The fear of God and future judgment in Qohelet 12: 13-14 by Deborah J. Kappas.

This paper is an exegetical and theological treatment of Qohelet 12:13-14. This work is mainly a summary and revision of Chapter 4 of the presenter\u27s thesis, The fear of God and future judgment in Qohelet. The presentation will include: 1) a discussion on the fear of God in this passage, 2) a brief look at how the author may have arrived at such a strong position on the fear of God, and 3) an exploration of the relationship between Qohelet 12:13-14 and 2 Corinthians 5:10-11a. It is hoped that the suggestion of a possible link between Qohelet and the Bema Seat passage of 2 Corinthians 5 will provoke further exploration by others. Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes or Qohelet, is assumed in this paper. For further discussion of this topic see Archer\u27s article in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (1969), or the commentary on Ecclesiastes by Kaiser. Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard version, unless otherwise noted. In the writer\u27s thesis, the fear of God (yare’ and its cognates) was divided into four main categories in Hebrew Bible. They are: 1) the Emotion of Fear (e.g. Gen. 3:10); 2) Reverence/Aye/Godly Fear (e.g. Ex. 20:20); 3) Piety (e.g. Deut. 6:2); and 4) Religion/worship (e.g. 2 Kings 17:24-41). These divisions are based upon reading, personal study, and categories given in Brown-Driver-Briggs and the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. The categories sometimes overlap in a given passage