3325.-Loved and Hated by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 17, 1911

3325.—Loved and Hated

By Editor

Kindly give me some little light on Mal. 1:1-3 and Rom. 9:11-13, "Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated." These texts perplex and trouble me, and a little light would be greatly appreciated.

The Lord does not use the words "love" and "hate" in the sense humanity uses them. Hating in this sense is simply to love less. Jacob was chosen, Esau was not. The same thought is expressed in Luke 14:26: "If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he can not be My disciple." Certainly the Lord does not want us to hate anybody, for He tells us to love our enemies; but the thought is to love Him more than we do any one or anything else, however close the relationship. This is fully explained in Matt. 10: 37: "He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." The Lord loved Jacob, and gave him the place in the line of the promised Seed. He loved Esau less, and rejected him from that position, because Esau was not worthy.