Recently checked out the passage that says “God is a jealous God” (Exod 20;5). I looked into the Hebrew (Masoretic) and the Greek (Septuagint), and both agree with the translation “Our God is a ZEALOUS (Heb: Kanna, Gk: zelotes) God”. That’s very, VERY different from “jealous”.
Discussion
16 comments
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The point is that . God is sovereign and shares that reality with no one. No usurpers will be tolerated. Satan and his legions were cast out of heaven sentenced to hell for the insult to his supremacy.
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But God is a jealous god. No other gods before Him, worship Him only
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The word you are referring to in is קַנָּא, and whereas it’s root can be translated as zealous, קַנָּא itself is used only in relation to God as far as I know and is used to say that God will not bear idolatry or the worship of other gods, hence why it is translated as jealous. The English isn’t perfect to convey the meaning in Hebrew because we think of jealousy as negative, but zealous does not capture the meaning of what is being said. This is why languages spend so much time on semantics
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Please note in it’s literary context both jealous and zealous could be used. The underlying concept is a strong earnest desire to have or possess someone or something for oneself. Only the immediate context of the scriptures would determine the act of desiring or the object desire is is sinful or God honoring. There is very detailed article on this Hebrew word in the theological wordbook of the Old Testament, coded by Strong’s concordance number 7065 and 7067
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Did you forget context or are you trying to demonstrate how word studies can produce conclusions obviously contrary to the context?
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Actually there is a misunderstanding that Aaron Miller is doing here. There is a difference between Kanna and Kana. You have confused Kana which means Jealous, Fanatical, Zealous, Rabid, and Possessive.
The Hebrew word used in (Exodus 20:5) is Kanna meaning only Jealous, not Kana which is defined as I have stated above.
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The Holy Bible say jealous
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Context ALWAYS determines meaning!
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Even in the
English language, consider the word, “bow”…depending on the context, it can mean something worn in the hair, a weapon, or to show respect! -
//I looked into the Hebrew (Masoretic) and the Greek (Septuagint), and both agree with the translation … ZEALOUS//
What do you mean by “looked into”? Hebrew and Greek are not like books you can open up and just “look into.” Rather they are languages, each with thousands of words expressing a range of billions of shades of meaning. Native-fluency speakers require 10s of thousands of hours of carefully supervised training, with many attempts and an expert carefully supervising and correcting mistakes. (This is what an ordinary child will experience while growing up.)
You seem to be assuming that you can just open a book at somehow know that all the translators who have rendered both LXX and Hebrew MT are wrong in a way so fundamental that you need to warn against their error. This is not reasonable; you should instead be conducting a study on the word to see why they render it in a way unlike what you expect. To help you on that, good lexicons explain where the different shades of meanings of the word are found, and if you diligently look up the examples they cite, you’ll find how the context affects the word. With years of constant experience you will gain the sort of ability to opine on the meaning of a word in context that you currently have for English, so long as you’re constantly being corrected like a child would be by their parents.
How much of this experience should it take? Shouldn’t it be more than “looking into” Hebrew and Greek?
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No, it says jealous
(qan·nā ). Jealous does not mean envious. It means “fiercely protective or vigilant of one’s rights or possessions.” That is reflected in his commandment not to commit idolatry as well as we should have no other gods before him. He would be sharing us with an idol. -
Do you speak hebrew?
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Do you speak Greek?
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It’s also what is meant as to where when Jews see Gentiles worshipping Yeshua, the Gentiles should make them jealous or zealous for the Lord.
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Jealous in the original..
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The first commandment proves beyond doubt that he is full of that most petty of human emotions, jealousy. Otherwise, why would an Omnipotent, Omniscient God that literally made everything warn his creations not to worship non-existent false gods?
Also, how meaningless is it for a GOD to be zealous? What possible sense does that make?
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