Beware of jealousy...

Whatever mission Saul sent him on, David was so successful that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. This pleased all the troops, and Saul’s officers as well. When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with timbrels and lyres. As they danced, they sang: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”

Saul was very angry; this refrain displeased him greatly. “They have credited David with tens of thousands,” he thought, “but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?” 

And from that time on Saul kept a close eye on David. 1 Samuel 18:5-9

Are you prone to jealousy? It’s an ugly sin, isn’t it? Here are a few related words suggested by the dictionary, several of which leave quite an ugly taste in your mouth…

Envy, spite, bitterness, resentment, discontent, insecurity, anxiety…

“Beware of jealousy, my Lord. It is the green-eyed monster…” So says the snake-like Iago to his boss Othello. And it’s hard to imagine a more complete self-destruction of a human being than what happens to Othello.

The word “jealousy” doesn’t appear in 1 Samuel 18:1-9, but if ever a man was jealous, surely it was King Saul.

Chosen by God to rule Israel (1 Samuel 10), he is having a hard time. The prophet Samuel has been what we might call his mentor, but things have started going sour, and King Saul – originally so strong, so Spirit-filled! – is showing signs of timidity and feebleness. God declares, “I have rejected him as king over Israel” (1 Kings 16:1), and the writer tells us, chillingly, that “the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul” (1 Samuel 16:14).

Then, to cap it all, David appears.

The shepherd boy is authorised by Saul to go head to head with the giant Philistine, Goliath, whom he overcomes more with the power of faith than the with power of arms. The whole nation breathes a massive sigh of relief. Naturally, they celebrate, with the women singing and dancing: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands”. It seems as if at that moment a poisonous flame of jealousy flares up in Saul’s heart and “from that time on Saul kept a close eye on David”. A telling phrase! Can you see him?

In a word, Saul’s life, and reign, collapses in ruins, and he becomes a pitiful shadow of the man he once was. That’s what jealousy can do to you.

In the Bible as a whole there is a good type of jealousy as well as a bad. God in fact describes himself as a “a jealous God”, by which he means a God who loves his people so intensely that he cannot stand by just watching while they are enticed away from him. In the same way a loved child will stir up jealousy in their parents’ hearts if they get sucked into destructive and damaging habits. Jealousy can be a sign of deep love.

But in general it has those unsavoury overtones. Paul’s graphic list in Galatians 5 - “the fruit of the Spirit” - includes it.

Jealousy has one characteristic which, when you think about, is really rather stupid as well as very nasty: the only harm it does is to the person who harbours it. It’s not something you talk about – it would be humiliating to admit how jealous you are of someone else (that might even give them extra pleasure!). So you nurse it alone, secretly, and the longer it goes on the more it rots your personality; you steadily become eaten-up and shrivelled. It is in fact a form of steady self-poisoning.

“That’s all very well,” you might say, “but how do you get rid of it? You can’t just shrug it off.” Well, no. But what you can do is to confront it every time it rears its ugly head, to confess it to God, and to ask for the help of the Holy Spirit to banish it. It may take time, but that will ultimately be effective. As I heard it put once: “You can’t stop the birds landing on your head, but you can stop them nesting in your hair.”

It may be helpful too to reflect upon Bible characters who exemplified a refusal to harbour jealousy.

A favourite of mine is Barnabas, whom we meet in Acts and Paul’s letters. It was he who saw the enormous potential in Paul immediately after his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus. He took him under his wing and nurtured him as a missionary partner. At first the two are introduced as “Barnabas and Saul” where it is clear that Barnabas is the “senior” partner. But that soon gives way to “Paul and Barnabas”, where the renamed Paul has obviously taken over the leadership.

Not that Barnabas was a doormat – on more than one occasion he disagreed with Paul, even to the extent of parting company with him, at least for a time: “Tempers flared, and they ended up going their separate ways” says the Message translation of Acts 16:37-41. Quite simply, he not only knew his limitations, but was humble and realistic enough not to let them eat him up.

Another tactic for getting rid of jealousy is to make a special point of being generous and warm-hearted to the person you feel jealous of, to “poison that person with extra doses of kindness”, as George Porter cleverly put it. You might be amazed what a weight gets lifted from your shoulders. And as a general rule, it can only be good to make a habit of generosity.

The story of King Saul, sadly, doesn’t end well. All right, that may not be entirely to do with jealousy. But it certainly seems as if it overwhelmed his personality and unhinged his mind.

We have been warned!

Lord God, if all I want is to give the glory to you, then how can I ever be jealous of anybody else! Please help me to make this my aim hour by hour and minute by minute. Amen.