Jealous God

Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

Exodus 34:14

In Bible study this morning, we read Exodus 34:14. It’s one of those verses that tends to break apart in the middle. The first half captures most of our attention and then we pass through the second part rather quickly. After all, the first part has a familiar ring to it. We have read about the command to worship God and God alone several times. You may recall the words “you shall have no other gods before Me” from Exodus 20:3. But, what about the second half of this verse? It makes us a little uncomfortable. We gravitate toward manes of God that make us feel good. But here, God is described as “jealous”. God’s name is “Jealous”. Is that a description or a name of God that receives a lot of attention? How often do you think about the jealousy of God? I’m afraid that it is too easy to dismiss the description as an archaic Old Testament description of the God of Israel. To make matters worse, we tend to think of jealousy in our own terms. Isn’t jealousy something to be avoided? In a sermon he preached nearly one hundred fifty years ago, Charles Spurgeon alluded to this tendency. He stated, “the passion of jealousy in man is usually exercised in an evil manner, but it is not in itself necessarily sinful”. When we study Exodus, we discover that the jealousy of God is a prominent subject. God’s jealousy is intertwined within the context of gross idolatry. Over and over again, His people were warned against making a false god to replace the only true God. So, let’s ask ourselves again, should we be thinking about the jealousy of God today? Of course, our “idols” appear in different forms today, but is idolatry any less prevalent today than it was then? Is God’s name “Jealous” in 2012?