“Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow in worship to them, and do no serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The theme of a jealous spouse is a fairly common one in our stories, and it is a uniformly negative picture. That is, the jealous spouse is always the villain. Here in the second of the foundational commands God gives the people for what it looks like to live in a covenant relationship with Him, though, we find God describing Himself as jealous. He wants us all to Himself, and doesn’t want us putting anyone or anything ahead of Him. Let’s talk about why this is, what idolatry is, and why it’s a good thing that God is jealous for us.

Perhaps the first thing I should do is to clarify the difference between envy and jealousy as the two are often used interchangeably. I’m certain I’ve been guilty of that in past writings. While there is some thematic overlap between the two, though, they are not the same. Envy is wanting what someone else has or for them to not have it anymore. Jealousy is wanting to keep what you have all to yourself. You can be envious of something or someone else, but you are jealous for them. Even Google doesn’t quite understand this. When I typed in that last part, it flagged “for” as needing to be corrected to “of.” Understanding this distinction helps us to be a lot more precise with our thinking. It also helps to explain why envy is a pretty uniformly negative emotion while jealousy is not wholly without merit.

The second command God gave the people to help them understand what the boundaries of their relationship with Him looked like was that they were not to make any idols for themselves. Now, we could spend a whole lot of time talking about idolatry itself, and we are going to define it to make sure we’re on the same page, but I think it will be more helpful to unpack what else God says here rather than giving the command itself all of our attention.

An idol, technically defined, is an image of some sort that serves as the representation of a deity, for purposes of worship. Idolatry, then, is the act of worshiping this image. Idols were all over the ancient world. They are still pretty common today, although their exact form depends on the cultural context you are in at the moment. Idols often take the physical form of a statue of some kind, but they are not exclusively that. An idol could be a place or a person or even simply an idea. Because the gods did not consort with common mortals, and because we are an incurably religious people with a deeply embedded need to worship something or someone, idols were an easy fix for this tension. The idol was not often understood to be the god himself, but rather the physical representation of the god. You could worship the idol and be worshiping the god.

The reason God made such a big deal about idolatry is many-fold. Some of the most notable reasons, though, are that God does not have a physical form like all the other gods were thought to possess. Yes, He took on human flesh in Jesus, but He didn’t have any kind of an attractive form that would tempt us to worship only His image. Because of this, to have an idol of some kind meant the people were worshiping someone or something other than God which is a rather blatant violation of the first commandment.

The other major reason God didn’t want Israel to have idols was because they belonged to Him. They were to be His people and He was going to be their God. This relationship was going to be closer than any kind of a relationship they had ever before imagined having with a god. It was going to be more like a marriage than anything else. If the people made an idol of some kind like all the people around them had, they were going to be tempted rather sorely to worship something other than Him. In practical terms, that meant this other thing was going to become their primary god. Well, just like a husband running around on his wife is wrong at every level, so would Israel’s flirting with other gods be. God wanted to have them all to Himself. He wasn’t going to be satisfied with anything less.

After describing Himself as a jealous husband, though, He lays out for the people what some of the consequences of their idolatry might be. Most notably, He says that He will bring “the consequences of the father’s iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me.” That sounds really harsh to our ears. It sounds vindictive. It sounds like God is basically saying, if you put me second, I’m going to throw a cosmic tantrum and punish you for it. Yet that is not at all what He is saying here.

Look at this closely with me. First, we have to be sure we are not associating emotions with the word “hate” here at the end of v. 5. Moses used hate in a more volitional sense than an emotional one. Love and hate throughout the Old Testament are often about our acceptance or rejection of someone else than how we feel about them. Now, perhaps it is our feelings that lead to the acceptance or rejection, but our choosing or rejecting is what is really in view. In other words, when we make an idol or some sort for ourselves, we are rejecting God as Lord and giving our devotion to this other thing instead.

Second, and more to the point, how many generations does a person typically see over the course of his life? Well, if you have grandkids, then three. Yours, your children’s, and your childrens’ children’s. If you get lucky enough to enjoy great-grandkids, you’ll see four. So, what God is saying here is not that He’s going to go all unhinged on people who make idols, but rather that they will have to live with the consequences of their decision to worship something other than God only as long as they live and are making that decision. And because sin is never a solo-harm affair, there is a good chance that their kids and grandkids are going to continue paying for their sin. If they stick with that idolatry, they will pay all the way up to the moment that they die. Then they will be free from it and can chart their own course through life.

Yet before we go imagining that this is somehow unfair of God to hold us accountable for our sin as long as we are alive and choosing it, look at the contrast between God’s reaction to the unfaithful and the faithful. This is where His character really starts to shine. When someone is unfaithful, they’ll pay for it (and their family too) only as long as they live. But how long will the benefits of faithfulness be enjoyed? A thousand generations. Three to four versus a thousand. There’s not even a comparison there. He might as well have said that His faithfulness to those who are faithful will last forever. Actually, that basically is what He is saying. When we choose God and demonstrate our choosing by keeping His commands, but living within the boundaries of a relationship with Him, His faithful love for us will not end. Our family will continue benefiting from it through more generations than we can even count. Don’t believe me? Try this on for size: People today are still receiving the benefit of God’s faithful love to Abraham. Out of that faithful love came Jesus. I rest my case.

So then, God wants us to not put anything in between us and Him that could serve as a temptation to worship something other than Him. For Israel, this was primarily about not participating in the pagan worship practices of the people around them. That obviously doesn’t apply to us quite like it did to them, and this command wasn’t directly for us anyway. But Jesus made clear that if we are not willing to choose Him over anything or anyone else, we can’t follow Him, so the idea here is definitely one we still need to honor in our own lives. And, when we get this right, the blessings that come from it will extend beyond what our imaginations can begin to fathom.

But is it really a good thing that God is jealous for us like this? We’re constantly told today that possessiveness in a relationship isn’t a good thing. If you love something, you are supposed to let it go. Well, while that idea might work if you happen to have adopted a wild animal as a temporary pet, with people things change a bit. I love my wife with a jealous love. She is mine and I don’t want to share her with anyone else. If I see something that is starting to draw her heart away from me, and I’m going to do everything I can to put a stop to that. I’m jealous for her.

That’s how God’s jealous love is often imagined. Let me offer up a slightly different illustration here, but one that runs along the same lines. I love my kids. Because of that, I don’t want them getting taken in by people or ideas that I know don’t have their best interests at heart and will separate them from me. I’m jealous for them. This is not because I want to be selfish for them, but precisely because I want the best for them. And at some point, yes, I’m going to let them go in a sense, so that they can pursue the path God has for them. But in another sense, they’re mine for life. I will always be their dad, and that won’t ever change.

A long time ago I started training them in this. I told them what to say if anybody ever asks if their dad loves them. “Oh yeah!” is the answer. Every now and then, I’ll ask them the question just to remind them. And now, I don’t even have to ask the whole question. I’ll say, “What do you say if somebody asks?” They’ll grin just a bit and say, “Oh yeah!” Now, is anybody ever really going to ask them this? Probably not. But they know it now.

God’s jealous love for us is a little like this. He wants the absolute best for us. What’s more, because He’s God, He knows what is the absolute best for us. He wants us to be His forever. He will always be our heavenly Father, and that won’t ever change. Part of His sending Jesus to die for us and then be raised from the dead to bring us eternal life was so that He could show us just how much He loves us; so that we would know whenever anybody asks that “oh yeah, my Father loves me.”

His telling us to not put anything in between us and Him that might draw away our affections for Him isn’t controlling or cramping our style or overly possessive of Him. It is a sincere expression of His love. He knows those other things won’t help us, don’t love us, and will only hurt us. If we start to drift in that direction, He’s going to do everything He can to alert us to the danger we are in, in order that we will stop and come back to where we really are loved. This “everything He can” will not preclude His allowing us to be hurt a bit by whatever this other thing is so that we can experience and know how bad it is for us. He doesn’t want that, obviously, but His jealous love for us is great enough to make it worthwhile.

Here’s the point and then we’re finally done: God loves you. A lot. He wants your affections directed only to Him. All your other affections are to be filtered through the lens of that primary affection. When you do this, eternal life will be the reward, and there’s no life to be found anywhere else. In Christ He has made this love as plain as it can be. All you have to do is put your faith in Jesus as Lord, accept what He did on the cross on your behalf, and you can have it. I hope that today you will.