The Heart of Anger (eBook)

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Anger and the Human Heart

The triggers that set off anger vary. But the rage that is triggered always reveals in some way what the angry person truly values and treasures. Anger rises in my heart when something I value is either threatened or taken from me. If I feel I may lose it, I become angry in anticipation of loss; if I have lost it, I am angered by actual loss. The Bible particularly highlights four kinds of treasure whose loss or threatened loss triggers anger.

1. Control

I make plans. I dream dreams. I want to be able to fulfill my dreams and accomplish my plans. I want to get somewhere quickly. I want to run my department. I want to shape my marriage the way I want it to be. I want to control my family, to be the one in charge. When you get in my way, I get angry. I am angry because you frustrate my control.

In the book of Daniel (and indeed in history) King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon is a very angry man. In Daniel 2 the king has a troubling dream. Because he is suspicious that his Department of Magic, his counselors, are pretty good at making up interpretations of dreams, he insists not only that they interpret the dream but that they first tell him what he has dreamed. That will prove they are genuine magicians! When they protested that this was unreasonably difficult, “the king was angry and very furious, and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed” (2:12). In other words, “Here I am, emperor of Babylon, the most powerful man in the world. I am in control, or supposed to be in control, of every man in my empire. But my civil servants are not competent; they say they cannot do what I command.” And so, in deep frustration at the limits of his control, he flies off the handle in an explosion of rage. He draws the sword, and in his anger he strikes, commanding that they all be killed.

In Daniel 3 Nebuchadnezzar demonstrates his awesome control by erecting a huge golden statue and commanding that all his citizens bow before it and worship this image as a demonstration of their submission to his control. But when three Jews refuse to bow to his control, “Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that” they be brought before him (3:13). When they stood before him and refused outright to do what he said, “Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury, and the expression of his face was changed” against them (3:19). His burning fury is expressed in the burning fiery furnace into which he throws them.

A rather different expression of anger triggered by a lack of control is found in the account of King David bringing the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem. He is at the heart of a day of great rejoicing (2 Sam. 6), but in the midst of this celebration, Uzzah behaves irreverently in touching the ark and is struck dead in a terrible outburst of the holiness of God. We shall consider this anger of God in part 2, but for the moment notice the anger of David: “David was angry because the Lord had broken out against Uzzah. . . . And David was afraid of the Lord that day” (6:8–9). Notice how David was both angry and afraid. He was angry, it would seem, because his control of this celebration, his happy experience of being the king in charge, had been spoiled by God’s outbreak of anger. And he was also afraid. At the heart of his anger was a love of being in control and the fear of losing that control.

Both Nebuchadnezzar and David get angry because they lose control in the present tense. In other places, the Bible shows how it is the fear of a possible future loss of control that can trigger anger.

King Saul is angry when he sees that his control of the kingdom is threatened by the young David. In 1 Samuel 15–17 we watch the Lord’s rejection of King Saul, the anointing of David, and the victory of David over Goliath. At the start of 1 Samuel 18 (vv. 1–5) we see David’s military success, and we watch Saul’s son and heir Jonathan recognizing that David, rather than Jonathan, ought to succeed Saul as king. And then, as David returns from a military victory, the women of Israel meet King Saul and sing this song:

Saul has struck down his thousands,

and David his ten thousands. (18:7)

Saul knows which way the wind is blowing. He can see that his control of his kingdom is threatened. “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?’” (1 Sam. 18:8). And why is Saul’s anger stirred? Because of the threat to his kingdom. He is losing control; he is losing his dignity as king; he is losing power. A kingdom that he believed was his to control is slipping from his grasp, and it infuriates him that he feels powerless to prevent it.

In the book that bears his name, Nehemiah returns from exile to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem (Neh. 1–3). This wall will symbolize a new identity for the people of God. Not everyone is pleased by this, for it threatens the fiefdoms of local warlords who have enjoyed considerable delegated control of the area under the power of the Persian Empire. One of these is Sanballat (2:10, 19). “Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall,” writes Nehemiah, “he was angry and greatly enraged” (4:1). Sanballat is angry because his control is threatened.

A rather different expression of anger in the face of lost control is found in the account of Jonah’s mission to Nineveh. In chapter 4 of Jonah’s prophecy, we find Jonah in what might best be described as something akin to a teenage sulk. Jonah has taken himself up a hill east of Nineveh to see what will happen to the city. When it becomes clear that the forty days have passed without the promised judgment, Jonah is furious. Only now do we finally discover what motivated Jonah’s desperate flight to Tarshish. He had always suspected that God, being slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, would indeed relent and not bring the judgment he had promised. But this was not what Jonah wanted, so he did what he could to take control. He fled so that judgment wouldn’t be preached and the opportunity for repentance never take place. But one storm and one whale later, Jonah’s hand was forced, and salvation came to the city. Yet instead of joy at repentance, there is fury at his own lack of control.

We can understand the frightened anger of a Saul or a Sanballat; even, perhaps, the sulky moodiness of a Jonah. But it’s much harder to identify with the infanticidal rage that comes centuries later in the beginnings of the New Testament. Jesus is born “in the days of Herod the king” (Matt. 2:1). Wise men come to Jerusalem and ask, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” When Herod the king hears of a new king, he is first “troubled” (2:1–3); later, when the wise men refuse to participate in his cruel trickery, and he sees that they have tricked him, he becomes “furious” and kills all the little boys in Bethlehem and its surroundings (2:16). The root of his fury, as of Saul’s anger and Sanballat’s rage, is a threat to his control.

These men demonstrate on a large scale what you and I experience on the smaller scale of our own lives. We may be angry because we have lost some control that we value, or we may be enraged because we fear we may lose that control. But whether the anger is triggered by a present loss of control or a threatened loss of control, it is the treasured control that lies at the root of our anger.

2. Possessions

Possessions are closely linked to control. When I own something, I control it; it is mine. I can do with it what I choose. The desire for possessions can lead to anger when frustrated. At the start of the terrible story of King Ahab and Naboth’s vineyard in 1 Kings 21, King Ahab eyes up Naboth’s vineyard. He wants it; he desires that it shall be his to possess. The king offers to buy it, but Naboth refuses, for it is his inheritance in the promised land. We read, “So Ahab went home, sullen and angry because Naboth the Jezreelite had said, ‘I will not give you the inheritance of my ancestors’” (21:4 NIV). In our English translations Ahab is “sullen and angry” (NIV), “vexed and sullen” (ESV), “resentful and sullen” (NRSV), or “resentful and angry” (CSB). It is clear that frustration has boiled over into a slow anger in his heart.

The drawn sword of Ahab’s sullen vexation will lead, as the story unfolds, to the most terrible murder. But the roots of the anger lie in the frustrated desire for possessions. In our experience also, the longing to own things may, when obstructed, lead to anger. At the very lowest level, even the words “it’s out of stock” can begin to make us reach for our swords in frustration: “Why is it out of stock? But I want it, and I want it NOW!”

3. Sexual Intimacy and Delight

Both men and women place a high value on sexual delight. When warning a young man against sleeping with another man’s wife, the wisdom of Proverbs says:

He who commits adultery lacks sense;

he who does it destroys himself.

He will get wounds and dishonor,

and his disgrace will not be wiped away.

For jealousy makes a man furious,

and he will not spare when he takes...