Esau’s Anger

Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. And Esau determined in his heart, ‘The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.’

and stay with him for a few days until your brother’s anger subsides – 

May I never enter their council; may I never join their assembly. For in their anger they kill men, and on a whim they hamstring oxen.

Their anger is cursed, for it is strong, and their fury, for it is cruel! I will disperse them throughout Jacob and scatter them throughout Israel.

Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses, and he said, ‘Isn’t Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, he is on his way now to meet you. He will rejoice when he sees you.

Even the priests who come near the Lord must consecrate themselves, or the Lord will break out in anger against them.’

And the Lord replied to him, ‘Go down and come back with Aaron. But the priests and the people must not break through to come up to the Lord, or he will break out in anger against them.’

My anger will burn, and I will kill you with the sword; then your wives will be widows and your children fatherless.

Now leave me alone, so that my anger can burn against them and I can destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.’

But Moses sought the favour of the Lord his God: ‘Lord, why does your anger burn against your people you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a strong hand?

Why should the Egyptians say, “He brought them out with an evil intent to kill them in the mountains and eliminate them from the face of the earth”? Turn from your fierce anger and relent concerning this disaster planned for your people.

The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: The Lord – the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth,

Complaints about Hardship

Now the people began complaining openly before the Lord about hardship. When the Lord heard, his anger burned, and fire from the Lord blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp.

While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the Lord’s anger burned against the people, and the Lord struck them with a very severe plague.

The Lord’s anger burned against them, and he left.

The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in faithful love, forgiving iniquity and rebellion. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generation.

So Israel aligned itself with Baal of Peor, and the Lord’s anger burned against Israel.

The Lord said to Moses, ‘Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the Lord so that his burning anger may turn away from Israel.’

So the Lord’s anger burned that day, and he swore an oath:

The Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years until the whole generation that had done what was evil in the Lord’s sight was gone.

And here you, a brood of sinners, stand in your ancestors’ place adding even more to the Lord’s burning anger against Israel.

‘When you have children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, and if you act corruptly, make an idol in the form of anything, and do what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, angering him,

because they will turn your sons away from me to worship other gods. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and he will swiftly destroy you.

I fell down like the first time in the presence of the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food or drink water because of all the sin you committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and angering him.

I was afraid of the fierce anger the Lord had directed against you, because he was about to destroy you. But again the Lord listened to me on that occasion.