When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat her with his staff. Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?” Num. 22:27, 28, NIV.

When a person becomes angry, the organs of the body respond by preparing for combat. Blood pressure rises to increase the circulation and provide the muscles with the extra oxygen and energy-producing nutrients. It is a normal reaction. In healthy persons the blood pressure returns to its usual level once the anger subsides. But some people have such a sensitivity to stressful situations that the blood pressure rises to high levels frequently and tends to remain there. The condition is called hypertension (chronic high blood pressure). The high blood pressure has a destructive effect on the body’s various organs and, if it persists, may even cause death.

A number of individuals in the Old Testament could have been candidates for high blood pressure. Balaam, for example, on his way to curse the Israelites, got mad when his donkey refused to budge (Num. 22-24).

Jonah apparently had a habit of being angry. When God spared Nineveh, the prophet bemoaned the fact, and God asked him twice, “Do you have any right to be angry?” (Jonah 4:4, 9). Anyone who gets angry often is a likely candidate for hypertension.

Jacob gave vent to anger when he bargained for Rachel, the woman he loved, and found himself tricked into marrying Leah (Gen. 29:25). The way he favored Rachel’s children over Leah’s indicates his anger continued to smolder for years.

But among those who got angry in the Old Testament we find no mention of hypertension. Hypertension is a relatively modern condition. The human race has been deteriorating generation by generation ever since Adam and Eve sinned. In our generation we have only a fraction of the stamina that enabled the antediluvian people to live for hundreds of years. Therefore, we are susceptible to forms of illness unknown in Old Testament times.

What should we do about it? Realizing that hypertension comes in response to one’s sensitivity to life’s anxieties and fears, we must wait patiently on the Lord and “refrain from anger, . . . it leads only to evil” (Ps. 37:8, NIV).

When do you get angry? What could you do at such times so you could “wait patiently” on the Lord (verse 7, NIV) instead of harboring angry feelings and risking hypertension?

Used by permission of Health Ministries, North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists.