You’re no doubt familiar with this portion of the Ten Commandments:
You shall not make for yourself an [idol] … for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6)
When Moses had to make new tablets a few chapters later, having broken the first set in anger over the people’s worship of the golden calf, God camped even harder on the theme of jealousy:
Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. (Exodus 34:14)
After the golden-calf incident, who can blame God for being peeved? As Dr. Paul Copan puts it in the book we have been considering for the last few posts, Is God a Moral Monster?,
Israel’s idolatry was like a husband finding his wife in bed with another man — on their honeymoon! The reason God is jealous is because he binds himself to his people in a kind of spousal intimacy. (page 36)
Continuing the marriage analogy, we have this on the next page:
God is a wounded husband who continually tries to woo his people back into harmony with him.
If God’s jealousy were always of this sort, then there could be no objection. However, there comes a point where jealousy becomes abuse.
Path of the Beagle 