Loved One—Hated the Other
By Arthur L. Manous
Was God Partial Toward Jacob? — Did He Hate Esau in the Ordinary Sense of the Word? — Some Interesting Authorities on the Subject
“The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast Thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.” Mal. 1: 1-3. See also Matt. 10: 37. What are we to understand by the expression that God “hated” Esau? Is God partial? Does He love and hate individuals in the sense of “detest,” as we now sometimes understand the word “hate”? Dr. Robert Young says: “The verb ‘to hate’ is frequently used for ‘to love less’; for example, Gen. 29: 31; Deut. 21: 15; Mal. 1: 3; Matt. 6: 24; Luke 14: 26; John 12: 25; Rom. 9: 13.”—Young’s “Analytical Concordance,” page 1108, New York, 1905. “Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau.” Mal. 1: 2, 3, Common Version. Others translate this passage thus:
“Yet I loved Jacob and slighted Esau.” Thomson’s translation.
“Yet I loved Jacob, and I disregarded Esau.” Boothroyd’s translation.
“Yet I befriended Jacob and disliked Esau.” Fenton’s translation. This passage is quoted in the New Testament by the apostle Paul thus:
“Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” Rom. 9: 13, Common Version. Others translate it:
“Jacob I have loved and Esau I have slighted.” Thomson’s translation.
“Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I disregarded.” Boothroyd’s translation.
“I have chosen Jacob, and rejected Esau.” Fenton’s translation. The following passage may throw some light on the subject, since it mentions one point in Esau’s character: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance [or, “he found no place for a change of mind in his father,” A. R. V.], though he sought it [the blessing] carefully with tears.” Heb. 12: 14-17. See also Genesis 27; and 1 Peter 2: 4 and 7, where the word “disallowed” (R. V., “rejected”) is from the same Greek word that is rendered “rejected” in Heb. 12: 17. The following notes and comments on this point may be of further interest to the reader: “As for Jacob, Thou didst choose him to Thee, and put by Esau.” 2 Esdras 3: 16. “I loved Jacob. My love to Jacob has been proved by giving him greater privileges and a better inheritance than what I have given to Esau. Verse 3. And I hated Esau. I have shown him less love. Gen. 29: 30, 31. I comparatively hated him by giving him an inferior lot.”—Dr. A. Clarke on Mal. 1: 2, 3. “‘To hate’ is here used in a comparative sense, qualifying the preceding verb ‘to love.’ As the opposite of love is hatred, when there is only an inferior degree of the former exhibited, the object of it is regarded as being hated rather than loved. See for this idiom, Gen. 29: 30, 31; Deut. 21: 15, 16; Prov. 13: 24; Matt. 6: 24; Luke 14: 26, compared with Matt. 10: 37.”—E. Henderson’s note on Mal. 1: 2, 3, in his translation, London, 1845. See also the “Emphatic Diaglott,” page 19. “I therefore conclude the sense intended to be conveyed to be this: I acted towards Jacob as towards one that I loved, and towards Esau as towards one that I hated.”—Herman Heinfetter’s note on Rom. 9: 13, in his translation, London, 1861, fifth edition. “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. These words, of course, are merely the strong language of prophecy. We may compare them with our Lord’s words, ‘If any man hate not his father and mother, etc., and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.’ In all the preceding words, however, and in what follows, Saint Paul is not speaking at all of eternal salvation and perdition, but of the temporal privileges and blessings, by which it pleased God to distinguish some more than others, and by the proper use of which they would have gained, doubtless, a higher place in the heavenly kingdom, whereas by the abuse of them they have sunk proportionally lower than others. As regards their estate in the eternal world, Ishmael and Esau and their descendants, among whom we may reckon the Zulus and Kafirs, stand on the same level, and will be judged with the same righteous judgment, as others more highly favored in this world, with means of grace and the hope of glory, as their brethren in the Jewish church of old, or in the Christian now. All will be judged according to their works, and according to the light vouchsafed to them. With reference to the light, which we, Christians of England, have received, it might be said, in like manner, ‘England has God loved, and Africa has He hated.’ Yet not all English Christians are children of the light, nor are all African heathens children of Satan; but those who have received most, shall have most required of them.”—J. W. Colenso’s note on Rom. 9: 13, in his translation, New York, 1863. “‘Though he sought it.’ The ‘it’ here refers to a remote antecedent, namely, to his father’s blessing, and not to repentance.”—“Biblical Gleanings,” by Thomas Wemyss, page 186, on Heb. 12: 17. “The relative pronoun ‘it,’ in this passage, stands for the blessing, the remote antecedent. For Esau did not seek repentance, but ‘the blessing, with tears.’ Gen. 27: 34.”—Note on Heb. 12: 17, by James Macknight. “Esau was not shut out from the privilege of seeking God’s favor by repentance; but he could find no means of recovering the birthright. His grief did not spring from conviction of sin; he did not desire to be reconciled to God. He sorrowed because of the results of his sin, but not for the sin itself.”—“Patriarchs and Prophets,” by Mrs. E. G. White, page 181. See also pages 207, 208.