Emphobos means terrified or filled with fear — the prefix em (in) intensifies phobos (fear). It appears 5 times in the NT, always in contexts of supernatural encounter: angelic appearances, the transfiguration, and resurrection appearances. This is not common fear but the overwhelming dread that accompanies divine presence.
Every NT use of emphobos occurs at a moment of encounter with transcendent reality: women at the empty tomb (Luke 24:5), disciples seeing the risen Jesus (Luke 24:37, Acts 10:4), Cornelius before the angel (Acts 10:4), the disciples at the transfiguration (Luke 9:34), and the crowd at Pentecost (Acts 22:9). The pattern confirms that authentic encounter with the divine produces emphobos — a fear that is not mere terror but profound awe at the contrast between creaturely limitation and divine glory. This is the NT equivalent of yirah (fear of the LORD) — the holy trembling that marks genuine theophany. Even resurrection, the greatest good news, arrives clothed in this fear.