Exodus 20:5

20:5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, ¹  for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous ²  God, responding to ³  the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations ⁴  of those who reject me, ⁵ 

Exodus 34:14

34:14 For you must not worship ⁶  any other god, ⁷  for the Lord, whose name ⁸  is Jealous, is a jealous God.

Numbers 25:11

25:11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites, when he manifested such zeal ⁹  for my sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in my zeal. ¹⁰ 

Numbers 25:13

25:13 So it will be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of a permanent priesthood, because he has been zealous for his God, ¹¹  and has made atonement ¹²  for the Israelites.’”

Psalms 69:9

69:9 Certainly ¹³  zeal for ¹⁴  your house ¹⁵  consumes me;

I endure the insults of those who insult you. ¹⁶ 

Psalms 119:139

119:139 My zeal ¹⁷  consumes ¹⁸  me,

for my enemies forget your instructions. ¹⁹ 

John 2:17

2:17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal ²⁰  for your house will devour me.” ²¹ 

[20:5]  ¹ tn The combination of these two verbs customarily refers to the worship of pagan deities (e.g., Deut 17:3: 30:17; Jer 8:2; see J. J. Stamm and M. E. Andrew, The Ten Commandments in Recent Research [SBT], 86). The first verb is לאֹ־תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה (lo’ tishtakhaveh), now to be classified as a hishtaphel imperfect from חָוָה (khavah; BDB 1005 s.v. שׁחה), “to cause oneself to be low to the ground.” It is used of the true worship of God as well. The second verb is וְלֹא תָעָבְדֵם (vÿlo’ to’ovdem). The two could be taken as a hendiadys: “you will not prostrate yourself to serve them.” In an interesting side comment U. Cassuto (Exodus, 242) offers an explanation of the spelling of the second verb: he suggests that it was spelled with the qamets khatuf vowel to show contempt for pagan worship, as if their conduct does not even warrant a correct spelling of the word “serve.” Gesenius says that the forms like this are anomalous, but he wonders if they were pointed as if the verb was a Hophal with the meaning “you shall not allow yourself to be brought to worship them” (GKC 161 §60.b). But this is unlikely.

[20:5]  ² sn The word “jealous” is the same word often translated “zeal” or “zealous.” The word describes a passionate intensity to protect or defend something that is jeopardized. The word can also have the sense of “envy,” but in that case the object is out of bounds. God’s zeal or jealousy is to protect his people or his institutions or his honor. Yahweh’s honor is bound up with the life of his people.

[20:5]  ³ tn Verses 5 and 6 are very concise, and the word פָּקַד (paqad) is difficult to translate. Often rendered “visiting,” it might here be rendered “dealing with” in a negative sense or “punishing,” but it describes positive attention in 13:19. When used of God, it essentially means that God intervenes in the lives of people for blessing or for cursing. Some would simply translate the participle here as “punishing” the children for the sins of the fathers (cf. Lev 18:25; Isa 26:21; Jer 29:32; 36:31; Hos 1:4; Amos 3:2). That is workable, but may not say enough. The verse may indicate that those who hate Yahweh and do not keep his commandments will repeat the sins their fathers committed and suffer for them. Deut 24:16 says that individuals will die for their own sins and not their father’s sins (see also Deut 7:10 and Ezek 18). It may have more to do with patterns of sin being repeated from generation to generation; if the sin and the guilt were not fully developed in the one generation, then left unchecked they would develop and continue in the next. But it may also indicate that the effects of the sins of the fathers will be experienced in the following generations, especially in the case of Israel as a national entity (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 243). God is showing here that his ethical character is displayed in how he deals with sin and righteousness, all of which he describes as giving strong motivation for loyalty to him and for avoiding idolatry. There is a justice at work in the dealings of God that is not present in the pagan world.

[20:5]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew word for “generations” is not found in v. 5 or 6. The numbers are short for a longer expression, which is understood as part of the description of the children already mentioned (see Deut 7:9, where “generation” [דּוֹר, dor] is present and more necessary, since “children” have not been mentioned).

[20:5]  ⁵ tn This is an important qualification to the principle. The word rendered “reject” is often translated “hate” and carries with it the idea of defiantly rejecting and opposing God and his word. Such people are doomed to carry on the sins of their ancestors and bear guilt with them.

[34:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “bow down.”

[34:14]  ⁷ sn In Exod 20:3 it was “gods.”

[34:14]  ⁸ sn Here, too, the emphasis on God’s being a jealous God is repeated (see Exod 20:5). The use of “name” here is to stress that this is his nature, his character.

[25:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “he was zealous with my zeal.” The repetition of forms for “zeal” in the line stresses the passion of Phinehas. The word “zeal” means a passionate intensity to protect or preserve divine or social institutions.

[25:11]  ¹⁰ tn The word for “zeal” now occurs a third time. While some English versions translate this word here as “jealousy” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV), it carries the force of God’s passionate determination to defend his rights and what is right about the covenant and the community and parallels the “zeal” that Phinehas had just demonstrated.

[25:13]  ¹¹ tn The motif is reiterated here. Phinehas was passionately determined to maintain the rights of his God by stopping the gross sinful perversions.

[25:13]  ¹² sn The atonement that he made in this passage refers to the killing of the two obviously blatant sinners. By doing this he dispensed with any animal sacrifice, for the sinners themselves died. In Leviticus it was the life of the substitutionary animal that was taken in place of the sinners that made atonement. The point is that sin was punished by death, and so God was free to end the plague and pardon the people. God’s holiness and righteousness have always been every bit as important as God’s mercy and compassion, for without righteousness and holiness mercy and compassion mean nothing.

[69:9]  ¹³ tn Or “for.” This verse explains that the psalmist’s suffering is due to his allegiance to God.

[69:9]  ¹⁴ tn Or “devotion to.”

[69:9]  ¹⁵ sn God’s house, the temple, here represents by metonymy God himself.

[69:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the insults of those who insult you fall upon me.”

[119:139]  ¹⁷ tn or “zeal.”

[119:139]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “destroys,” in a hyperbolic sense.

[119:139]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “your words.”

[2:17]  ²⁰ tn Or “Fervent devotion to your house.”

[2:17]  ²¹ sn A quotation from Ps 69:9.