This command alone should make us pause before concluding that God simply “hated” Esau. If God commanded Israel not to “abhor” an Edomite, what is the difference if we substitute the word “abhor” with “hate”? The words are practically synonymous. The result is that God is commanding Israel not to hate their brother (Edom). If this is true, how could God do any different? Indeed, it is this command to Israel that shows God’s love for Esau.

Introduction

This essay is the first of a two-part series on the practical consequences of misreading the phrase, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” The two should be read together so that my argument is not misunderstood. My concern here is not to deny God’s sovereignty in predestination, nor to resolve the final state of Esau himself. Rather, I am concerned with the way this phrase can shape the theological imagination and subtly influence our conclusions about God, His goodness, and His love toward sinners.

When we read in Malachi that God hated Esau, and that Edom would be called “the wicked country” and “the people with whom the LORD is angry forever,” does this mean that God did not love Esau?

Many readers assume that it must. When the Bible is read through certain philosophical assumptions about causality and divine action, it is easy to conclude that God must have been predisposed against Esau from the beginning. But the Bible never actually says that God did not love Esau. It only says that God hated him.

That raises an important question: is the pairing of love and hate teaching us about God’s disposition toward Esau as such, or is it using a familiar biblical idiom to describe God’s sovereign ordering of persons and peoples in salvation history?

Contextual Observations

When read in context, the passage is God’s answer to Israel’s question: “How have You loved us?” The different histories of Jacob and Esau as nations are then used to explain how God loved Israel. It was God’s actions toward Israel that proved His love. Malachi was written over a 1,000 years after Jacob and Esau and is not talking about Esau as a person but as a nation—Edom. God chose Jacob over Esau for the purpose of using Jacob in a unique way in salvation history, not because Jacob was more lovable, nor because Esau was the object of some prior divine hostility. It was through Jacob, and not Esau, that the line of the Messiah would come.

In Israel’s history, God chose to bestow a greater measure of covenant blessing than He did on Esau’s line for a time, and Malachi uses that contrast to reassure Israel of God’s love for them. But that is not the same thing as proving that God therefore had no love for Esau. Jacob was elected as a servant to the nations. He was given greater responsibility because he was appointed to bear the covenant line through which blessing would come to the world. In Scripture, this kind of privilege carries the logic of service: it is more blessed to give than to receive, and the greatest are those who serve. Israel’s greater blessing, therefore, was inseparable from its vocation as a servant people.

Love and Hate as Biblical Idiom

God’s loving Jacob is His “yes” to a vocational appointment in a role as a servant to the nations, and His “hating” Esau is His “no” to Esau in that particular vocation. Jacob was elected to serve. Esau at that time was not, and neither were any other nations.

This is NOT an expression of God’s enmity against anyone or against any group. The Bible frequently uses the language of love and hate in ways that do not describe emotional hostility but rather priority, choice, and ordering of relationships.

For example, in Deuteronomy 21:15–17, the law speaks about a man who has two wives:

“one loved and the other hated.”

The passage is clearly not describing literal hatred but how the actions appear to the wife who was less favored. The law simply recognizes that one wife is favored and the other less favored. The point of the law is to prevent the father from denying the firstborn inheritance rights simply because the mother is the less favored wife. In this case, love and hate describe ranking and preference, not emotional hostility.

Jesus Himself uses the same idiom in the New Testament. In Luke 14:26 He says:

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.”

Jesus is obviously not commanding literal hatred toward one’s family. Such a reading would contradict the command to honor your father and mother. Instead, He is using a familiar Hebrew idiom to describe priority of allegiance. Loyalty to Christ must come before all other relationships.

Seen in this light, the statement “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” fits naturally within the Bible’s own way of speaking. God’s love for Jacob is His “yes” to Israel’s role in salvation history, while His “hatred” of Esau is His “no” to Edom occupying that place.

The language, then, is not describing eternal emotional hostility toward Esau, but the ordering of God’s purposes in history. And when we remember that God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, without parts or passions, these words must be understood according to Scripture’s accommodated and analogical way of speaking, not as though they described fluctuating creaturely emotions in God.

God’s Love for Esau

I had a professor in seminary, Dr. Robert Reymond, who once told a story about an encounter he had with someone who had a real problem with Romans 9.

“How could God hate Esau?” the man asked.

My professor replied, “Yes, I have a problem with Romans chapter 9 too.”

Knowing that Dr. Reymond was a Calvinist, the man looked surprised. “You do?”

“Yes,” he said. “I do not understand how God could love Jacob.”

Isn’t this really the deeper problem?

What was the real difference between the two sons? Humanly speaking, who was the better man? Jacob himself was a trickster who deceived his father and swindled Esau out of his birthright. 

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