Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ZEAL, ZEALOT

The display of fervent devotion or jealousy on behalf of valued possessions (including persons) perceived to be under threat from rival claimants. Righteous zeal (Heb. qinʾâ; Gk. zḗlos) is manifested chiefly in the interest of maintaining the covenantal bond between Yahweh and Israel. The Lord himself is “a jealous God” (Exod. 20:5; Deut. 5:9; Josh. 24:19), fiercely protecting his people and demanding their exclusive loyalty. When “provoked to jealousy” by their apostasy, the Lord retaliates in judgment, typically abandoning them to oppressive foreign powers (Deut. 29:14-29; 32:16-27; 1 Kgs. 14:22-26). Ultimately, however, the Lord’s zeal for his own honor (or “holy name,” Ezek. 39:25) will incite him to rise up against Israel’s enemies in fiery wrath (Isa. 26:11-15; Ps. 79:5-13) and restore her to the Promised Land and holy city of Jerusalem (also objects of the Lord’s zeal; cf. Ezek. 36:5-7; Joel 2:18-20; Zech. 1:14-17).

In reciprocal response to Yahweh’s faithful passion, Israel is expected to be “consumed” with zeal for the Lord, his law, and his sanctuary (Ps. 69:9[MT 10]; 119:139). Classic models include Phinehas the priest, who speared to death an Israelite man and his foreign (Midianite) wife, thus staving off the devouring “jealousy” of the Lord (presumably regarding Israel’s consorting with idolaters; Num. 25:6-18), and Elijah the prophet and Jehu the king, both of whom demonstrated exceptional zeal for the Lord by brutally eradicating, through fire and sword, the worship of Baal in 9th-century Israel (1 Kgs. 19:10, 14; cf. 18:20-46; 2 Kgs. 10:16-28).

In the Second Temple era, Phinehas and Elijah are both memorialized as heroic zealots (Sir. 45:23-26; 48:1-11; 1 Macc. 2:26, 54, 58). These two figures became the prototypes for Mattathias and the Maccabean rebels against Hellenistic assimilation; like his forebears, Mattathias “burned with zeal” for the covenant (1 Macc. 2:24), prompting vicious action against both Judean quislings and Greek overlords.

In the NT, the Fourth Gospel refers to Jesus’ zeal, associating his disruptive demonstration in the temple with the psalmist’s consuming “zeal for your house” (John 2:17; Ps. 69:9[10]). The mention of Simon dubbed Zēlōtēs among the 12 apostles marks the only other link between zeal and the Jesus movement (Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13; the “Cananaean” in Matt. 10:4; Mark 3:18 probably stems from an Aramaic equivalent for “zealot”). Nothing, however, is known concerning Simon’s particular expression of zeal. Any connection with the Zealot party described by Josephus — a guerilla band of Jewish peasants who overran Jerusalem in 67-68 c.e. in opposition to Herodian and Roman rule (BJ 4.128-584) — remains speculative.

Both his letters and the book of Acts attest to Paul’s intense zeal for God and ancestral Jewish law, which spurred him to carry out violent reprisals — not against Rome or any other foreign foes, but against the followers of Jesus Messiah whom he regarded in some sense as blasphemous covenant-breakers (Gal. 1:14; Phil. 3:6; Acts 22:3). Acts also depicts other Jewish leaders as zealous attackers of the Church (Acts 5:17; 13:45; 17:5); here, however, they appear zealous (jealous) not primarily for God’s honor but for their own position which they perceive being undermined by popular Christian evangelists.

In the wake of his shattering conversion, Paul’s zeal was redirected toward promoting the Way which he had persecuted. He continued to affirm his fellow Jews’ basic “zeal for God” but insisted they become more “enlightened” concerning the righteousness which God established through faith in Christ, apart from the law (Rom. 10:1-4). Paul aimed to provoke his people to such renewed zeal by making them jealous of his salvific ministry to the Gentiles (Rom. 10:19; 11:11, 14). Alternatively, Acts stresses that Paul’s law-free gentile mission in no way compromised his affinity with Jewish believers who remained “zealous for the law” (Acts 21:20-26).

Bibliography. R. H. Bell, Provoked to Jealousy: The Origin and Purpose of the Jealousy Motif in Romans 9–11. WUNT 63 (Tübingen, 1994); R. A. Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine (1987, repr. Minneapolis, 1993); C. Seeman, “Zeal/Jealousy,” in Biblical Social Values and Their Meaning, ed. J. J. Pilch and B. J. Malina (Peabody, 1993), 185-88; N. T. Wright, “Paul, Arabia, and Elijah (Gal. 1:17),” JBL 115 (1996): 683-92.

F. Scott Spencer

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ZEAL, ZEALOT

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)