The Jealous God

I looked up the word Jealous in Concise Oxford Dictionary and it said among other things “resentful towards another; on account of known or suspected rivalry; envious. (Biblical of God) – Intolerant of unfaithfulness. From this definition we get the meaning of jealousy and the reason for jealousy. In the Bible, God is described as jealous. Let us quickly scan through these passages to see His reason for jealousy. 

The Reasons for God's Jealousy

Exodus 20:4-5: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image — any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me”

Exodus 34:13-15: “But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God)” 

Deuteronomy 4:23-24: “Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the LORD your God has forbidden you. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”

Deuteronomy 29:19-20: “and so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart’ — as though the drunkard could be included with the sober.  The LORD would not spare him; for then the anger of the LORD and His jealousy would burn against that man, and every curse that is written in this book would settle on him, and the LORD would blot out his name from under heaven.”

Deuteronomy 32:21: “They have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God; They have moved Me to anger by their foolish idols. But I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation; I will move them to anger by a foolish nation”.

Joshua 24:16: “Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods!””

Joshua 24:19-20: “Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.  If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”” 

First Kings 14:22-23: “Judah did evil in the eyes of the LORD. By the sins they committed they stirred up his jealous anger more than their fathers had done. They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree.” 

Psalms 78:58: “They provoked Him to anger with their high places, and moved Him to jealousy with their carved images”. 

Zephaniah 3:8-9 ““Therefore wait for Me,” says the LORD, “Until the day I rise up for plunder; My determination is to gather the nations to My assembly of kingdoms, to pour on them My indignation, all My fierce anger; all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of My jealousy.  For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language that they all may call on the name of the LORD, to serve Him with one accord. ””

In these passages we see God described as jealous and the reason for His jealousy given.  These reasons can be classified into two broad headings

1. Wrong worship 

Giving the honour due to God to something or someone else. This is what the Bible calls idolatry. Idolatry is the sole cause of God’s jealousy. For it gives God a position far below what He really is. God has no equal and demands to be kept in that absolute position. Idolatry reduces God to a tree, a graven image, a no nothing. In addition, idolatry reduces man – the object of God’s love, one created in His image – to a thing of lesser value than God originally intended him to be. When God created man in the Garden of Eden, He gave Him dominion over all His creation. To put it rightly, God made man His representative on earth and thus His governor over all creation. You cannot govern one who is above you. But in idolatry man makes himself less than all these; for whatever you worship is greater than you who worship it. If you worship a tree, you are saying: "I am less than this tree, so I worship it. It is my god". Indirectly you are also saying of God: "You whom I represent and whose image I am; are less than the tree". God is rightly jealous.

Wrong worship carries along with it wrong service and misplacement of loyalty. You give the glory due to God to someone or something else.

2. Hypocrisy

The second reason for God’s jealousy is Hypocrisy. Paul writing to the Corinthians in First Corinthians 10:21-22: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s Table and of the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?”  It is horrifying how many who call themselves Christians, sin in hypocrisy. They want to be fully in the world and fully in God. It is impossible. They are incompatible. Paul asked the Corinthians – What fellowship has God and Belial? What fellowship has light and darkness? When we try to serve God and Mammon we provoke the Lord to jealousy. He is a lover who loves genuinely and such love is jealous – a love that wants the loved to reciprocate the love wholly.

The Objectives of God's Jealousy

What are the objectives of God’s jealousy?  What does God aim at when He is jealous? His aims are  also two fold:

A. To instill in us faithfulness and undivided loyalty 

The Bible is replete with passages urging the Christian to give all his faithfulness, love and loyalty to God. Let us just look at a few of them.

First Samuel 7:3; “Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you return to the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths from among you, and prepare your hearts for the LORD, and serve Him only; and He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.””

Second Chronicles 15:15 “And all Judah rejoiced at the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart and sought Him with all their soul; and He was found by them, and the LORD gave them rest all around. ”

Jesus talking to the tempter emphasized it in Matthew 4:10; and Luke 16:13. 

Matthew 4:10: “Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”” 

Luke 16:13: “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”  

The first two passages in addition to talking to us that we must worship God also tells us of the blessings that we derive from worshiping Him.

B. God wants to restore us to the position of sonship. 

The first aim of God’s jealousy implies the second. When you demand faithfulness you are imposing on yourself the responsibility of rewarding faithfulness. In the entire Bible, God pleads with the Christian to be faithful to Him with the attendant promise to bless him. No one has ever trusted the Lord and come to regret it. Noah did, and walked with God, when the whole world was lost in the flood, God preserved him and his family. Abraham did, he was not only blessed but became a blessing to others. David did and is better for it. Who has ever trusted God and got worse for it?  Nobody!

So God’s jealousy is a measure of His love and His desire to bless. It is the jealousy of a Father for His child whom he loves and whom he does not want to leave to be polluted and dragged away.  It is the jealousy of a mother for the child whom she would rather put in a basket and keep afloat rather than allow him to be killed. It is the jealousy of a lover who would not allow the loved one to go away and be lost. 

God is righteously jealous because He is full of love, peculiar and has no equal. When you try to give a name that is not His, He rejects it and expects you to call Him His true name. Give Him all that is due Him and come to Him as a Father would want His child to come. All who come are blessed.