Questions and Answers
What is God's anger like?
The verse in Numbers and Jeremiah do not teach some general truth that 'God's anger is fierce and endures long."
- In Jeremiah, in RESPONSE to Judah's great sin, God's anger is kindled (which itself, implies that it is slow to occur) and will "burn forever." I view this as a hyperbole (like "walking a thousand miles"). Put simply, God's anger against Judah would endure long.
- In Numbers 32, God's anger burned against Israel because of their sin and he made them wander in the desert 40 years.
- In Numbers 25, we read that God had Moses slay those who sought to contaminate the Jews with pagan ideals in order that his fierce anger may turn away from Israel. Since there is no contradiction between a fierce anger, and an anger slow to rise, this is an irrelevant verse. So let's focus on duration. Above, we saw that God's anger lasted long (in human terms) in SPECIFIC cases as the RESULT of sinful behavior.
- In Psalm 103, we simply note that God is slow to anger. Let's keep in mind that we have now entered the territory of another genre - poetry. As such, it's going to be hard to make an unequivocal contradiction.
- In Psalm 30:5, it appears as if David is speaking from his personal experience with God in saying that God's anger lasts only a moment. And what is a 'moment' in poetical terms anyway? What is revealed is a God who is slow to anger, quick to forgive, yet who can indeed demonstrate a fierce anger when provoked by great or ubiquitous sin. I see no obvious contradiction here.
- Numbers 32:13 - The LORD's anger burned against Israel until the whole generation was gone
- Numbers 25:4 - Take all the leaders of these people, kill them
- Jeremiah 17:4 - You have kindled my anger, and it will burn forever
