“For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14).
This is the only place in Scripture where God says His name is JEALOUS. It was on the occasion when God gave Moses the second set of tablets of the Ten Commandments. The first set Moses had destroyed in his anger when he came down from Mt. Sinai, after spending 40 days with God, to receive His covenant which was “written with the finger of God” (Ex. 31:18). God had told Moses to quickly get back to his people, because they had corrupted themselves and were worshipping a molten calf they had made saying, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 32:7-8).
God was so hot, He said “Let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them, and I will consume them” (vs. 10). But Moses besought the Lord not to be so angry and to remember His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to whom He had sworn. And it worked. God relented, and Moses hurried down the mountain with the tablets in hand. He could hear singing as he neared the camp, and when he drew near, he saw the idol calf and the people dancing in sacrifice to it: “And Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands and broke them” (vs. 19). What God thought to do to them; Moses did!
When his anger had cooled, Moses agreed to mediate on the people’s behalf to make atonement for them (after 3,000 were slain by the Levites).
Jealousy is a consuming fire. In fact this is exactly what God said in Deut. 4:24: “For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.”
The Wiseman said, “Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame” (Song 8:6).
God’s jealousy was actually a protection for His people. He knew that idolatry opens the door to the demonic and those who serve Satan will not escape unharmed. He is a thief with one agenda: To steal, to kill, and to destroy men’s lives (John 10:10). The First Commandment forbid the making of, bowing down to, or worshipping any image or idol. God said, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” (Ex. 20:3). The Hebrew literally says, “No other gods in my face.”
God wants sole possession of our affections. He will not share us with other lovers. Psalm 4:3 states: “But know that the LORD hath set apart him that is godly for Himself…” He considers fraternizing with the world to be adultery against Him: “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” (James 4:4).
God will not tolerate spiritual adultery anymore than any of us who are married would. We have set apart ourselves for our spouses, and we will not have any other lovers in our faces either! Will you?
Generally, jealousy is considered to be a sin, and where humans are concerned it almost always is. But when it refers to God, it is a virtue, because God it is a facet of His intense love for us! Consider the next verse, James 4:5, that has always intrigued me: “Do you think the Scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?”
The Greek term for lusteth means an intense yearning, desire, craving for something, to the degree that would be exhibited by an addict or alcoholic. But in this case, it is the intense yearning of the Holy Spirit who indwells us to possess us entirely for Himself! He is fiercely jealous over us and resents any part of worldliness that usurps His place in our lives.
Can you imagine this? How much God loves you; loves me! And so He declares, “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; you cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and the devil’s. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?” (1 Cor. 10:21-22).
I don’t know how this makes you feel, but it makes me feel SPECIAL! Who am I that the Lord would fasten His loving arms around me and say, “You are Mine; All Mine! And I will not share you with the world!”
I don’t want to provoke God to jealousy through spiritual adultery and having a love affair with my flesh or the world, but I do want Him to be jealous over me, because I am the apple of His eye and His peculiar treasure! (Refs. Deut. 32:10, Ps. 17:8, Zech. 2:8, Ex. 19:5).
We all desire to be desired! God. Me. You. And we want to know that we will not be betrayed when we open our hearts to love and be loved. This is the sentiment found in the love story of the Song of Solomon, which is an apt picture of our love for Jesus and His love for us. The maid says, “I found the one whom my soul loveth,…and I would not let him go” (3:4). Again and again she states: “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine… And his desire is towards me” (2:16, 6:3, 7:10).
Our God loves us and He will not let us go! He said, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee” (Jer. 31:3). And what will my answer be? “Draw me, and I will run after Thee!” (Song 1:4).
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