A Complete Bible Study on the Word Awesome

Fear of God gets twisted in a lot of minds. Some people turn it into a nervous feeling. Others treat it like something from the Old Testament that the New Testament replaced. Deuteronomy 10:12-22 will not let us do either. Moses talks about fear of the LORD as a steady posture that shows up in everyday life, rooted in who God is and what He has done.

What God requires

Moses is speaking to Israel as they sit on the edge of the land. This is not their first week with God. They have already seen deliverance from Egypt, wilderness provision, the giving of the law, rebellion, discipline, and real mercy. In that setting Moses asks the question a lot of people still ask in one form or another: what does God actually require?

"And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD and His statutes which I command you today for your good? (Deuteronomy 10:12-13)

The answer is not hidden. Moses puts fear of the LORD right beside walking in His ways, loving Him, serving Him with all your heart and soul, and keeping His commands. He is not giving five unrelated tasks. He is describing one whole life aimed at God. Fear is the inner stance. Walking, loving, serving, and keeping are what that stance looks like once it leaves your mouth and hits your calendar.

Fear with action

It is easy to read the list and treat fear like one item, then rush on to the “real” commands. Moses does the opposite. He ties fear directly to everyday verbs. If someone says he fears God but his choices stay basically untouched, Deuteronomy 10 does not agree with him.

The line about keeping the commandments being for your good is also worth slowing down for. Moses is not teaching salvation by works. He is saying God is not playing a cruel game with His people. His commands are not traps. They are directions toward life. A lot of stubbornness comes from assuming God’s ways are mainly about control. Moses says they are for your good.

He owns everything

Right after God’s requirements, Moses reminds Israel who God is. He says the heavens and the earth belong to the LORD. That is not filler. It keeps fear from shrinking into a small religious corner of life. If He owns heaven and earth, there is no part of life where we get to act like He is not involved.

This also keeps fear from turning into superstition, like you are dealing with some touchy local deity. The LORD is the Creator and Owner of all. Reverence is just sanity in the presence of that reality.

Circumcise the heart

Then Moses moves from the outside to the inside. He tells Israel to circumcise the foreskin of their heart and to be stiff-necked no longer.

Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. (Deuteronomy 10:16)

Physical circumcision was the sign in Israel’s flesh. Moses says the real issue is deeper than skin. God wants inward repentance, a real cutting away of stubbornness and self-rule. The Hebrew verb behind circumcise is the ordinary word for cutting, and Moses applies it to the heart on purpose. He is saying, deal with what is under the surface, not just what people can see.

Being stiff-necked is a word picture from farm life. An ox that stiffens its neck is fighting the yoke. It braces up and refuses to be guided. Moses says Israel has been doing that with God. In plain speech: stop pushing back when God’s word pulls you in a direction you do not like.

Here is a detail a reader can miss on a first pass. Moses calls for heart change before Israel ever enters the land. He is not naive. He knows a new location and new routines will not fix an unchanged heart. If the heart stays stiff, the land will not solve it.

Who God is

Moses does not leave fear hanging in midair. He roots it in God’s character. The Bible never asks you to fear God because He is moody or unpredictable. It calls you to fear Him because He is the true God, and because He always does what is right.

In this next section Moses stacks up titles for God, then he immediately shows what those titles mean in real life.

For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. (Deuteronomy 10:17-18)

God is described as the great God, mighty and awesome. Then Moses says He shows no partiality and takes no bribe. And in the same breath he says God does justice for the fatherless and widow, and loves the stranger by giving food and clothing. Those lines are side by side on purpose. Greatness does not make God unfair. His greatness shows up as clean justice and active compassion.

No partiality

The language is courtroom language. God is the Judge you cannot buy. You cannot slip something under the table. You cannot lean on your last name, your tribe, your track record, your public image, or your religious badge. He does not grade on a curve for our kind of people.

That cuts two ways. It warns the proud, because religious talk does not bribe God. It comforts the mistreated, because the powerful do not get special access to Him either. The orphan and widow, who have the least social leverage, are not invisible to Him. The stranger, who lacks belonging and protection, is not second-class to Him.

The New Testament presses the same moral truth. God does not play favorites, and hypocrisy does not hide well when the Judge sees straight through it.

but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God. (Romans 2:10-11)

We do need to keep the gospel clear right here. A person is saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, not by works. Works are fruit, not the cause. Still, God’s impartiality means nobody gets to use religion as camouflage. A hard and unrepentant heart is not a harmless personality trait. It is a serious spiritual danger.

Justice and compassion

Moses refuses the false choice between justice and compassion. God does right in court, and He gives practical help to people in need. When Moses says the LORD loves the stranger, he does not leave love as a vague feeling. He describes love in action: food and clothing. Scripture is comfortable saying God loves in ways you can see on the ground.

Then Moses turns and commands Israel to reflect God’s heart.

Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:19)

Israel is to love the stranger because they were strangers in Egypt. That is not sentimental. It is moral memory. God tells His people to let their past suffering shape their present mercy. People who know what it is like to be powerless have no excuse to become cruel once they gain power.

Hold fast to Him

Moses also calls Israel to fear the LORD, serve Him, hold fast to Him, and take oaths in His name. The phrase hold fast is strong. It is the idea of clinging, sticking close, not letting go. It is used elsewhere for a man cleaving to his wife. Moses is calling for loyalty, not dabbling.

Taking oaths in His name can be misunderstood if we read it like casual religious speech. In that culture an oath was a serious public appeal to God as witness. Moses is saying that if you make that kind of pledge, you recognize the LORD as the true God and you accept the weight of speaking truth before Him. The God who cannot be bribed is not impressed by a mouth that throws His name around lightly.

How we respond

By this point Moses has put two things together: what God requires and who God is. Now he presses it into real response. Deuteronomy 10 does not allow admiration from a safe distance. It calls for a whole-life answer shaped by God’s character.

Moses repeats the themes, but now they land in very practical places: how you treat outsiders, how you worship, and whether you cling to the LORD when it costs you.

You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name. (Deuteronomy 10:20)

Biblical fear is not cowering like God is unpredictable. It is reverent loyalty to a holy God who always does right. That kind of fear produces repentance, love, and steady obedience.

Fear that repents

Fear shows up in repentance because it starts with truth. If God is holy, sin is not a small thing. If God is impartial, excuses will not stand. If God defends the weak, selfishness and oppression are not private sins. Real fear makes a person honest.

That is why Moses earlier commanded heart-circumcision. A person can do religious things and still keep a stiff neck. Reverent fear loosens the neck. It stops the pushback. It says, God is right, and I am not going to argue my way out of obedience.

Fear that loves

Moses ties fear and love together without apology. Some people act like fear and love are opposites. In Scripture they are not. Fear of the LORD is not a rival to love. It keeps love from becoming casual and self-centered. It turns love into loyalty.

Jesus taught the same connection. Love for Him expresses itself in obedience. Not to buy His love, but because His love has already been received.

"If you love Me, keep My commandments. (John 14:15)

Fear that remembers

Moses closes by pointing Israel back to what they have already seen. He calls the LORD their praise and their God, the One who did great and awesome things before their eyes. Then he reminds them of a historical detail that would have landed hard: their fathers went down to Egypt as seventy persons, and now the LORD has multiplied them like the stars.

He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude. (Deuteronomy 10:21-22)

That is how Moses expects fear to be taught. Not mainly by atmosphere, but by memory. God’s past actions interpret the present. Israel’s identity is not self-made. Their existence as a people is a gift built on God’s choice and God’s faithfulness across generations.

There is a quiet warning tucked in that reminder too. If God can take seventy people and make a nation, He can also hold that nation accountable. Blessing does not cancel responsibility. It increases it.

For Christians, God’s greatest saving work is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our sins. Jesus, the sinless God-man, suffered and died for us, and He rose again. Salvation is received by faith, not earned. And because the price was that high, it becomes harder and harder to treat sin like a pet you keep around for entertainment.

Scripture also speaks plainly about final judgment. God will judge the world in righteousness. Those who refuse His Son will face the lake of fire, and that judgment ends in real destruction. That is not a pretend warning, and it is not an antique doctrine. Fear of God belongs in honest faith.

My Final Thoughts

Deuteronomy 10:12-22 makes fear of the LORD plain. It is not a shaky feeling you catch during a song. It is a steady posture toward the real King: walking in His ways, loving Him, serving Him from the heart, and taking His words seriously. God cannot be bribed, God plays no favorites, and He does right by the weak and the outsider.

If you have been hiding behind religious labels, drop them. Come to God through Jesus Christ by faith with honest repentance. If you have been avoiding God because you feel unworthy, come low, but come. Then get up and live in a way that fits who He is: reverent, teachable, loyal, and careful in the ordinary places of life.