The Dread of the Jews

"There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the Lord your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath said unto you," Parsha Eikev concludes (Devarim 11). The Hebrew word that the King James Version translates as "fear," pachad, is more akin in Biblical Hebrew to "dread" or "horror" -- existential fear, rather than fear of a particular thing. Jacob refers to Hashem (Bereishit 31:53) as the "dread [or 'horror'] of Isaac," who was bound on the altar at God's command. In Job 4:12-15, Eliphaz declares, "His word came to me in stealth/My ear caught a whisper of it. In thought-filled visions of the night,/When deep sleep falls on men/Dread [pachad] and trembling came upon me,/Causing all my bones to quake with fright."