Pachad Yitzchak: The Forgotten Name of God
This phrase Pachad Yitzchak has haunted me for the better part of a decade.
As a young reader of Genesis, I was unsettled by how many pastors and scholars passed over it. Translations softened it. Commentaries sanitized it. Pachad became “awe” or “reverence”, abstract concepts made palatable for modern minds. But that reading never satisfied me. It felt like a theological betrayal. What Jacob calls upon in Genesis 31 is not abstraction. It is not poetic metaphor. It is terror.
Why would Jacob swear not by “the God of Isaac,” but by “the Fear of Isaac”? Why name fear itself as the title of God?
The answer lies in the trauma that shaped Isaac’s theology: the Akedah (Genesis 22). Jewish tradition poses a haunting memory, when Isaac lay bound on the altar and saw Abraham’s knife raised, he also looked up and saw the heavens opened and the armies of heaven above him (Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 31). His soul is said to have fled in that moment, only returning when the angel stayed Abraham’s hand.
That experience never left him. It would define his understanding of God: not merely as covenantal, but as consuming. As the One whose holiness scorches, whose commands wound, whose presence induces dread.
This is the Pachad Yitzchak not just fear that Isaac felt, but fear that belonged to him. A name. A title. A theophany.
Jesus would later say, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). But Isaac may have seen its shadow: a son bound, a substitute provided, and the heavens rent open in the presence of the Lord of war.
This is the God Jacob invokes in Genesis 31. And that invocation is far from random.
In Genesis 31:53, a striking theological contrast appears. When Jacob and Laban make a covenant, Laban invokes a host of ancestral deities:
“The God of Abraham and the god of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.”
But Jacob replies by swearing “by the Fear of his father Isaac.”
This cryptic phrase Pachad Yitzchak demands attention. What exactly was the “Fear of Isaac”? And why would Jacob invoke it in such a solemn moment?
I. Syncretism vs. Covenant: Jacob’s Subtle Theological Rebuke
Laban’s language is pluralistic and imprecise. He names multiple “gods” of the patriarchal lineage, a window into the household syncretism still present in Mesopotamian culture. His theology is tribal, ancestral, and vaguely diplomatic.
Jacob, however, responds with theological precision. He does not simply reference “the God of Isaac.” Instead, he uses a title steeped in existential dread: Pachad Yitzchak “the Terror of Isaac.”
This is more than word choice. It is a rebuttal.
Laban speaks of ancestral deities, an amalgam of cultural and family gods.
Jacob swears by the singular, terrifying, covenantal God whom his father Isaac knew personally.
In doing so, Jacob draws a line in the sand. His God is not one among many. He is the God who interrupts dreams, thunders from Sinai, and demands exclusive allegiance.
Origen once said in Homily on Exodus 5.2:
“Do not think that the people trembled without cause at Sinai. The fire, smoke, and trumpet were not signs only—they were God’s true proximity, which no flesh can bear.”
And Gregory of Nazianzus warned:
“God is a consuming fire (Deut 4:24), and not in metaphor only, but in reality for those who draw near with presumption.” (Oration 40)
II. Lexical Force of Pachad (פחד): Not Awe, but Terror
The Hebrew root פ-ח-ד (pachad) does not connote gentle awe. Its semantic range centers on dread, shaking, and the terror that drives men into caves.
Examples:
Isaiah 2:10 — “Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from before the terror (pachad) of the Lord.”
Job 13:11 — “Will not His majesty terrify you, and the dread (pachad) of Him fall upon you?”
Psalm 119:120 — “My flesh trembles for fear (pachad) of you, and I am afraid of your judgments.”
These are not meditative experiences of reverence. They describe the raw panic of encountering unfiltered holiness.
So why translate pachad as “awe”? It softens the text. It cloaks the divine in emotional abstraction. But the biblical authors meant terror. That’s what Isaac experienced. And Jacob, knowingly, calls on that God.
Conclusion: Why It Matters
Modern theology often domesticates God, rendering Him palatable to the modern mind. But Jacob reminds us that true covenant involves more than reverence. It involves the kind of holy fear that makes knees buckle and voices fall silent.
We are quick to embrace the comforting names of God. Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who provides, is applied liberally to our prayers and promises. But the same God bears another name, Pachad Yitzchak, the Terror of Isaac. This is not metaphor. It is the name of the One who makes mountains tremble, who breaks oppressors with a word, who terrifies in holiness, and who binds and tests His sons.
This Pachad is not contrary to Christ, but fulfilled in Him. The Lord Jesus is not only the gentle Shepherd but also the Man of War (Exod 15:3). He is the Rider on the white horse, whose robe is dipped in blood and whose name is called The Word of God (Rev 19:13). He speaks, and the nations fall.
Isaac knew that fear. Jacob swore by it.
And perhaps, in moments of danger, betrayal, or covenantal decision, we must learn to do the same, not only trusting in His provision but trembling rightly before His presence.
Bibliography
Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Hendrickson Publishers, 1994.
English Standard Version Bible. Crossway Bibles, 2016.
Freedman, H., and Maurice Simon, translators. Midrash Rabbah: Genesis. Soncino Press, 1939.
Gregory of Nazianzus. Theological Orations. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 7, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894, pp. 285–409.
Heine, Ronald E., translator. Origen: Homilies on Genesis and Exodus. The Catholic University of America Press, 1982.
Koehler, Ludwig, and Walter Baumgartner. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Translated by M. E. J. Richardson, Brill, 2001.
Vermes, Géza. “New Light on the Sacrifice of Isaac from 4Q225.” Journal of Jewish Studies, vol. 47, no. 1, 1996, pp. 62–6