Jealous/Zealous

Jealousy of God

The doctrine that God is a jealous God comes from the Old Testament books of the law of Moses. The "jealousy" is always in the context of idol worship, beginning in the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20.

• "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, (Exodus 20:5)
• for you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God-- (Exodus 34:14)
• "For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. (Deuteronomy 4:24)
• 'You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, (Deuteronomy 5:9)
• for the LORD your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the LORD your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off, the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 6:15)

What these five verses have in common is that they all share the same Hebrew adjective, qannâ' (Strong's H7067),⁵ translated with the English word "jealous." The interesting thing about this word is that it is only used in reference to God. In no instance is the word qannâ' used to describe human jealousy. The reason that God is "jealous" is because He wants people to choose to love Him.⁶ Jesus said that the most important commandment was to love God.⁷ God does not want us to waste out time worshipping pretend gods that do not exist.⁸

Human jealousy

Whereas God's "jealousy" is primarily restricted to a jealousy over the worship of idols that competes with His love to prevent a dedicated relationship with Him, jealousy between people takes on quite a number of forms. Two different Hebrew words are used to describe human jealousy. The Hebrew verb qânâ' (Strong's H7065)⁹ refers to a passionate jealousy or envy.¹⁰ The Hebrew noun qin'âh (Strong's H7068)¹¹ takes on a wide range of meanings from sexual passion (or jealousy) to a zeal for God to anger or envy.¹² The exact meaning (and the English translation is usually determined from the context.

Human vs. godly jealousy

The differences between the words describing human vs. godly jealousy are profound. For example, the jealousy that keeps one out of heaven is defined as "an envious and contentious rivalry, jealousy" (Thayer's Greek Dictionary). God does not envy an human being or anything that any human being possesses. God has no rivals. The apostle Paul indicates that there is a godly form of jealousy.¹³ The main reason why atheists think that God should not be jealous is that, as an English word, "jealousy" has virtually universal negative connotations. In the original languages in which the Bible is written, Hebrew and Greek, the words translated as "jealousy" in English do not always have negative connotations. In fact, the Greek word often translated "jealous" is zēlos, from which we get the English word "zealous," referring more to zeal and ardor rather than jealousy.

Conclusion

Jealousy is often thought of as being a negative trait. So, many people think that the Bible's description of God as jealous means that He must be a divine hypocrite. However, this page has shown that in the original languages in which the Bible is written, the words do not have those negative definitions. Since the word used to describe the jealousy of God is not even the same word used to describe human jealousy, it is clear that the apparent contradiction is just a result of an inability of the translated language (English) to accurately reflect the original language (Hebrew). There is no slight on the character of God in the original language.

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Related Pages

God's Jealousy in the Bible

2.1. In creation

The very first four words of the bible clearly establish its focus:

In the beginning, God [...]

— Genesis 1:1

Although the bible has lots to say about people and the human condition, it is first and last a book about God himself.

2.2. In the Law

The first of the familiar ten commandments is God's demand to be first in the hearts of his people:

God spoke all these words: ``I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God.''

 Exodus 20:1-5

2.3. In the Kings

The history of Israel and Judah (the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah) is full of episodes in which God's people turn away from him - sometimes to follow other gods, sometimes just because they are comfortable and self-satisfied. Each time we see God call them back to himself through a prophet, often in dramatic circumstances.
In 1 Kings 18, the prophet Elijah spells out the issue with devastating clarity:

Elijah went before the people and said, ``How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.''

— 1 Kings 18:21

The point here is that the Israelites at the time of this story had not completely deserted God. They still worshipped him, but they also worshipped Baal. That half-commitment was not good enough for God, who demanded all or nothing - just as later God's message to the Laodicean church was ``Because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold- I am about to spit you out of my mouth.'' (Revelation 3:16)

2.4. In the Psalms

The Psalms are about many things, but the main recurring theme is a awe of and desire for God himself:

I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
[...]
You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

— Psalm 16:8, 11

No wonder God calls David, the author of this Psalm, ``a man after my own heart'' (Acts 13:22, after 1 Samuel 13:14)

2.5. In the Prophets

This kind of message is not uncommon in the prophets:

This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Before your eyes and in your days I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in this place. When you tell these people all this and they ask you, ``Why has the LORD decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against the LORD our God?'' then say to them, ``It is because your fathers forsook me,'' declares the LORD, ``and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook me.''

— Jeremiah 16:9-11

2.6. In the Gospels

We've already listed some of the  claims Jesus made about himself, and how he was quite unashamed about drawing attention and even worship to himself. This example is one of the clearest:

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ``If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.''

— John 7:37-39

Again, notice that while Jesus said lots of things about lots of subjects (money, military service, divorce, morality), the heart of his message is always himself.

2.7. In the Letters

Consider Paul's classic confession:

I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ

— Philippians 3:8

This from someone who's done more to serve Christ than pretty much anyone else we can think of: ``Beaten with rods [...] stoned [...] three times shipwrecked [...] laboured and toiled and often gone without sleep'' (2 Corinthians 11:25-27). All of that he considers worthless compared with the simple thing that is knowing Christ. In other words, his relationship with God is more important to him than what he does as a result of it.

2.8. In Revelation

This from the letter to Ephesus, one of the seven letters to churches from the early chapters of the book of Revelation:

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. [...] You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

— Revelation 2:2-5

No amount of hard work - even if it's genuinely done ``for God's name'' - is an acceptable substitute for God himself being central. As soon as we allow the church to become more important to us than he is, we're off the path. The threat is a very serious one: by ``remove your lampstand from its place'', God seems to be threatening that he will close the church down. Why? Because if he is not at the centre of it, then it's not really a church anyway.

2.9. At the end of the world

And so we come to the end of the bible.

[The angel] carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. [...] I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.

— Revelation 21:10, 22-23

And in the very last chapter of the bible:

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

— Revelation 22:13

3. ConclusionIs God just an ego-maniac? Does he need our attention? Hardly.

He knows two things that we find hard to see and constantly forget even after we've seen them. First of all, he is central - he just is! It's just true! So God's wanting us to make him central in our lives is nothing more than requiring that our lives reflect absolute truth. Second, God knows that the best possible thing for us is to be absolutely taken up and obsessed with him. He knows that he's the ultimate source of all our joy and comfort, and wants us to come to the source.

4. Application

There is a hard question for us to ask ourselves at this point. We are all aware that, despite all the good things about our lives they are not as they should be. Could it be that God is not blessing us as we'd wish because our affection is fixed elsewhere? On sport or some other recreation? On our jobs or our families? Or even on the church? Are we like the Israelites in Elijah's time trying to divide our worship between two gods? Or like the Ephesian church that seems to be doing everything right but has lost its first love? If it's true, then the remedy is simple: ``Repent and do the things you did at first'' (Revelation 2:5)


and never forget  Exodus 34:14  -- our God is a jealous God! Longing for you with a zealous longing!

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