Does God Get Jealous

[Leon]

Does God really get Jealous, or has this message been given wrongly?

King James Version

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.


New International Version

You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.


New Living Translation

Do not make idols of any kind, whether in the shape of birds or animals or fish. You must never worship or bow down to them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not share your affection with any other god! I do not leave unpunished the sins of those who hate me, but I punish the children for the sins of their parents to the third and fourth generations. But I lavish my love on those who love me and obey my commands, even for a thousand generations.

3 versions of the bible state that God gets Jealous. You would think that emotion was not Godly. An emotion associated with man.

[jessiethecorgi]

god gets really really jealous. i was under generational curses. i was cursed in all i did. never ended up with people who had any care for me. they kept me around to have somebody to make sport out of. this is just the most common experience in being in offense to the Lord of Hosts (the living god). even your guests are a host in this phenomena. If you are not right with god you will be sequestered with the rest of your class. you can go to eygpt andf also babylon figuratively. you can be Jonah and have a tumulutous time until you finally heed and go to God.

[bluestarman1]

If we say that "God" can feel any human emotions-jealousy, anger, sadness, joy, etc.- aren't we just creating a god in our image?. And if God was even susceptible to feelings wouldn't She just be another one of us--supersized? I believe early spiritual man had to see God through their worldview. However we have access to so much more spiritual and physical knowledge. I think that we have come to realize that the Divine cannot be defined nor categorized. If we do project our frailities and shortcomings on the One its usually so we can either sleep at night or to control others.

[sparklekaz]

If we believe that God represents all the highest spiritual qualities and is the embodiment of unconditional love, then how can he feel jealousy? For me jealousy is one of the base emotions. It is something that comes when we suffer from feelings of unworthiness, low self esteem and lack of self belief. Are we saying that God feels these things!

I cannot believe this, it goes against everything that I believe God is. Yes, I believe God created us in his image. I believe he hoped that we would grow and evolve and become even more like him. Our life on earth a place where we have the opportunities to do this through life experience, observation and the ability to recognise our own short comings and rise above them.

I believe the bible can be a wonderful source of comfort and guidance. But I do not believe everything I read, I still believe the bible is man's interpretation or drawn from cultural myth and memory. God gave us the power to reason and think for ourselves. If we choose to interpret the bible in a certain way I feel that says more about us and our own inner moral compass.

I cannot blindly accept something if it goes against my own inner core beliefs about God. I mean no disrespect to the beliefs of others and only speak for myself. In my heart and soul the thought of God feeling jealous, simply does not ring true.

Love and light
Kaz

[Ishtahota]

I like to start out by studying King James in the history books. He gathered the priest together and "hosted" the writing of the version of the Bible that we have today. Petty tyrant, mass murder, and by some accounts bi-sexual, are real good qualifications for someone to oversee the writting of the Bible. Gives me real confidence. What about you?

[markings]

I think the use of jealous is a mistranslation or the original word had a different meaning then.

Looking it up in the Thesaurus I get a category 'Protective' and under it words like Protective, Wary, Watchful, Possesive, picking only the ones which could be seen as having positive connotations.

The references to punishing future generations for our sins is only natural karmic action and has nothing to do with God wanting it.

IMO "for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God" should read "for I the LORD thy God am the only God", watchful, possessive and protective of my turf. Do not stray because the consequences will be long-lasting and will be out of my hands (although the writers couldn't see that).

[usercarl]

thank you all for sharing your opinions and thoughts on this, I feel like Kaz about it and the statement of markings is just what i wanted to add before i came to read it. In my belief Gods relation to us is like that of a unconditionally loving parent, us being the children which can only be-warned but not fed experience. We get told the rules of the universe, and we carry the consequences.
Back to jealousy... when someone cant enjoy the gifts of the moment he may get afraid that his next man can get so much joy out it.
Learn to enjoy life to its fullest, praise all that is there, indulge into the abundance that surrounds you. jealousy will be so far away.. you will laugh about it. what was the question?

Follow your bliss friends, i meet you there...

[alvinw333]

God is Love. Jealously is a lower emotion, created by the negitive power, it was cdeated for us Souls to over come, to make us a better Soul. I believe the priest craft created that saying to scare us and control us to believe what it said. Once one becomes spirjtual and has a higher consciousness comansence would let you know that its not true