I Will Hedge Up Her Way

I Will Hedge Up Her Way.  Modern people often write about stress, treating it as the enemy of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. By contrast, instead of stress, per se, classical authors rather write of suffering—affliction, trial, and the Dark Night of the Soul (St. John of the Cross, 1577). But the contemporary attitude prevails over the classical understanding; if we were to be healthier, happier, and better, then we must eliminate stress from our lives.

A common tool, The Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory, which has been useful in clinical settings, helps to gauge a person’s stress in relationship to time and physical health. To the 43 categories of stressful events on the Inventory a numerical value has been assigned, based on extensive polling of counseling patients regarding life-changing events indexed against subsequent health problems. For instance, ranging from greater to lesser stressfulness, “death of spouse” charts 100 points, “divorce” racks up 73 points, “marital separation from mate” tallies 65 points. “Vacation” (13 points), “major holidays” (12 points), and “minor violations of the law such as traffic tickets, jaywalking, and disturbing the peace” (11 points) fill out the bottom of the list. By adding up the points, a stress-per-year quotient is measured against the likelihood of a stress-caused negative impact on physical health. Thus, 150 points or less means a relatively low amount of life change and low likelihood of stress-induced health breakdown, 150-300 points implies a 50% chance of a major health breakdown in the next two years, whereas 300 points or more raises the odds to about 80%.

It is true that hypertension is a predictor of poor health, therefore, go see your doctor if you are hypertensive! But, thinking more generally and abstractly, is stress really the main enemy to a person’s overall health? Could there be any benefit to health caused by increased stress? I can think of at least one biblical character whose life was greatly benefited from an increase of stress that was directly caused by God himself. Gomer’s life, not to mention her marriage, was saved by an increase of stress!

Of Gomer, God spoke, “Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths” (Hos. 2:6). God’s actions run completely contrary to our modern distaste for stress. He intentionally increased Gomer’s stress. He added frustration and disappointment. Gomer sought satisfaction, happiness, and personal expression, but she was completely wrong, evil, and engaged in deadly behaviors. God mercifully choked down her options to one: she turned around. Her way forward started by backtracking to the fork where she left the narrow way. “She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now’” (Hos. 2:7). By giving the gift of stress, God provided true life, genuine liberty, and the pursuit of real happiness.

Call His Name Jezreel

Call His Name Jezreel.  What’s in a name? Is it just a random cluster of letters, or does a name signify something more than the way it sounds? In some cultures, entire traditions exist for naming a child—after the father, after the mother, after a grandparent, after a hometown, after a saint, etc. But tradition does not seem to factor much in contemporary naming practices. 

The New York Post reported (6/13/2025) one non-traditional baby name that many readers thought was so bad that it must have been a spoof. Alas, once again, truth is stranger than fiction. A mother-to-be revealed that her daughter would be called Chernobyl Hope, unaware of the 1986 Chernobyl, Ukraine, nuclear crisis. “We just thought it just sounded nice.” Of course, readers of the story roasted (pun intended) the name, Chernobyl. “I’m sure everyone at the celebration will be radiant.” “Speak for yourself; if I were a guest at that shower and heard that name, I’d have a total meltdown.” “I guess it’s a nuclear family.” It is clear from the reactions that a name is more impactful to the entire community than just the way it sounds.

For sure, biblical names take the significance of names to a whole new level. Some names were prophetic, like Josiah, Immanuel, and John. But far more often, biblical names took the shape of a prayer, like Seth, Deborah, and Stephen. However, for three siblings in 8^th Century b.c., Israel, their names were ordained by God to be harbingers of doom. “Call his name Jezreel” (Hos. 1:4). “Call her name No Mercy (Lo-ruhamah)” (Hos. 1:6). “Call his name Not My People (Lo-ammi)” (Hos. 1:9). At every birthday party, every playground game, every school function the whole community would have to wrestle repeatedly with God’s intent for Jezreel, No Mercy, and Not My People.

In one sense, naming him Jezreel shares something in common with naming her Chernobyl, Jezreel and Chernobyl are both place names of terrible, man-made events that caused a deadly ripple extending several generations. But unlike the parents of Chernobyl, everyone knew what Jezreel meant when Hosea and Gomer named their firstborn after the place polluted by King Jehu’s bloody massacre of hundreds of people (2 Kings 10).

By naming him Jezreel (then No Mercy, then Not My People), everyone would be bothered. It was God’s design to provoke the community with these baby names since the community was unprovoked by their own sin. The babies’ names were wake-up calls to the nation. More than symbolic, their names were messages, object lessons, even parables to people who had stopped listening to the Bible.

Building a Case for Righteous Jealousy: Part Four

Building a Case for Righteous Jealousy: Part Four.  As is fitting, most of the biblical references of righteous jealousy involve God. He takes for himself the name, Jealous (Exo. 34:14). God is not only jealous, but he is always potentially jealous, infinitely passionate about what is important to him: his name, his glory, and his people. Because he is love, just, gracious, and true, then he is legitimately and properly jealous when his love, justice, grace, and truth are scorned by his covenant people. Jealousy is not a weakness; it is his virtue! Only God uses all the emotions perfectly, decently, and fully. He is never out of control (1 Cor. 14:33). 

The Lord’s jealousy is a mighty force. To those who are in fellowship with God, his jealousy is intimate. To those who are out of fellowship with God, his jealousy is chastening. To those who apostatize the faith by worshiping other gods, his jealousy is wrath. Whichever direction it takes, his jealousy is his love’s pursuit. God will never stop fighting for his own. “The Lord is … a dread warrior” (Jer. 20:11). God’s jealousy perhaps never burns hotter than in Hosea.

The jealousy of God involves each person of the Godhead. Clearly, God the Father is jealous, most particularly ignited by “the image of jealousy which provokes to jealousy” (Ezek. 8:3) (probably Baal) brought by his covenant people into the Lord’s temple. Of the many reasons listed for the Exile, it was their unrepented idolatry that warranted God’s jealousy (2 Kings 17:7-8). “And they shall know that I am the Lord—that I have spoken in my jealousy—when I spend my fury upon them” (Ezek. 5:13). Yet, the same zeal that punished them will show compassion upon them. “Look down from heaven and see, from your holy and beautiful habitation. Where are your zeal and your might? The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion are held back from me … But now, O Lord, you are our Father” (Isa 63:15; 64:8).

God the Son also has the divine attribute of jealousy/zeal. The arrival of Messiah’s government is marked by his zeal (Isa. 9:6), his deliverance is accomplished by his zeal (Isa. 26:11), his zeal returns a remnant (Isa. 37:32), he judges by his zeal (Isa. 42:13), he wraps himself in zeal as a cloak (Isa. 59:17). Zeal identifies Jesus: “And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’” (John 2:15-17).

God the Spirit also displays divine jealousy. The Spirit departs the temple as Judah allows idolatry into the temple. “Do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary?” (Ezek. 8:6). Alluding to Isaiah 26:9 and Jeremiah 31:20, James warns the church: “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the Spirit that he has made to dwell in us’?” (James 4:4-5). God’s jealousy shows his great desire for loyal relationship with his people.

Building a Case for Righteous Jealousy: Part Three

Building a Case for Righteous Jealousy: Part Three.  A lot about jealousy can and does go wrong in the human realm. Very rarely did it go well. Of the thousands of characters in the Bible, only three, and if stretched, four examples of righteous jealousy among the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve appear: Phineas, David, Elijah, and perhaps Paul (although he could be sarcastic in most references to his zeal). It is highly significant that each time a human properly and legitimately expresses righteous jealousy, some form of idolatry is nearby. But never is a human more like God than when he or she is jealous for the things, concepts, and people that God considers dear to him. “Be angry, and do not sin” (Eph. 4:26).

Phineas, the priest, was zealous/jealous as God is zealous/jealous. God said of him, “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy” (Num. 25:11). Given Israel’s short history, what was unthinkable 40 years before (worshiping the Golden Calf in God’s name), was happening again (worshiping Baal in God’s tabernacle). It was already egregious that some in Israel were joining the Moabites at their shrines for Baal worship (Num. 25:2), but Phineas’ righteous jealousy erupted when some brought Baal worship to the tent of meeting (Num. 25:6). He speared the idolaters in the sanctuary and averted a plague from the Lord which had just started and already claimed 24,000 lives (Num. 25:7-8). Pluralism elicits righteous jealousy.

In the psalms, David wrote: “Zeal for your house has consumed me” (Psa. 69:9). David’s zeal for the Lord was mocked by men, but not by God. “For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face” (Psa. 69:7). It might seem disingenuous to claim one’s own zeal for the Lord, but David’s zeal was endorsed, quoted, and applied by the disciples to Jesus when he drove out from the temple the money changers (John 2:17).

Elijah, too, demonstrated righteous jealousy. According to the word of the Lord, Elijah defeated the priests of Baal and Asherah, slaughtering them at Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:1, 40). “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts” (1 Kings 19:10, 14). Yet, because he thought he was the only prophet left, Elijah wanted to die (1 Kings 19:4). Jealousy is an intense emotion requiring great strength to use and great restraint to cease from using.

Paul spoke self-effacingly of his former zeal as one of the Pharisees. After his redemption, Paul learned that his religious passion was self-righteousness. “A zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Rom. 10:2). ”So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers” (Gal. 1:14). “As to zeal, a persecutor of the church” (Phil. 3:6). But as an apostle, thick with sarcasm, Paul spoke positively of his zeal at least once, though misunderstood by the Jews he addressed, when he said, “I am a Jew … zealous for God as all of you are this day” (Act 22:3).

Building a Case for Righteous Jealousy: Part Two

Building a Case for Righteous Jealousy: Part Two.  Jealousy, as discussed, can be legitimate or illegitimate (envy) depending upon the nature of the relationship between the subject who desires and the object desired. Even within relationships where legitimate jealousy might be proper when disloyalty occurs, abuse and deception are still possible in the human sphere. However, examples of wrongly applied jealousy do not make all forms of jealousy wrong. 

It was wise and good that Moses appointed seventy elders to help him lead Israel. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel’ … ‘I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it alone’” (Num. 11:16, 17). When two of those seventy, Eldad and Medad, began to prophesy in the camp—something which only Moses had done up to that point—Joshua assumed that Moses could, would, and should “stop them” (Num. 11:28). Joshua was indirectly jealous for Moses’ sake. But jealousy doesn’t work indirectly. “But Moses said to him, ‘Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them” (Num. 11:29). God uses whomever he wills to use.

It was recorded but not explained how Saul “sought to strike [the Gibeonites] down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah” (2 Sam. 21:2). The Gibeonites were Canaanites who tricked Joshua into making a covenant with them at the time of the Conquest (Josh. 9:3, 17), even though God repeatedly told Israel not to make any covenants with the Canaanites (Exo. 23:32; 34:12, 15). Although they operated through deceit, God still honored centuries later the covenant that the Gibeonites secured with Joshua. Saul, however, postured himself as zealous for purity in Israel (jealous and zealous are the same word in both Hebrew and Greek) and interrupted their covenant-relationship with God when he butchered the covenant-protected Gibeonites. But Saul was merely bloodthirsty. God was not fooled by Saul’s pretended zeal. Jehu also pretended zeal for the Lord to cover his bloodlust (2 Kings 10:16).

Another potential misuse of legitimate jealousy, highly prone to misapplication, was the mysterious ordeal of the “water of bitterness” (Num. 5:11-31). Although the New Testament made it clear that confession and forgiveness form the better way forward, in the Law if a wife’s adultery was suspected but not proved, then the husband could initiate a ritual which called upon God as the witness to guilt or innocence. (Humanly, it is troubling that the wife had no avenue to accuse the husband of suspected infidelity.) The priest would concoct a potion of water and dust that the wife must drink. If guilty, then she would visibly swell, and all would know in public what happened in secret. But if innocent, then she would maintain her current state of health, thus forcing the husband as well as the entire community to accept the Lord’s declaration of the wife’s innocence, case closed. Curiously, in other ancient Ordeals by Trial, the accused was assumed guilty unless she survived a highly lethal ordeal, but in the Law of Moses, the accused was assumed innocent unless God demonstrated otherwise through a normally harmless ordeal. In the Law, unproved jealousy was insufficient to break a covenant relationship. Proved jealousy (two or three witnesses) was grounds for severance.

Building a Case for Righteous Jealousy: Part One

Building a Case for Righteous Jealousy: Part One.  Jealousy, a term of very strong emotion, “as fierce as the grave” (Song of Sol. 8:6), can be legitimate or illegitimate depending upon the nature of the relationship between the subject who desires and the object of desire. For instance, the word jealous appears three times in Genesis. The Philistines were jealous of Isaac’s prosperity from the Lord (Gen. 26:14). Theirs was illegitimate jealousy (envy) because they wanted that to which someone else had a legitimate claim. They desired the fruit of the covenant without joining the covenant. Because they could not obtain that which they desired, “they stopped and filled with earth all the wells” that Isaac was using (Gen. 26:15).

The jealousy of Rachel over her sister Leah’s fertility (Gen. 30:1) was also illegitimate (envy), but the lines get blurry. Because of their father’s (Laban) treachery on the wedding night (Gen. 29:23), both sisters had married the same husband, Jacob. But Jacob—who was guilty of polygamy—was not guilty of unfairness to Rachel in the arena of conception. “Am I in the place of God?” (Gen. 30:2). Rachel’s issue was with God. Because Rachel could not obtain that which she desired (baby), she gave Jacob her servant, Bilhah, “so that she may give birth on my behalf” (vs. 3). Rachel was envious of God’s relationship with Leah, like Esau was to Jacob.

The jealousy of Joseph’s brothers over his dream of elevation was illegitimate (envy) because it was God’s decision to honor Joseph. They took out on Joseph and indirectly punished their father over something that belonged solely to God. Because they could not obtain that which they desired (honor), they sold their brother into slavery (Gen. 37:28) and conspired to lie to their father about a “fierce animal” attack by dipping Joseph’s coat in goat’s blood (vs. 33).

Outside Genesis, jealousy finds its first legitimate expression in Exodus because it operated within the context of a formalized relationship. “I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Exo. 20:5a; repeated with amplification “the Lord whose name is Jealous is a jealous God” [34:14]). God has an exclusive relationship with Israel, to which the people consented and ratified at the base of Mount Sinai (Exo. 19:8). “If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exo. 19:5-6). From within that covenant, God’s jealousy was awakened when Israel made for themselves “a carved image, or any likeness that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Exo. 20:4). Inside a covenant relationship, because the subject who desires (God) lost the agreed-upon exclusivity of the object desired (Israel), then jealousy was righteous and proper. God is jealous because he is love. Jealousy can be wrathful because love has been spurned. A covenant without loyalty stirs up legitimate jealousy in the offended party. Because God was wronged, his wrath was right. “You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exo. 20:5-6).

Everyone Who Acknowledges Me

Everyone Who Acknowledges Me.  That belief in the gospel is personal, as opposed to collective, is central to the Scriptures. Even the few times a collective response to the gospel is recorded, such as the conversion of the entire household of the Philippian jailer, the primary thrust is always personal and singular. “Then he brought them out and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ And they said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household’” (Acts 16:30-31). The once-and-done verb in verse 31, “believe” is a second-person singular command, not plural. Also, the always-and-forever promise, “you will be saved,” is second-person singular, not plural. Furthermore, the extension of the salvation promise, “you and your household,” maintains its emphasis upon the singular and personal, which is to say: in the same way that the jailer believed and was saved, so also can his entire household be saved through their individual belief in Jesus Christ as the only Savior of sinners! The gospel is public; the faith-response to the gospel is personal.

However, personal faith that “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18), is not private. It is not secret. It certainly begins in the hidden recesses of the heart, but it quickly and necessarily pours forth from the hidden heart into the public sector, usually beginning with water baptism, verbal testimony, and good works likened to “the fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22). “So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased three bears bad fruit … every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt. 7:17, 19). The scenario of a healthy tree keeping its fruit private (i.e., hidden, secret) simply doesn’t exist. Personal faith becomes public witness.

Nearly constantly, the top fear listed by modern people is public speaking. It seems that ancient people, too, feared their ability to communicate in public what was dear to their heart. Jesus spoke comforting words to his disciples who were about to enter the public arena of two-by-two ministry: “Do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Matt. 10:19-20). “It was not humiliation which early Christians dreaded, not even the cruel pain and the agony. But many of them feared that their own unskillfulness in words and defense might injure rather than commend the truth. It is the promise of God that when a man is on trial for his faith, the words will come to him” (William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew). Do not court martyrdom, since Jesus allowed, “When they persecute you in one town flee to the next” (Matt. 10:23) yet “have no fear of them” (Matt. 10:26). “So, everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 10:32-33). When the heart is healed, then the mouth will open.