O! beware, my lord of...
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O! beware, my lord of jealousy,
It is the green-ey'd monster
which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. -- Shakespeare
Jealousy is one of the common human emotions and one of the most unproductive. For some of the Jews, as mentioned in verse 45, this emotion flared when they observed the success of the apostles, for their zeal for tradition and faith seemed threatened. The emotion in the Hebrew parallel word for that in the Greek here speaks of "burning" or "redness" of countenance.
When we find ourselves jealous about something or some cause we care deeply about, the sad reality is that our participation in this effort has already been or is about to be supplanted by the new movement of others or a new leader. In 1 Samuel the same pitiful reaction occurs in Saul who has learned that he is to be replaced; along comes David of whom the crowds shout that he has killed his ten thousands compared to Saul's thousands. So, others intensify these painful feelings wittingly or unwittingly, which adds embarrassment to hurt. While we can rejoice at the apostles' success, it is possible also to feel sympathy for those jealous ones. As in the law of physics, every action has a separate and opposite reaction; jealousy thus hurts as it impacts another but hinders and confounds its source as well.
It is the green-ey'd monster
which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. -- Shakespeare
Jealousy is one of the common human emotions and one of the most unproductive. For some of the Jews, as mentioned in verse 45, this emotion flared when they observed the success of the apostles, for their zeal for tradition and faith seemed threatened. The emotion in the Hebrew parallel word for that in the Greek here speaks of "burning" or "redness" of countenance.
When we find ourselves jealous about something or some cause we care deeply about, the sad reality is that our participation in this effort has already been or is about to be supplanted by the new movement of others or a new leader. In 1 Samuel the same pitiful reaction occurs in Saul who has learned that he is to be replaced; along comes David of whom the crowds shout that he has killed his ten thousands compared to Saul's thousands. So, others intensify these painful feelings wittingly or unwittingly, which adds embarrassment to hurt. While we can rejoice at the apostles' success, it is possible also to feel sympathy for those jealous ones. As in the law of physics, every action has a separate and opposite reaction; jealousy thus hurts as it impacts another but hinders and confounds its source as well.
