For with Thee there is forgiveness, that Thou mayest be feared.

Psalm 130:4 For with Thee there is forgiveness, that Thou mayest be feared.

In the past, when I read this verse, I felt a sense of awkwardness, because forgiveness doesn't seem to match fear, when we are forgiven, we are relieved instead of afraid. People say, Fear God, because He knows everything that you do, and He will bring judgment for all you have done, and be afraid of His punishment.
In fact, immediately precedes this verse, in verse 3, it says, "If Thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?"
The writer did not write "if Thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? That Thou mayest be feared."
Instead, he put in between these 2 ideas, "For with Thee there is forgiveness".
Knowing that God knows everything we do, and that none of us can stand when He marks our iniquities, may indeed make us tremble, and it may indeed make us be afraid, but it is not the fear in verse 4 here. We would be afraid of the punishment, for the consequence of our sins; but God doesn't ultimately want that kind of fear, what He wants, is that we fear God Himself.
This fear translates to our acknowledgment of His greatness, a surrender of our hearts; and it is the result of our realisation of just how different God is to us; how differently He thinks, feels and acts; and yet we so easily fall in the trap of thinking what would God think about me based on our own pattern of thinking and feeling; we try to interpret God's character and what He wants to tell us with our finite mind.
Isaiah 55:8For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD.  9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.

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