“You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, ⁶but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

Exodus 20:5-6 (ESV)

Many people struggle to embrace “jealousy” as an aspect of God’s character. Once again J.I. Packer sheds some helpful light on understanding God.

“God’s jealousy is not a compound of frustration, envy and spite, as human jealousy so often is, but appears instead as a (literally) praiseworthy zeal to preserve something supremely precious.”

Jealousy can be “zeal to protect a love relationship or to avenge it when broken. This jealousy also operates in the sphere of sex; there, however, it appears not as the blind reaction of wounded pride but as the fruit of marital affection . . . . This sort of jealousy is a positive virtue, for it shows a grasp of the true meaning of the husband-wife relationship, together with a proper zeal to keep it intact.”

“God’s jealousy over his people . . . . presupposes his covenant love; and this love is no transitory affection, accidental and aimless, but is the expression of a sovereign purpose.”

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 170-172.

Far from being offensive, God’s jealousy is a fundamental expression of His sovereign love for us and His desire to keep our covenant relationship intact.