We hear a lot about anger management these days. We know that anger is supposed to be a bad thing, a negative emotion. And yet, we sometimes feel angry for what seem to us to be good reasons, even after we calm down. Not only that, but in the Bible, in the Old Testament, Jehovah is often pictured as being angry. Even in the New Testament, Jesus seems to be angry sometimes, like when he cleanses the temple. So, what does the Bible teach us about anger? What is the inner meaning of these descriptions of anger and wrath?

In Genesis 31:36, we read that 'Jacob was incensed and wrangled with Laban', after Laban had given him Leah, instead of Rachel, as a wife.

In Arcana Coelestia 4164, we read that this "means the zeal of the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'being incensed' or being angry, and as a result 'wrangling', as zeal; and from the representation of 'Jacob' as the good of the natural, dealt with already. The reason why 'being incensed', or being angry, and as a result 'wrangling', means zeal is that in heaven or among angels no anger exists, but instead of anger zeal. For anger is different from zeal, in that anger contains evil but zeal contains good. Or to put it another way, a person who is filled with anger intends evil to another with whom he is angry, whereas someone who is filled with zeal intends good to another for whom he is zealous. For this reason also a person who is filled with zeal is able to be good in an instant, and in what he is actually doing to be good towards others. Not so with a person who is filled with anger. Although in outward form zeal has a similar appearance to anger, in inward form it is altogether dissimilar."Another good reference from Swedenborg's works is here, in Conjugial Love 358, an excerpt from which follows:

"Viewed in itself, zeal is, so to speak, the fire of love set ablaze. One cannot know what jealousness is unless one knows what zeal is; for jealousness is the zeal of conjugial love. Zeal is, so to speak, the fire of love set ablaze, because zeal is an expression of love, and love is spiritual warmth, which in its origin is a kind of fire.

As regards the first point, that zeal is an expression of love - this people know. When they speak of being zealous and acting from zeal they mean nothing else than an intensity of love. But because it does not appear as love when it manifests itself, but as antagonistic and hostile - being militant and combative against one who does injury to the love, therefore it may also be called the defender and protector of love."

358. 1. Viewed in itself, zeal is, so to speak, the fire of love set ablaze. One cannot know what jealousness is unless one knows what zeal is; for jealousness is the zeal of conjugial love. Zeal is, so to speak, the fire of love set ablaze, because zeal is an expression of love, and love is spiritual warmth, which in its origin is a kind of fire.

As regards the first point, that zeal is an expression of love - this people know. When they speak of being zealous and acting from zeal they mean nothing else than an intensity of love. But because it does not appear as love when it manifests itself, but as antagonistic and hostile - being militant and combative against one who does injury to the love, therefore it may also be called the defender and protector of love. For it is the nature of all love to erupt into indignation and anger, even into rage, whenever it is dislodged from its delights. So it is that if love is interfered with, especially a governing one, there results a disturbance of the mind. And if that interference does injury, it becomes a white-hot fury. It can be seen from this that zeal is not the highest degree of love, but that it is love set ablaze.

When one person's love finds a corresponding love in another, they are like two confederates; but when one person's love rises up against another's love, they become as enemies. The reason is that love is the very being of a person's life. Consequently, anyone who attacks another's love, attacks his very life; and this results in a state of white-hot fury against the attacker, like the state of anyone who encounters another trying to kill him.

Every love is capable of such fury, even the most peaceable, as is plainly evident from the behavior of hens, geese, and birds of every kind and the way they fearlessly rise up against and fly at those who injure their young or make off with their food. People know that some animals are prone to anger, and wild animals to rage, if their cubs are attacked or their prey taken from them.

Love is said to blaze like fire, because love is nothing but spiritual warmth, arising from the fire of the angelic sun, which is pure love. That love is warmth, as though from a fire, is clearly apparent from the warmth of living bodies, whose warmth is from no other source than the love in them. So, too, human beings grow warm and are set on fire in the measure that their loves are aroused.

It is apparent from this that zeal is, so to speak, the fire of love set ablaze.