"Wrath is cruel, and anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?"
Green-Eyed Monsters in Mythology and Religion.
- Aphrodite, Eros's mother, because she was jealous of the beautiful Psyche, asked Eros to shoot her with an arrow so that she would fall in love with someone repulsive at first sight, but Eros ended up falling in Love at First Sight with Psyche. And then Psyche's sisters persuaded her to peek at Cupid because they were jealous of her gorgeous home.
- Hera, Zeus's wife, was jealous of all of his numerous conquests. Hence why anyone that slept with or had any romantic contact with Zeus (including the ones he raped) would suffer horrible deaths at her hand. It doesn't exactly help that she's the Goddess of Marriage and Family, as well. It also doesn't help that he would shag virtually anything with legs.
- Loki's motive for murdering Baldur included envy.
- Cain couldn't stand the fact that his brother Abel's sacrifices were accepted by God and his weren't, leading him to commit the first murder. Since God accepted the blood offering his brother gave of a new lamb and rejected his crops, Cain may have just been confused and overreacted. The story doesn't really give Cain or God clear reasons for their actions. One common interpretation is that Cain gave grudgingly while Abel gave willingly.
- According to Jewish tradition, Cain had every intention to kill his brother, and since he didn’t know how he just attacked all of him until he came across a spot that could kill him.
- Many Bible stories have this as a motivator. In the Book of Genesis, Joseph's brothers are jealous over their father's favoring of him, leading them to sell him. In the First Book of Samuel, Saul realizes that David will be king instead of his own son and tries to kill him despite his loyalty to Saul. In the Second Book of Samuel, David wants Uriah's wife, so he sends Uriah to the front lines with the intent of getting him killed. All things said, the only one who can be rightly jealous is God Himself, probably because He knows everything about what's going down with what and who belongs to Him; with omniscience, it's not just fearful speculation.
- At different points, God says He is an impassioned deity, and says His name is "Impassioned", due to an inability to tolerate Jews worshiping other gods. There is a reason that the First Commandment in its various forms talks about how His followers shall "have no other gods before Me", and it even extends into the Second Commandment regarding graven images and idols.
- The Leviathan is apparently, and quite literally, considered a Green-Eyed Monster (though the eyes' color are debatablenote ). Peter Binsfeld even put the beast in his classification of demons as one of the Seven Princes of Hell, representing the sin of envy.
- The Shahnameh: Shoqad is this toward his half-brother Rostam whom he thinks Zal favors, because Zal sends Shoqad away at a young age to Kabul and generally keeps him away from the rest of the family and Iran. In reality Zal loves Shoqad, but when Shoqad was born it was foretold that he would bring about the end of Zal's legacy and a great loss to Iran. Ironically this perceived favoritism and abandonment coupled with Rostam's achievements and standing is what fuels Shoqad's deep hatred and jealousy.
