Qanah (Zeal)

קָנָא

“Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites. Since he was as zealous (qanah) for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal.” Numbers 25:11

Strong’s number 7065. kaw-naw'; a primitive root; to be (causatively, make) zealous, i.e. (in a bad sense) jealous or envious:—(be) envy(-ious), be (move to, provoke to) jealous(-y), × very, (be) zeal(-ous).

Qanah is made up of the Hebrew letters qof, nun, alef. It is a Hebrew root that literally means to become very red, as in flushed with excitement. Zeal does not have to be interpreted as anger.  Jealousy has a negative connotation in English, but Hebraically, it can be both positive and negative. 

As Hebrew scholar Chaim BenTorah points out, in the Hebraic mindset, a man can be jealous of another man who is flirting with wife because he wants to possess her for himself, a negative expression of jealousy. But he could feel that he can give this woman the love she really desires and that to settle for the other man is taking second best. God’s qanah’ is positive; He knows that when we settle for anything but Him, we are settling for second best. He is qanah of anything that stands in the way of His giving us the best.