurs first (preceding), followed by the subsequent construct noun (possessive). In this manner, the Hebrew made the singular noun possessive.

Changing the English example of the dog and collar above to Hebrew would result in "collar dog" – which in English would simply be the "dog's collar" or even "the collar of the dog". Equally valid, you could express in English the above examples of Hebrew as:

Jehovah's word [dabar yhwh] (Genesis 15:1)
Jehovah's voice [qowl yhwh] (Genesis 3:8)
Jehovah's face [paniym yhwh] (Genesis 4:16)
Jehovah's name [shem yhwh] (Genesis 4:26)
Jehovah's eye [`ayin yhwh] (Genesis 6:8)
Jehovah's garden [gan yhwh] (Genesis 13:10)
Jehovah's angel (messenger) [mal'ak yhwh] (Genesis 16:7)
Jehovah's way (path or road) [derek yhwh] (Genesis 18:19)
Jehovah's mount [har yhwh] (Genesis 22:14)

Simple enough.

Which brings me to the point of this post. The phrase "fearing the Lord", or "the fear of God" – which, understandably, always seems to cause much discussion, sometimes quite heated. After all, who wants to admit they worship or honor something simply because they are "afraid" of it?

What kind of god would even require that of one of its creations? The famous phrase "fearing God" or "the fear of God" comes from 18 occurrences of the construct state "yir'at yhwh") –one of the most well known is probably Proverbs 15:33, which reads:

"The fear of Jehovah [yir'at yhwh] is instruction in wisdom, and humility goes before honor." Another clue that these two nouns [yir'at yhwh] do in fact represent a Hebrew construct state expression, is change of the letter ה (h) in the word yir'ah (fear) to a letter ת (t). When the first word of the construct phrase ends with the letter ה (h), it is always changed to the letter ת (t).

So this becomes the interesting part.

What you really have here is not "fear of Jehovah", but rather "Jehovah's fear" – or: "Jehovah's fear [yir'at yhwh] is instruction in wisdom, and humility goes before honor." The "fear" in the phrase "the fear of the Lord" or "the fear of Jehovah" is not our fear, it is God's fear. Because God cannot "fear" it might help to look to the Ancient Hebrew concrete meaning of this word in order to understand why and in what sense the author felt compelled to present this particular construct state expression.

And if you have always thought that this meant to "fear God", (i.e., be afraid of God) then maybe it is time to possibly re-think. You will find numerous Christian apologetics, which would state that this usage meant simple "a deep respect for", or "in awe of" would be a better translation – and you will even find a few modern Bibles have implemented such a change. And to a certain extent, yes, the base word yare (of which yir'ah is a derivative with the same basic meaning of fearing, or fear), can in certain context be best represented as "awe" or "deep respect", "deep honor" and so on.

But that does not work here in Proverbs 15:33 because "yir'at yhwh" in this usage is clearly a construct state expression, or possessive noun modifier. Ancient Hebrew uses "concrete" expressions, whereas our English and most non-Semitic languages use or employ "abstract" expressions. Those who read my posts , has likely heard me use that expression many times "in it's concrete Hebrew meaning".

Concrete thought is the expression of concepts and idea in way that can be seen, touched, smelled, tasted, or heard. All five senses are used when speaking, hearing, writing or reading ancient Hebrew (and even to a certain extent, modern Hebrew and Yiddish). A Greek or Latin based language uses abstract (words based on description or appearance of items), whereas Hebrew thought describes objects in relation to their function. For example, a "Greek" based description of a pencil would be, "it is yellow and about eight inches long". An ancient Hebrew description of the same pencil would relate to its function, or something like "I write words with it".

To our western trained abstract minds, a deer and an oak are two very different objects and we would never describe them in the same way. The Hebrew word for both deer and oak however, is the same – "ayil" – because the functional description of these two objects is the same – so the Hebrew used the same word for both. The Hebrew concrete definition of "ayil" is "strong leader", which can be seen clearly in its ancient paleo form. A deer stag is one of the most powerful animals of the forest, and is seen as a strong leader. The wood of the oak tree is very hard, and as compared to other trees it also is considered a "strong leader". In Psalms 29:9 the KJV and the NASB both read, "The voice of the Lord makes the deer [ayil] to calve", while the NIV translates the same verse as "The voice of the Lord twists the oaks [ayil]".

Putting the verse into the Hebrew concrete meaning would result simple in "The voice of the Lord makes the strong leaders turn." I know the concrete meaning of yare, and its derivative yir'at, as used in the above discussion of Proverbs 15:33, and so I do not believe that being afraid of God is the first step towards wisdom, but rather that God's fear (yir'at) is the first step towards wisdom. In its concrete meaning, yare means simply "flow", like a rushing river flows, the throwing down or flow of water in a rain, the flow or rush of a fast moving arrow.

If you have ever been "afraid" or in complete "awe" or suddenly become "enlightend" of something you know the feeling of the inner "flow" or "rush" quite well, and it is in this regard that yare can relate to fear. Common synonyms include pahad, hata, and harad, as several words related to flow also in the sense of quaking or shaking. So then, what is God's yare which is the beginning of wisdom?

Simply compare Proverbs 15:33 with Exodus 31:3 - "And I have filled him with the spirit of God (ru'act yhwh), in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship."It is "the Spirit of God or God's spirit)" that gives us wisdom in the same way that "the fear of the Lord (or Lord's fear)" does. The Hebrew word for "spirit" is "ru'ach" literally means the "wind," which is also a flowing albeit of air - an unseen impersonal force enacting upon other things. The "fear of God" (or God's fear) is his spirit which "flows" or "rushes" out of him into us - and enacts upon us, and this is the beginning of his providing wisdom, knowledge and understanding.

One must remember that "fear" is an English word, not a Hebrew word. Toss it away - think about that word no more and instead try this: the root meaning (e.g., yr) of the words yara (yare masculine, yirah fem), and yarah is "to flow" and is related to words meaning rain or stream as a flowing of water.

From "YR" (the parent root) comes yare, yirah, yarah, and all other forms of YR. To the Hebrew mind, fear can be what is felt when in danger, or what is felt when in the presence of an awesome sight or person of great authority. These feelings "flow out" of the person naturally in such ways or actions as shaking when in fear, or bowing down in awe of one in great authority (hence yare, yirah, yarah, etc). And this sense of "flowing out" is contained in the Hebrew parent root for all these words. Hosea 6:3, "Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain (yarah), as the latter [and] former rain (yarah) unto the earth."

As rain. Falling down in plentiful. A "flowing" of water from the sky. Yarah, whose parent root is YR, just as it is the parent root for yare/yirah.Yirah (yare fem form) when used as a noun, in a possessive noun construct, it becomes yirat, as in yirat'yhwh, or Jehovah's yirat (in the KJV, "fear of the Lord", or "Lord's fear", or more concretely in Hebrew, "flow of the Lord", or "the Lord's flow"), a flowing down, like rain.


But a flowing of what?


Ru'ach--his "spirit" which leads one to "knowledge", "understanding", "wisdom", "discernment" according to the Scriptures.Exodus 31:3 - "And I have filled him with the spirit of God (ru'act yhwh), in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship."

How is this "filling" done?

The Proverb posted above tells us how - Jehovah's yirat – his flow, like rain – as Hosea states above, "then we shall know". Proverbs 15:33, which reads, "The fear of Jehovah [yir'at yhwh] is instruction in wisdom, and humility goes before honor."But it might better read, "Jehovah's flow is instruction in wisdom, and humility goes before honor." The same construct is used in Psalms 111:10 which reads, "fear of Jehovah [yir'at yhwh] is the beginning of wisdom." But it might better read, "Jehovah's flow is the beginning of wisdom." Isaiah 11:9 speaks of the coming time when the "earth filled with the knowledge of Jehovah". Did not Jesus himself say about his Father, "This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ" – John 17:3.

Knowledge. Accurate knowledge. The beginning of wisdom is the release of God's flow (yirat) of r'ach (spirit). A ru'ach which brings accurate knowledge.

Thinking About Yohm

Yohm can equally express a point in time as well as a sphere of time. It is used to denote (i) the period of light (as opposed to darkness), (ii) a period of a full 24 hours, (iii) a general vague period of time or era, (iv) a specific point in time, (v) an entire year (as in in 1 Samuel 27:7; Exodus 13:10, etc), and (vi) a period of specified time measured by two extraordinary events.There is much material available on the etymological and cultural nuances of this one little word. As a serious introduction to study, I would suggest E.J. Young's Studies in Genesis One, Presbyterian and Reformed - although a publication nearly 40 years old now, it is still one of the best ever written.

The creative days of Genesis are conspicuously patterned, chronological, of indeterminable length, intended to show - at a very summary level view - how Yhwh changed the uninhabitable and unformed into the habitable and formed from 1:3 to 32.Genesis indicates the closer of all six creative days/periods, and closure of the group of all six as "one day" in itself. God's day of rest commenced with the beginning of the seventh creative day, and according to the author of Hebrews at 4:1-11 and Psalm 95:7-8, and 11, that 7th period was still open for entering into at the time of David and even Paul, and I would suggest even today.

Could God have created or formed the entirety of creation in 6 days? Probably. Maybe. 6 minutes I suppose would also be possible, or 6 seconds, or even in the twinkling of an eye.But if we are to believe that "The heavens are declaring the glory of God; and the work of his hands the expanse is telling" (Psalms 19:1), and if we are to believe "His invisible qualities are cleary seen from the world's creation onward .." (Psalms 104:24) - then we must also give adequate consideration that:

• Light from the Andromeda nebula can be seen on a clear night in the northern hemisphere, and that it takes about 2,000,000 years for that light to reach the earth - meaning that the light you now see is at least that old in our time - this alone indicates that the universe is at least millions of years old, if not older; and
• End products of radioactive decay in rocks in the earth testify that some rock formations have been undisturbed for billions of years.

If the expanse is then "telling", and the created world giving "testimony" to its creator and the creation, it might be of some benefit to listen to what the heavenly expanse and earth are testifying to - and then maybe reassess the validity of retaining tradition over truth (Matthew 15:3, Mark 7:13, Col 2:8, and so on).

Death of Immortality

For centuries, the fleeting and highly subjective world of feelings, emotion, and thought was the purview of philosophers and theologians. But during the past 30 years, Antonio R. Damasio has strived to show that feelings are what arise as the brain interprets emotions, which are themselves purely physical signals of the body reacting to external stimuli though use of small levels of electricity and chemical manipulation. Damasio’s efforts presented some obvious and significant questions for the aforementioned philosophers and theologians

For example, is there really a difference between ‘body’ and ‘mind? And if the suspicions turn proof that there is no difference, what exactly does that mean? Does it mean that we have no souls, no personal spirit, which can escape our death by separation from the body? It may very well be that science soon proves that our bodies and our “minds” are one in the same biological unit – functioning as a whole – even providing us with our own sense of self. And this ‘sense’ itself may prove to be rooted in pure biology rather than theosophy or philosophy. Man’s “consciousness” may simply prove to be no more than biological man himself. Christian de Duve states in his recent publication “Life Evolving: Molecules, Mind, and Meaning” from the Oxford University Press (2002, p.108) that:

"The proofs are there, indisputable, that no manifestation of consciousness is possible without the normal functioning of cerebral neurons. Let this functioning be impaired by lack of oxygen, or by a drug or trauma, and loss of consciousness inevitably follows."

According to the scientists – it is looking more and more like we are nothing more than the sum of our biological parts – and when these biological parts eventually quit functioning, we as a person - being a single biological entity, including our minds, thoughts, emotions, feelings, memories, and all the elements of who we are – cease to exist. Death, it appears, is not only inevitable, it appears it may also be final. It is a matter of debate whether animals have an awareness of mortality or not, but it is certain that man alone among all living creatures knows that he has to die. This we all seem to understand – yet – as Martin Heidegger shrewdly observed that the proposition, “all men are mortal” usually involves the deeply personal tacit reservation “but not I.

Even as Freud, and Schopenhauer before him pointed out, “deep down” even contemporary man does not “really” believe in his own death. This internal inconsistency is certainly not new – it is seen manifest in the earliest pages of the Hebrew Bereshit (Genesis) as Eve juggles between the two choices placed in front of her:

Genesis 3:3, “God has said, ‘YOU must not eat from it, no, YOU must not touch it that YOU do not die.’


Or -

Genesis 3:4, “You positively will not die.


The implication here is quite simple – in whom do you demonstrate faith by virtue of action - either God was lying and she was immortal and could not die by definition (i.e., continued existence did not necessarily depend on obeying God), or he was not lying, and death was very much “reality” (i.e., continued existence does necessarily depend on obeying God). Not long after choosing a mark for herself - her husband, Adam, was faced with a similar choice.

Outside of the writings in the Hebrew Scriptures, it cannot be determined with any degree of accuracy the time nor the historical sequence of mankind’s discovery of the two elements of death — its inevitability as well as its finality. But there was surely some point in time when someone first contemplated death as being inevitable and final (the natural observation) - and likewise there was also some point in time when someone imagined that what they observed was not reality – saying as suggested by Heidegger, “but not I.

Likely the two discoveries were closely associated. While the Hebrew Scriptures never assign “immortality” as a trait to earthly man or woman in any literal, figurative, or symbolic sense (except perhaps for the unrecorded thoughts which may have occurred to both Adam and Eve as they determined their choice)– the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh Epic does. It offers us the first written record of mankind’s thoughts regarding his immortality. It is in the Gilgamesh Epics (a written account reflecting in part long held Babylonian/Chaldean/Sumerian religious thoughts) that the realization of the inevitability of death as well as its possible finality seem to have occurred simultaneously. If this is so, it is pointless to ask which of the two produced the greater shock. But again on the basis of the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh legend, there can be no doubt about its severity. It may have been this very severity which eventually gave birth to the thought of immortality.

While King Gilgamesh strongly suspects that death may well be total extinction, or a state of nonexistence, the predominant view of death of his contemporaries was that the dead somehow continue to exist (i.e., immortality of man). But one cannot help but be impressed by the somber and frightening nature of the afterlife as it appears in the Babylonian and the later related early Greek mythologies. Typical is Achilles' complaint in the Odyssey that it is better to be a slave on earth than a king in the realm of phantoms – but nonetheless – the immortality of mortal man took firm root and began to grow.

The after-life existence eventually evolved into more pleasant concepts for the good (or those pleasing to the gods), and worse concepts for the bad (or those rejected by the gods). Undoubtedly, Adam and Eve, having chosen to believe their creator a liar, likely began to entertain similar thoughts much earlier in denial of the absolute reality of death, in the hope that life would continue in some form or other after the physical body has proven its mortality by falling into the article of death and corruption. It is, after-all, what the serpent was selling, and that product which they choose to invest.

Nevertheless, such entertaining thoughts of immortality easily and quickly spread outward from earliest Mesopotamia through later Egypt, India, China, and Europe – just as man spread out across the land – his pleasurable ideas of immorality went with him.

There was one notable exception.

The path of immortality was basically ignored, in fact rejected, by a lesser known, lesser prominent, ancient Semitic peoples – the Hebrew. Though being of the same Semitic roots as those so eagerly embracing thoughts of immortality – history records a clear philosophical and theological separation - distancing the ancient Hebrew from the Mesopotamians in regards to thoughts on life and man’s mortality. The only real difference between the two emerging cultures being their gods – the Hebrew god claiming origin over Adam and Eve (a god who we saw earlier told of death), and the Chaldeans and Sumerian gods, who offered comforting ideas of immortality.

As reflected in the Hebrew Scriptures, the God of the Hebrews further explained exactly what death was. The majority of the ancient Hebrew people denied thoughts that man was immortal. Such thoughts being based on what they were taught by their God – thoughts which were reflected ultimately in their historical religious texts. For the ancient Hebrew, death was a reality in every sense of the word. It is a condition or state in which the "breath of life" (ruach) the life giving force from God has been withdrawn, and the living-breathing creature (ne’phesh) dies as a result and no longer has any existence whatsoever. It means a complete and total cessation of life. For the ancient Hebrew it was clear, death was nothing more than the opposite of life – an absence of life. This is clearly reflected in a plethora of passages from Hebrew Scripture (e.g., “For dust you are and to dust you will return." (Genesis 3:19); "The dead know nothing . . . There is no pursuit, no plan, no knowledge or intelligence, within the grave." (Eccl 9:5, 10), The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezek. 18:4). "his spirit (ruach – God life giving force) goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts do perish" (Psalm 146:4)). Two out of every three occurrences of ne’phesh (that which man is – a living breathing creature) in the Hebrew Scriptures refers soberly to the mortality of the ne’phesh and ultimate liability to death.

According to the ancient Hebrew, the dead no longer existed, knew nothing, had no thoughts, could not see, hear, or speak. The ne’phesh dies, and the ru’ach (what we call spirit today in English) was merely God’s unseen life giving force which enacted upon the ne’phesh, it itself returned to God – leaving the living breathing creature called man with nothing more.

He was dead.

The ancient Hebrew held these thoughts for hundred of years before being reintroduced to immortality in Mesopotamia likely as a result of the Babylonian exile, combined with eventual Hellenistic and Zoroastrism influences. Many diverted away from the mortality of man concept, but many also held fast – recognizing that although death was a state of nonexistence a hope for resurrection or being remembered by God was hinted at in their same Scriptures.

One of the most well written and famous proponents of the immortality of man was Plato - a thinker, who was strongly influenced himself by much earlier Babylonian religious traditions. Plato, who lived about 427-347BC, and has been regarded as one of the most important thinkers and writers in the history of Western culture, expanded on the concept of man’s immortality. He was a philosopher and an educator, but all his so -called "wisdom" was the product of his own mind, supported by ideas and philosophies adopted from the teachings of others. His influence on both religious and philosophical thought was considerable and widespread, even today. Plato's concept of the immortal soul built upon the earlier foundations established in Mesopotamia – he taught that the soul left the body and migrated to what he termed the "realm of the pure forms" from which, after a time, the soul may even return to the earth in another form.

By now, nearly all the world’s religious organizations subscribed to the concept of an immortal man – something which transcends the death of the man. It was these Hellenistic, Zoroastrism, and Platonic concepts which were adopted by the greater majority of the world’s religious organizations. They, like Adam and Eve, choose to believe that they “would positively not die”. By this point, there was no longer a single religious system which had not been infiltrated with the idea of man’s immortality. But the immortality doctrine monopoly was short lived.

Shortly following Plato, came Epicurus. According to Epicurus the fear of death is one of the two major afflictions of mankind, the other being the fear of the gods. Accordingly, he did away with both, and is proven to have given birth to the more modern secular movements (Rationalists, Freethinkers, Agnostics, Atheists, Secularists, Humanists, et al). According to Epicurus, man fears death because he erroneously believes that he will experience pain and suffer after he has died (the concept originating in Mesopotamia). But, says Epicurus, death is deprivation of sensation. As to the soul it too does not survive death because, as Democritus has taught, like all things, it too consists of atoms (albeit particularly fine ones) which will disperse at death. Consequently “Death, the most terrifying of all ills, is nothing to us, since as long as we exist, death is not with us, and when death comes, then we do not exist".

God was dismissed, and immortality executed.

The period spanning the time from Gassendi to Jefferson is called "the Enlightenment", an appropriate title for the era where political authoritarianism, faith-mongering and claims of a divinely-ordered cosmos, and the mystical doctrines of astrology and alchemy, were abandoned in favor of modern science and intellectual and political freedom. With the exception of Jefferson, Epicurus's role in providing the philosophical foundations for the Enlightenment was largely unacknowledged, as there was still considerable prejudice against non-Christians that kept Epicurus in the closet, or at least dressed up with suitably Christianized or Deistic doctrines – but it cannot be denied today, that much of our secular, scientific based communities are established in part due to Epicurus.

Though adequate recognition is given to the various shades of grey from a former art student, our world today consists largely of two groups - .those descendents of Mesopotamia who hold man to be immortal in one sense or another, and those descendants of Epicurus, who typically do not. And it is to that end, that, as quoted above, that Christian de Duve in his recent publication states, “The proofs are there, indisputable, that no manifestation of consciousness is possible without the normal functioning of cerebral neurons. Let this functioning be impaired by lack of oxygen, or by a drug or trauma, and loss of consciousness inevitably follows” becomes most significant.

It appears as though the Epicurean children may win out after all.

Man is not immortal, and probably is nothing more than flesh, blood, and bone, just as the ancient Hebrew once believed. It appears it may very well be quite true as modern neurologists are empirically proving - . What we “are” is “us” – a living breathing creature fully contained in flesh, and blood, and bone (i.e., ne’phesh). There is life, and there is death, and death itself may simply be just as the earliest Hebrews informed us by the Word of their God - the dead no longer exist, know nothing, have no thoughts, cannot see, hear, or speak.

But what I personally find so irresistibly ironic in all of this (or perhaps it is poetic justice of some sort), as a proclaimed follower of Jehovah and his son, Jesus, is that those secular and scientific communities - the offspring in part of the Epicureans - who would now be the first to deny the existence of Jehovah (or any god or gods) are the very ones who are now providing evidence in support of the truth of His original statement “You must not eat from it, no, you must not touch it that You do not die” and that man is not immortal.

While on the other hand – Those religious systems which on the whole include the majority of Christendom, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, the Great Mystery Religions, et al, who would be the first to proclaim the existence of an eternal superior being or force, are in fact the ones being proved false through their own acceptance of the words of the serpent – “You shall not positively die” – those who to this day imply by their very thought Jehovah to be a liar.

The godless are ultimately proving the truth spoken by a god they do not believe exists, while those claiming to be god-fearing have chosen to believe the lie made against the very god they claim to believe.

Let There Be Light - Bara or ha'yah

"Gen 1:3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light."In this passage, was God creating light or was he giving it permission?”


My answer would be, given the two choices presented, was that “he gave it permission”, in the sense of being the cause of the what was to be the effect. Here is why.

In Genesis 1:3, which you present in English above, reads in the Hebrew as, “Vayomer Elohim yah-owr ha’yah-owr” The phrase used here is ‘yah (or ha’yah, or vayehi) ‘owr (‘or). – “let there be (hayah) light (‘owr).

Ha’yah (hwh, or hyh) is a word of “cause”, as in cause “to be”, cause “to become”, cause to “come to pass”, cause to “exist”, cause to “happen”, and so. In its numerous uses in the Hebrew text, it is rarely used in the sense to denote simple “existence” or the identification of a thing or person. It is in fact, a portion of the tetragrammaton (the name of the true Hebrew god), Yhwh, (meaning he causes to be). This is also emphasized in the context, wherein the root alone (‘yah) is used first, and the definitive ha’yah is used last (cause, and effect – God saying let there be light (cause –yah’owr) and then light occurs (effect – definitive, ha’yah-owr).

In the context of Genesis 1:3, its use is preceded by a “command” Vayomer Elohim – “God said” – commanded (yah-owr)– and the light was caused to be (ha’yah-owr). God was the “cause” of light being brought into existence. A command was given, carried out, and returned the exact results as commanded (there is more in this area if you are ever interested, having to do with God’s master worker, and the employment of “us” later on in Genesis, and claims made by Jesus, and John).

This is quite different than had it been written “Vayomer Elohim bara owr, ha’bara owr” or “God said I create light, and light was created” - the sense of “cause” being absent.

The first use of “bara” occurs in Genesis 1:1, “Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve'et ha'arets.” - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Here the word used is created – “bara’ – a word used in the Qal only of God’s activity – a distinct use of the word appropriate to the concept of creation by divine fiat. The root bara denotes the concept of personally “initiating something new” versus causing something to occur, or come to be, or cause to happen. In Isaiah 41:20 it is used of the changes which will take place in the restoration when God “affects” that which is new and different. It is used in the creation of “new things” (hadashot) in Isaiah 48:6-7 and the “creation” of the “new earth and new heaven”. Marvels never seen before are described by use of “bara” as in Exodus 34:10. The word also possesses the meaning of bringing into existence, almost exclusively, in a personal manner directly by God himself, rather than God being the underlying initial cause of the events which took place to bring his command, or word, to full and complete fruition (cause to be sense of ha’yah).

In the sense that God was the cause “to be” (’yah) of light, he gave a command, or “permission”, and his instructions were complied with, and light came to be (ha’yah).

The Bible claims that is it because (cause) of God’s “will” that ALL things “existed and were created” – Re 4:11, and while this is quite true, being the cause of will does not require one to actually be the workman who carried it out – this is confirmed Proverbs 8:12, and 8:22-31. Identification of this “masterworker” came later, as according to the Christian Greek, Jehovah’s first creation “in the beginning” was his only-begotten (only directly created) son (John 3:16) “the beginning of the creation by God” (Rev 3:14). This one, “the firstborn of all creation” was used by Jehovah in creating all things in heaven and earth (ha’yah) – the “things visible and the things invisible” (Col 1:15-17).

Bara’ is used to identify the creator of the created heavens and earth, in the first verse of Genesis, and is not used again for anything “created”, until man is created, and again, bara is used, but only after reference is made to the agency employed in Genesis 1:26 – in which the word used in ‘asar, meaning to do or make, bringing forth through “forming” (‘asar) something new “bara” – as man was the something new formed from the earth itself. And again, the act of agency is invoked, in “let us”.