Saturday 8 September 2018

Did God really hate Esau?

“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you ask, “How have you loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, and Esau I have hated…” Malachi 1:2-3

Last time we took a kind of overview of the book of the prophet Malachi – how he ministered in spiritually dreary times when the people had drifted from God and lost their spiritual focus. Even though he holds out some mouth-watering hopes for them, the basic tone of his book is pretty grim.

And nothing strikes us as more grim than this stark statement right at the start of the book. The idea of God hating anybody sits uneasily with us, especially given the Bible’s constant emphasis on his love. So how can we make sense of this?

We need to grasp at least three vital facts.

First, in the Bible the word “hate” doesn’t always have the same black-and-white meaning that we give it.

The experts tell us that this is a Hebrew way of expressing preference. To say “I love (a) and hate (b)” is a way of saying “I prefer (a) to (b).”

In fact, we don’t really need the experts to tell us this. Doesn’t Jesus himself do the same? – “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).

Jesus telling us to hate our very nearest and dearest? Surely not! After all, he told us to love even our enemies!

Yes indeed. So this can only be his way of driving home the point that loyalty to him takes precedence over every other loyalty.

This is borne out too by his words in Matthew 10:37, a parallel passage: “Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me…” No mention of “hating” there! – it’s as if the wording has been softened in order to avoid misunderstanding.

So… when Malachi reports the words of the Lord, “I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated”, he is saying that the Lord chose to take and use Jacob in preference to Esau.

Second, these words have nothing to do with personal, individual salvation.

God isn’t talking about his feelings for Jacob and Esau as men; as if he has taken a dislike to Esau while favouring his twin brother Jacob. He is not saying “I have chosen Jacob to be saved and to spend eternity with me in heaven, while I have chosen to cast Esau out into the darkness.”

No. When Malachi speaks of “Jacob” he doesn’t mean Jacob the man, but Jacob as representing the nation of Israel, of which he was a forefather. And likewise with “Esau”, who was the forefather of the people of Edom.

We need to put these words into context…

As we saw, right at the start of Malachi God assures his people that he loves them (1:2). This, surely, should count as good news. But no. Back comes the grudging answer, “How have you loved us?” As if to say, “Huh! We don’t see it. Look at the mess we’re in!”

To which God says, in effect, “Look, Jacob and Esau were brothers, weren’t they? Yes? And you’re Jacob’s descendants, aren’t you? Yes? So how come through hundreds of years I have protected and guided you, while Esau’s descendants (Edom), have languished in the side-lines of history? If that isn’t a sign of my love for you, I’d like to know what is!”

That is what is packed into that startling statement “I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated.”

Third, and leading directly on from this, the Bible is concerned about the destiny of nations as well as the destiny of individuals.

As Christians, we tend (quite rightly) to focus on the question of individual, personal salvation: Am I saved? Have my sins been forgiven? Can I be sure of eternal life?

But this is very much a New Testament emphasis – the Old Testament has only very little to say about an afterlife, and Malachi is no exception.

God has, so to speak, a this-worldly project under way: it is regularly referred to as “the kingdom of God”. (Jesus, remember, taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”) And in order to bring this great project to completion, he has chosen to use one particular people, the people of Israel (ie, Jacob), to bring his light and love to the whole world. And this project climaxes in Jesus the Messiah, their one and only perfect King, to whom we belong by faith.

But, of course, if God chooses to use one nation, then he must inevitably “not-choose” the others, including Edom (ie, Esau)!

That, I think we can confidently say, is what is meant by those stark words: “I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated.”

Thank you, O Lord, for creating Israel to be a light to lighten the nations. And thank you that, where Israel failed, Jesus the perfect Israelite succeeded, by his life, death and resurrection. Help me by your grace to be a worthy follower of his. Amen.

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