Envy is even more insidious than sinful jealousy. It is painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another, joined with a desire to enjoy the same advantage or at least have the advantage taken away from one’s rival. Jealousy says, “I want what my rival has.” Envy says, “I don’t have to have what my rival has; just don’t let him have it.” 

Christian tradition records envy as one of the seven deadly sins, along with lust, greed, pride, gluttony, wrath, and laziness. God warns us, Envy makes the bones rot (Prov 14:30b). This episode examines how King Saul’s envy of David steadily eroded the health of his soul.

Some years ago, I observed one of the mom’s overseeing a home-school soccer game. She said to the kids, “Okay kids, it doesn’t really matter who wins, so we are not going to keep score.” I knew that she had just killed the interest in the game for my two sons, if not for all the boys. Males want to win at everything they do. But we must put a biblical lens over such competitiveness. Isn’t the desire to win driven by pride—wanting to triumph OVER another? Doesn’t Scripture exhort Christians to exalt one another above ourselves, not prevail over them by beating them?

Certainly, the desire to win can be motivated by, and produce sinful pride. But I don’t think men love competition because of their pride or that wanting to win is inherently selfish. Rather, I believe men love competition because they love challenges. Adam was designed to make an impact. He was put in the garden to make a difference—to change it, to accomplish a goal—bringing out its potential. Keeping score in games is just a way of measuring how we are doing in overcoming the challenge we have accepted—defeating whatever the opposition is.

Nevertheless, there is a place where that sense of competition does become sinful rivalry, jealousy, or envy. In fact, after the fall of Adam and Eve, the first sin recorded in human history was caused by envy—Cain’s murder of Abel. Envy is an insidious moral disease. In the words of Rosaria Butterfield, “If you do not deal with envy in the infantile stage, it will devour you. It will eat you from the inside out. Envy transforms a person into a monster” (Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age). Mao Zedong, like all Marxists, appealed to class envy to motivate young devotees of his “Cultural Revolution” to violently overthrow the land and factory owners so their stolen wealth could be redistributed to the laborers. Sixty-five million Chinese were slaughtered by this appeal to class envy of the wealthy in China.

God gives us a sober warning about envy in Proverbs 3:31. Let not your heart envy sinners but continue in the fear of the Lord all the day. Asaph, the author of Psalm 73, acknowledged his struggle to obey this admonition. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. As a product of our sinful nature, envy is associated directly in the NT with strife, hatred, dissention, and malice. In our study of the life of David we see sinful jealousy arise in the heart of King Saul after David’s defeat of Goliath, an internal envy that brought destruction in its wake, as envy always does. I Samuel 18:5-16).

David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him, so that Saul set him over the men of war. And this was good in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul’s servants. As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. And the women sang to one another as they celebrated, “Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what more can he have but the kingdom?”

And Saul eyed David from that day on. The next day a harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house while David was playing the lyre, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand. And Saul hurled the spear, for he thought, “I will pin David to the wall.” But David evaded him twice. Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him but had departed from Saul. So Saul removed him from his presence and made him a commander of a thousand. And he went out and came in before the people. And David had success in all his undertakings, for the Lord was with him. And when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in fearful awe of him. But all Israel and Judah loved David, for he went out and came in before them.

We must begin this study, as we often must do, with some definitions. Jealousy can describe a virtue that is often used for God’s desire to hold first place in the affections of our heart. This is righteous hostility towards rivals. God is rightly jealous of other idols who would steal away our affections, as any husband would be hostile towards an illicit lover seeking to lure his wife away from faithfulness to him. But jealousy is also used in the sinful sense of hostility towards a rival who experiences some advantage you don’t have. This is unrighteous hostility towards rivals. It angered Saul that David received greater praise than he.

Envy is even more insidious than sinful jealousy. It is painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another, joined with a desire to enjoy the same advantage or at least have the advantage taken away from one’s rival. Jealousy says, “I want what my rival has.” Envy says, “I don’t have to have what my rival has; just don’t let him have it.” Envy is evil, ill will towards a rival. Years after the incident we are studying, the wisdom of Solomon was displayed through his recognition of envy in a woman’s heart. You remember the story:

One day two women came to King Solomon, and one of them said: Your Majesty, this woman and I live in the same house. Not long ago my baby was born at home, and three days later her baby was born. Nobody else was there with us. One night while we were all asleep, she rolled over on her baby, and he died. Then while I was still asleep, she got up and took my son out of my bed. She put him in her bed, then she put her dead baby next to me. In the morning when I got up to feed my son, I saw that he was dead. But when I looked at him in the light, I knew he wasn’t my son. “No!” the other woman shouted. “He was your son. My baby is alive!” “The dead baby is yours,” the first woman yelled. “Mine is alive!” They argued back and forth in front of Solomon, until finally he said, “Both of you say this live baby is yours. Someone bring me a sword.” A sword was brought, and Solomon ordered, “Cut the baby in half! That way each of you can have part of him.” “Please don’t kill my son,” the baby’s mother screamed. “Your Majesty, I love him very much, but give him to her. Just don’t kill him.” The other woman shouted, “Go ahead and cut him in half. Then neither of us will have the baby.” Solomon said, “Don’t kill the baby.” Then he pointed to the first woman, “She is his real mother. Give the baby to her (1 Kings 3:16-27).

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