When a lion roars, every animal in the forest freezes. Even the ones who have never been hunted. Even the ones too far away to be prey. The sound itself is the message: there is something here that can end you. Amos understood this when he wrote, "The lion has roared, who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken, who can but prophesy?" (Amos 3:8).
Aggadat Bereshit uses this image to talk about Israel's stubbornness — and not entirely as a criticism. When God offered to send an angel to lead them through the desert instead of going Himself, Moses refused. "You send an angel to all these nations, but not to us?" (Exodus 33:2-3). The rabbis read this refusal as boldness born from relationship. The nations trembled at the lion's roar and took what they could get. Israel argued for more. And God, according to the midrash, loved them for it.
The wicked fear the roar too — they cannot help it. Even those who have decided God cannot touch them feel the reverberation when the heavens thunder. But fear without relationship changes nothing. The rabbis make a distinction between the fear that paralyzes and the fear that transforms. The nations freeze. Israel argues. And arguing with God, in the rabbinic tradition, is itself a form of reverence — because it assumes the conversation is real.