Truth and Consequences
For they provoked Him with their high places and moved Him to jealousy with their carved images. Psalm 78:58 NASB
Provoked/ jealousy – Yesterday we realized that the children of Israel turned back (sûg) toward Egypt in their hearts because they could not emotionally trust God. Their feet kept going forward, around and around in the wilderness waiting, waiting, waiting to enter the Promised Land, but their hearts were still in Egypt unable to turn the trauma of slavery into a story of redemption. As Bessel van der Kolk so aptly noted, trauma froze them. They couldn’t go forward because they couldn’t integrate their past into their present. The result was emotional betrayal. They treated God treacherously. Let’s be sure we understand the implications of this English word. “Treacherous,” early 14c., from Old French trecheros, tricheros ‘deceitful’ (12c.), from trecheor, tricheor ‘cheat, deceiver, liar, impostor, trickster.’”
The historical truth was God’s redemptive act. The divine emotional truth was God’s care. But the human emotional truth was distrust, sûg, promise-breaking.
And the consequences? Measure for measure. Emotional response. God doesn’t answer with more declarations of the facts. He doesn’t provide more details, more corroboration, more testimony. He feels. Two words no Christian apologist can explain except to say that they really don’t mean what they say (see below). God is provoked and He is moved to jealousy. An emotionally intense response to emotional abandonment. The first of these words is kāʿas. In this verse, it is a Hif’il wawyiqtol (waw-consecutive + imperfect). What does that mean?
The root meaning of kāʿas is to vex, agitate, stir up, or provoke the heart to a heated condition which in turn leads to specific actions. This term, as well as the synonyms for anger and wrath (ʾap, ḥēmâ, qaṣap, and ʿebrâ; see discussion of synonyms at qāṣap) are used anthropomorphically and anthropopathically of God.[1]
So, there it is. kāʿas doesn’t really mean God was provoked. That’s just anthropopathism, a big word to tell us that when we encounter emotions in God we should remember that God doesn’t have any emotions. This is theology pretending to be Greek philosophy. This is exegesis by way of presuppositions. The Greek transcendent God can’t have emotions because emotions are temporary states and God never changes. Imagine trying to convince the children of Israel that God really doesn’t feel. Ah, so then, why Korah? Why forty years in the wilderness? For that matter, why the prophets? Why the Messiah?
But it gets worse. The next verb is qānāʾ, also a Hif’il yiqtol imperfect. To be jealous, envious, zealous. “This verb expresses a very strong emotion whereby some quality or possession of the object is desired by the subject.”[2] Coppes might not be so bold as to tell us this is also not really applicable to God, but he does say: “This verb expresses a very strong emotion whereby some quality or possession of the object is desired by the subject.”[3] Well it should. Notice Coppes’ comment about the verb in human relationships:
Because woman usurped man’s position in Eden the law was constructed to emphasize her subjection and man’s leadership (Gen 3:16). Hence, provision was made for a husband to accuse and discover suspected adultery (Num 5).[4]
Wrong on both counts. The woman did not usurp the man’s role. He abandoned it. And the test of the Sotah wasn’t a provision to assuage the man’s suspicions (see Avivah Zornberg on this in Bewilderments). Coppes continues:
God is depicted as Israel’s husband; he is a jealous God (Ex 20:5). Idolatry is spiritual adultery and merits death. Phinehas played the faithful lover by killing a man and his foreign wife, and thus stayed the wrath of divine jealousy (Num 25:11). Joshua repeated the fact that God is a jealous God who would not tolerate idolatry and the people voluntarily placed themselves under God’s suzerainty (Josh 24:19).[5]
The Bible clearly and unequivocally says that God experiences jealousy. It takes amazing theological bravado to tell us that this doesn’t really mean what it says. I don’t think you could convince Asaph nor the few million people who died in the wilderness. Don’t you think it’s about time to stop listening to theology based on Plato rather than Moses?
Oh, by the way, both verbs are Hif’il imperfects. They are action verbs. They express bringing something about. And the imperfect means it wasn’t a one-time, over-and-done event. It continued. It continues. God can still be provoked and He is still jealous.
Topical Index: provoke, kāʿas, jealousy, qānāʾ, emotions, Psalm 78:58
[1] (1999). 1016 כָעַס. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 451). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Coppes, L. J. (1999). 2038 קָנָא. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 802). Chicago: Moody Press.
[3] Coppes, L. J. (1999). 2038 קָנָא. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 802). Chicago: Moody Press.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
