Ba'ath means to be terrified, startled, or overwhelmed with sudden fear. It describes the visceral experience of terror — the kind that seizes a person and leaves them unable to act. The word appears in both human and divine contexts: people are terrified by circumstances, and God is said to terrify through His judgments.
The verb frequently appears in wisdom and poetic literature to describe the experience of those under affliction. Job cries out that God terrifies him (Job 9:34), and the psalmist pleads not to be dismayed. In 1 Samuel 16:14, an evil spirit from the LORD terrifies Saul — a harrowing picture of divine discipline through psychological torment. Daniel is terrified by his apocalyptic visions (Daniel 8:17). The pattern across these texts is that terror often accompanies encounters with the divine or the demonic — moments when the veil between worlds thins.