Now, therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them –Exodus 32:10

If we are at all familiar with the Old Testament, we know that God had given numerous laws and commands against the sin of idolatry. The first and second commands focus there with unmistakable clarity. “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything” (Deut. 5:7–8, English Standard Version). God knew the inclination of human hearts, wanting something physical, touchable, material as an object for worship. A God who is Spirit, who is invisible to the naked eye, is not satisfactory or sufficient for finite, material, sin-inclined men. The Old Testament is replete with examples of men and women falling for false gods. God warned them. God punished them in various ways. God sent prophets, both major and minor, to warn them and to steer them onto a right course. Those stiffnecked, stubborn, rebellious people would not listen. On numerous occasions, they killed the prophets. Finally, with long-suffering patience but with righteous anger, God sent the Babylonian army to send his own people into exile, forcing them to live in pagan Babylon for seventy years. In the first wave of exiles we find Daniel and his three righteous friends. In the second wave, beginning in 597 BC, we find Ezekiel and numerous others.

In the book which Ezekiel wrote, there are at least eight references to jealousy as an attribute of God. While Daniel is housed in the capital city of Babylon, Ezekiel is confined to an exile camp, along with some ten thousand others, at the Chebar Canal. Ezekiel is one of God’s outstanding prophets, a contemporary of Daniel but with different foci and messages.

Ezekiel is confronted with complaints from his fellow exiles, asserting that God was not being fair with them. Their complaints come to clearest expression in Ezekiel 18, where Ezekiel repeats one of their proverbs, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (18:2). The exiles are filing a complaint against God, claiming that he is punishing them for the sins that their fathers and grandfathers had committed. They claim to be faithful, true worshippers of Jehovah but readily admit that Ahab, Jezebel, Manasseh, and likeminded sinners were quite evil and deserved punishment. But they, poor, innocent refugees, were not guilty of significant sins, yet they were being punished. They were, relatively speaking, righteous. God, they asserted, was not fair. God was punishing children for the sins that their fathers had committed.

They did not want to be reminded that God was truly jealous. They did not want to hear again how Moses had instructed the Levites to “put your sword on your side . . . go . . . throughout the camp and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor” (Ex. 32:27). They did not want to hear again about the death toll that day, when “about three thousand men of the people fell” (Ex. 32:28). Provoking God to jealousy had consequences, serious consequences. They conveniently shut their ears. We, too, in our day, prefer not to consider such images. We prefer to think of God as a loving, forgiving, doting grandfather. We readily concede and celebrate God as Savior, but we refuse to think of him as righteous Judge. We refuse to think of God as executioner, but he is that when necessity demands it. The penalty for sin is and always has been death. God himself sometimes administers it.

The all-wise, omniscient Ruler of the universe hears their complaints and knows their hearts. True to his long-suffering character, God does not invade their camp and kill them, as he was capable. No, God takes his prophet, Ezekiel, and gives him clear, unmistakable messages: “Disaster after disaster” will come (7:5). “I will soon pour out my wrath upon you, and spend my anger against you” (7:8). “My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity” (7:9). In plain language, the punishments that have been inflicted to date are not finished. More will be coming because multiple abominations are still prevalent.

God then introduces Ezekiel to “a man” who had features of fire and gleaming metal, not unlike the pre-incarnate Christ who had been portrayed earlier in Ezekiel 1:26‑28. This same image of Christ is also portrayed in Revelation 1:12–17. This “man,” appearing to be the incarnate Christ, transports Ezekiel (in the spirit, but not in body) to the temple in Jerusalem, which is still standing. A few more years and the whole city of Jerusalem, along with the temple, will be destroyed (586 BC). But God wants his prophet to see what is still going on in the temple. If the remnant left in the Holy City had their ears open, they should have understood that Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Jerusalem and his sending tens of thousands into exile were punishments directed by God. They should have read Exodus, and they should have listened to Isaiah and to Jeremiah and a host of others. They should have repented and confessed their multiple sins, but they did not. They were, by God’s own description, a “stiff-necked people.” They were guilty. They had earned the punishment that had been meted out to them. Stubborn rebels seldom get the message right.

God transports Ezekiel first “to the entrance of the gateway to the inner court that faces north, where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy” (8:3). This “image of jealousy” is not defined in the text, but is clearly an idol of some sort which should not be there in the temple. Some commentaries suggest it could have been an Asherah, an image of a Canaanite goddess, put there by Manasseh. A dumb, carved image was replacing the glory of God. That provokes righteous jealousy.

God tells Ezekiel to turn next to the north, in the entrance beyond the altar gate where there is a second “image of jealousy” (8:5). He questions Ezekiel, “Do you see what they are doing . . . to drive me far from my sanctuary?” (8:6). Next God directs his prophet to a hole in the wall. There, “engraved on the wall was every form of creeping things and loathsome beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel” (8:10). There, standing in the dark, are seventy men of the house of Israel, all worshiping those images, claiming that God “does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land” (8:12).

The abominations continue. More evil is to be exposed. God then takes Ezekiel where they see “women weeping for Tammuz,” a fertility goddess and ruler of the underworld (8:14). Wait, there is more! In the inner court of the temple there are twenty-five men “worshiping the sun toward the east” (8:16). In fashion, this list of abominations is similar to our parade of homes, designed to promote coveting and desire. (Our homes often become idols for us.) In this tour of the temple there is a demonstration of abominations, all categorized as idolatry. All of those images provoke God to intense jealousy. God does not mince words: “I will act in wrath. My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them” (8:18).

Christians in this twenty-first century have to ask some fundamental questions: Are we guilty of idolatry? Are we setting up false gods that we secretly worship? What forms do those idols take? Are we cognizant of God’s omniscient power and presence? Are we mindful of the fact that God sees everything we do? Are we conscious of God as being jealous? Are we taking account of God’s anger against sin? Or, are we, like so many evangelical Christians, insisting that God loves everyone and just about everything? Do we put on our marquees: God loves you! (no matter what you do).

Would we be comfortable if Jonathon Edwards came to our pulpits and preached his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”? Would we be approving and accepting if the apostle Peter entered our church and preached the sermon that he delivered at Pentecost (Acts 3:12–21)? Would we fabricate an excuse to stay home if our pastor preached about God being jealous? If we were pressed, what kind of punishment would we expect our jealous God to deliver? Would God, the righteous Judge, inflict punishments comparable to those delivered by Moses at Mount Sinai?

We live in a society that is becoming increasingly secular. We live in a world progressively unwilling to obey laws. We live in ecclesiastical communities where many churches are closing their doors. We live in a culture that demonstrates minimal fear of God. Our view of God is too narrow. We need to understand the full counsel of God. One element of that is righteous jealousy.

Dr. Norman De Jong is a semi-retired minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.