Jealousy and Envy in the Bible

Three-page Theme Paper

Jealousy is an important and often wrong understood topic in Scripture and deserves a closer look to its detail. For this reason, this paper will attempt to add to and aid in the understanding of the nature of jealousy and what jealousy means, specifically, looking at the psalms and wisdom literature. To understand what each book of the Psalm and Wisdom Literature has to say about a topic like jealousy it is important to understand the root from the word "jealousy" out of the original Hebrew text. Throughout the books, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon there are 18 different verses based on two Hebrew root words, which are the feminine noun qin'ah (קִנְאָה), translated to jealousy, zeal and envy and the verb qana' (קָנָא), translated to jealous, envy, jealousy, envious and zealous. The Song of Solomon is a book which uses the expression "jealousy" in Chapter 8 verse 6 as a comparison but never as a topic in this sense.

Jealousy, popular conceived, almost always has a negative acceptation and is generally regarded as an unfavourable attribute. The Psalm and Wisdom literature uses always the synonyms "envy" and "envious" to determine unjustified jealousy. Envy, unlike jealousy, describes the emotional state of being vexed at the good fortune or qualities of another. Job 5:2 speaks about this when Eliphaz warns Job to avoid being envy. Job had in his case all rights to be envious of the healthy people surrounding him but he trusted in God and avoided the potential unjustified envy. Furthermore, The Book of Psalms illustrates unjustified jealousy and its fatal consequences. It starts in Psalm 37:1 and states to avoid being envious against the workers of iniquity. Psalm 73:3 affirms this idea and warns how easy it is to fall for this sinful attribute. A reminder for the fatal consequences is Psalm 106:16, which says how Korah and his following envied Moses and Aaron, just to end in God's fearsome judgement. Additionally, Proverbs affirms the danger of unjustified jealousy and warns to envy the life of the wicked because of their pretended luxuriousness. This message occurs throughout the verses in Proverbs 3:31, 14:30, 23:17, 24:1and 24:19 in exactly the same meaning. Proverbs 27:4 also warns from the highlighted danger of envy above the other bad attributes. The book of Ecclesiastes looks at this topic from the point of its sinful nature and its perishability. Ecclesiastes 4:4 states that envy of a neighbour is a vanity and vexation of the spirit and is confirmed by Ecclesiastes 9:6 which stress the caducity of a sinful and dangerous attribute such as unjustified envy.

However, in many passages the Psalm and Wisdom literature treats the expression "jealousy" completely otherwise. In Psalm 78:58, it even says that God is a jealous God. The question which naturally arises, therefore,

...