Essay on Outline for the contrast of “Exodus 20”- King James Version and “Sinners in the hand of an Angry God” Jonathan Edwards

God was traditionally perceived as a super being, who has the great power and who rules the world and afterlife. However, some authors, including King James, extrapolate human characteristics on God making Him jealous and authoritarian, while others, like Edward, depict God as terrorizing disobedient people by hell.

King James depicts God as commanding and jealous, who wants to be the only God of Israeli people. In such a way, God attempts to demonstrate his power and to make people obeying Him through respect and devotedness to God. In contrast, Edward depicts God as frightening violent and wrathful, who threatens disobedient people by a fiery pit of hell.

Therefore, God uses different means to reach His main goal to draw people under His command and turn them to Christian faith through commanding and jealousy showing them the care of His devoted followers, as King James depicts God, and through terrorizing and threatening infidel by horrors of hell, as Edward depicts it.

King James chooses the commanding to make Exodus 20 more persuading and to show that God is powerful and He is concerned with interests of His people. At the same time, God makes orders to people expecting immediate disobedience and rejecting any attempt of disobedience. For instance, God orders people: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus, 20:3), or “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven marriage” (Exodus, 20:4). In such a way, the tone of Exodus is commanding implying that the author admits no criticism or attempts of disobedience to the orders because the orders come from God directly. The author admits no arguments in the course of the text but the entire text is just a list of orders and commands from the part of God. In such a way, the author appeals to the authority to God that makes the tone of his text even more commanding.

At the same time, through the commanding tone the author reveals God as jealous and highly concerned about the obedience of people to His laws. To put it more precisely God issues His orders and expects Israelites to follow His orders strictly. Moreover, God wants to be the only God for Israeli people, while He views as betrayal any manifestation of honoring other gods. In such a way, King James contributed to the promotion of the idea of monotheism.

In fact, God in King James’ text turns out to be extremely jeoulous to the extent that He orders directly to Israeli people to obey and respect no other god but Him: “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me” (Exodus, 20:5). In such a way, God is powerful and jealous and he expects the devotedness of Israeli people to Him. God is very anxious about those Israelites, who respect other Gods. To turn people to Him, God sets the rules and promises protection and care for devotedness and faith, while Israelites, who respect other gods, violate His laws that is not just an offense of God but also other Israelites and the faith, which they follow.

As a result, God turns out to be the only God of people of Israel. King James depicts God as jealous and concerned about Israeli people. He wants to be the only God of Israeli people and provides them with laws, which define their life strictly and one of the major law is to obey to God and God is the only one.

At the same time, God promises rewards for such obedience through protection and care about Israel and Israelites. In this regard, the author shows that God views Israeli people as His children: “Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven” (Exodus, 20:22). In such a way, the author implies that God reveals Himself to the prophet, to Moses, to prove that God does exist and His powerful enough to protect His people.

In contrast to King James, whose tone is commanding, the tone of Edward’s text is scary and freighting. The author threatens to his audience opening horrible prospects of their afterlife in case of disobedience to God or failure to meet the laws established by God. The author is very concerned with grasping the attention of the audience and paralyzing leaders with fear. He draws numerous examples from the Bible to show that his threats are real and they will come true, if they disobey to God.

For instance, on analyzing the verse Their foot shall slide in due time (Deuteronomy 32:35) Edward points out that in “this verse is threatened the vengeance of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, who were God’s visible people, and who lived under the means of grace (Edward, 1). In such a way, Edward refers to God to show that his threatening tone is justified by actual facts from the Bible and God is the highest authority to prove the righteousness of the author. In fact, the author refers to the verse that contains vengeance of God intentionally to show that the disobedience will lead to the punishment of unfaithful believers. In this regard, such threatening tone is quite different from commanding tone of King James. To put it more precisely, King James appeals to the authority of God to make his commanding tone more persuading, whereas Edward refers to the authority of God to threaten the audience.

No wonder, God depicted by Edward turns out to be wrathful, violent, and hostile. The hostility of God derives from the tone of the author. At the same time, the author refers to quotes from the Bible to prove his position and righteousness. As a result, the frightening tone of his text makes God hostile and violent. The author makes God capable to severe punishment in case of disobedience or disrespect to God and His laws.

In this regard, the author warns about possible punishment for disobedience. Edward argues that disobedient believers were always exposed to sudden unexpected destruction. As he that walks in slippery places is every moment liable to fall, he cannot foresee one moment whether he shall stand or fall the next, and when he does fall, he falls at once without warning: which is also expressed in Psalm 73: 18-19: Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation as in a moment!” (Edward, 2). In such a way, the author attempts to show that God can punish believers, who cannot observe laws of God. Therefore, readers can hardly avoid of being frightened by the violent God, who is hostile in relation to those, who violate His laws.

As a result, Edward opens the prospect of throw disobedient believers in a fiery pit of hell. In fact, the threat of going to hell is the major threat that make believers particularly concerned and afraid of disobeying to the laws of God. They understand that, if they fail to threaten to the will and laws of God, they will go to hell and spend their afterlife there. Naturally, believers grow more and more afraid of such a prospect and tend to obey God because of the frightening tone of God.

In such a way, Edward uses the threat of hell for all wicked men, who are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They do not only justly deserve to be coast down thither, but the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them, and stands against them (Edward, 8). Therefore, the author makes a warning that their disobedience leads to the punishment. Such a close relationships and cause-effect connection between disobedience, on the one hand, and punishment, on the other, is supposed to enhance the faith and obedience of believers to the laws set by God and postulated in the Bible.

Thus, the tone of the two texts discussed above is quite different. On the one hand, King James’ tone is commanding. He shows God as if He is a powerful ruler, who issues orders and people have to obey Him. In contrast, Edward’s tone frightens the audience and attempts to persuade people to turn to Christianity through the threat of going to hell in the afterlife.

The character of God proves to be quite diverse in both texts. To put it more precisely, King James depicts God as jealous, who is concerned with His people. Edward depicts God as hostile and wrathful. In such a way, Edward makes God quite different from God depicted by King James

As a result, King James shows that God is the only God of Israeli people, who takes care of His people and protect them but on the condition of respect and devotedness to God from the part of Israelites. In contrast, Edward opens the perspective of going to hell in case of disobedience to a powerful but hostile God.