Why did God love Jacob and hate Esau (Malachi 1:3; Romans 9:13)?

In Mal. 1:2-3 Esau is referred to as having been hated by Jehovah, whereas Jacob had been loved. This is quoted by Paul in Rom. 9:13, where God's sovereignty is being enforced. It was foretold that the elder should serve the younger before they were born, and before they could have done either good or bad: this was God's sovereignty. But it was not foretold that God would hate Esau; it is not mentioned till the close of the Old Testament, after Esau in his descendants had displayed his unrelenting enmity to Israel, and Esau personally had long before that despised the gift of God in his birthright. The passage in Malachi is thought by some to refer to the nations which descended from the two brothers.

The message of Malachi begins with the sublime statement, "I have loved you, saith Jehovah." It is the message to Israel. This love is written large on every page of their history. A former prophet gave the message from the Lord, "You only have I known of all the families of the earth" (Amos 3:2). And long before that Moses had told them, "Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day" (Deut 10:15). And the man of God in his final utterance burst out in praise, "Yea, He loved the people" (Deut. 33:3). And this generation, brought back through His mercy from Babylon, the generation that had listened to the marvelous words of Haggai and Zechariah, could brazenly answer back, "Wherein hast Thou loved us?" How deep they had sunk! Greater still is the insensibility of nominal Christendom which rejects, yea, despises, the great love wherewith He has loved us in the gift of His Son. Then the Lord in infinite patience answered them, "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith Jehovah: yet I loved Jacob, and hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness." This takes us back to Genesis, but in vain do we look for this statement in that first book of the Bible. Though it is quoted also in Romans 9, it is nowhere to be found in connection with the story of the birth of the twins. The late scholar, William Kelly, has expressed the whole matter so well that we can do nothing better than to quote his excellent comment. "It is only in Malachi that He says 'Esau have I hated.' I could conceive nothing more dreadful than to say so in Genesis. Never does Scripture represent God as saying before the child was born and had manifested his iniquity and proud malice, 'Esau have I hated.' There is where the mind of man is so erroneous. It is not meant, however, that God's choice was determined by the character of the individual. This would make man the ruler rather than God. Not so; God's choice flows out of His own wisdom and nature. It suits and is worthy of Himself; but the reprobation of any man and of every unbeliever is never a question of the sovereignty of God. It is the choice of God to do good where and how He pleases; it is never the purpose of His will to hate any man. There is no such doctrine in the Bible. I hold, therefore, that, while election is most clearly taught in the Scriptures, the consequences that men draw from election, namely, the reprobation of the non-elect, is a mere reproduction of fatalism, common to some heathen and to all Mohammedans, the unfounded deduction of man's reasoning in divine things." With these good words we agree perfectly. The hatred against Esau is mentioned in this last book, because it was well-deserved, after all the opposition and defiance of God the descendants of Esau, Edom, had manifested. But the love wherewith Jacob was loved was undeserved. His love for His people had been fully manifested, as well as His displeasure against Edom by laying his mountains and heritage waste, and all their attempts at reconstruction failed. God was against him on account of Edom's wicked ways.

With this simple declaration of Jehovah's love the state of the people immediately appears in their response, "Wherein hast thou loved us?" the expression of a moral insensibility, as well as of spiritual blindness, which is their characteristic in this prophecy. Blind indeed they must have been to question the truth of Jehovah's love; for had they not the records of the wonders He had wrought in their redemption, in the guidance of their fathers through the wilderness, in dispossessing the heathen and setting them in a land flowing with milk and honey? And was not their own position at that moment the proof of it. Ah! but they would have probably said, "If the Lord loves us, why have we suffered chastisement and judgment, and why are we now so feeble and impoverished?" This is but a common deception which souls in every age practise upon themselves; that is, these poor Israelites wanted to turn every one after his own ways, and to have at the same time the blessing of God, to please themselves and yet to be surrounded with the tokens of God's favour. (Compare Jer. 44) They had not, as so many of us have not, learned the truth, "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."

But the Lord proceeds to give His own proofs, and puts the question through the prophet, "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." (vv. 2, 3.) It must be carefully observed that this is not an appeal to God's sovereignty in His choice of Jacob as in Rom. 9, where the apostle indeed cites this passage (after he has recalled the scripture which announced the divine purpose respecting Esau and Jacob) to show, not only that Israel was entirely indebted to grace for the difference God had put between themselves and Esau, but also that God's ways with the two branches of Isaac's descendants had been in accordance with His purposes. The evidence here given is drawn wholly, not from God's action towards Esau himself, but from God's judgments upon his posterity — "I laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness." And in other scriptures we find (see especially Obadiah) that these judgments were visited upon them because of their irreconcilable hatred of Israel, and their triumph over, and their vengeance upon, them in the day of their calamity. God had chosen Jacob — let not this truth be ignored, albeit Esau despised his birthright; but the scripture before us concerns the ways rather than the sovereignty of God.

You must distinguish between Genesis 25:23 and Malachi 1:2-3. The former was uttered before the children were born; the latter, hundreds of years afterwards, when the conduct and character of each were fully manifested. It is important to mark this difference. And not only so, but we must seek to understand the object of the Holy Spirit in His use of the above Scriptures in Romans 9. The apostle is establishing the absolute sovereignty of divine mercy: God's right to do as He wills. He proves to Israel that to argue against divine sovereignty is to surrender all their privileges. For how did they get in? Was it by birth? No; for on that ground Ishmael and Esau had the precedence. Was it by works? No; for they made the golden calf. How then? Simply by God's sovereign mercy. Well then, if God is sovereign He can have mercy upon whom He will; and blessed be His Name, that opens the door for us poor Gentiles.

Like many others, you confound two distinct passages of Holy Scripture. “Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated” was not said before the children were born, but hundreds of years after, when the real character and practical ways of each had been fully manifested. All that was said before the children were born was that “the elder shall serve the younger.” It is more than a sad mistake to represent God as hating a man before he was born. In Amos 1:11 we read “For three transgressions of Edom [Esau] and for four I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he did pursue his brother with the sword and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever.” Have we not here ample grounds for the divine hatred? If you will carefully compare Genesis 25:23 with Malachi 1:2-3, you will see your mistake and you will better understand the apostle's use of both passages in his magnificent argument in Romans 9 — an argument so little understood by theologians.

God's love is free: when He pleads with His people in Malachi the love He had shown to Jacob, He uses the name which reminds them of the natural character of their father, stamped so upon his descendants also, before divine grace had made him Israel. These names are used according to their different significance, in application to his seed, as one may see conspicuously in Balaam's prophecy. Here it suitably points out how little the "worm Jacob" had merited divine love. On the other hand, if He has to say in contrast, "I hated Esau," He carefully marks the wickedness on their part which had called forth His anger against them. "They shall call them the border of wickedness, and the people against whom the Lord has indignation for ever." This was not, as in the former case, before the children were born, or had done good or evil; and the free love of divine grace has no corresponding free hate, but longsuffering patience toward the creatures He had made. "Esau have I hated" was said at the close of the Old Testament, after long trial extending over many centuries.

Hence the apostle contrasts the call of God with works, rather than our faith, so as to cut off the poor semi-Pelagianism of such as Chrysostom of old or Tholuck of late, which would make election governed by the foreseen superiority of one to the other. Language cannot more precisely contradict this, the natural thought (not of natural men only but) of reasoning or imaginative saints. Esau had done no ill to disqualify him, Jacob no good to qualify him; but, before either of the twins was born, God in the exercise of His sovereign will chose that the greater should do service to the lesser. Such was His purpose. Their works had nothing to do with the matter and are excluded, so as to rest all on the caller, God Himself.

On the other hand, there is no ground favourable to that absolute reprobation which Calvin deduces from this place. Not a syllable is hinted as to hating the unborn Esau in Genesis 25. Man hastily infers reprobation of the one from the choice of the other. This is unfounded. Out of two who have no claim to choose one to a superior place is to exercise will; but to show favour in one case is not therein to condemn the other. They were in themselves both born in sin, as they no doubt grow up in sins. This is to be obnoxious to condemnation, which turns on man's sins, not on God's purpose. It is not Jehovah's word to Rebecca, but by Malachi which speaks of hating Esau. It was at the very close of the Old Testament, after Esau had displayed his unrelenting enmity to Israel. The love to Jacob thus was free; the hatred had moral grounds in Esau.

Do we not see the same things when God speaks of Jacob and Esau in Malachi? "I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau" (Mal. 1:2-3). That statement was not made before the days of Malachi. Esau had deliberately chosen the wrong course, and at this late moment this judgment was given of God concerning him, long after he was dead.

‘But’, we hear another objector say, ‘isn’t this simply foresight? God knew in advance what kind of person Esau was going to be and chose Jacob over Esau because of His foreknowledge of the two brothers.’ No, this is not the case. Paul makes this very plain by adding the following comment in brackets: ‘that the purpose of God according to election might abide, not of works, but of him that calls’ (v. 11b). Taking these points:

The purpose of God is according to election i.e. according to God’s sovereign choice. This principle ‘abides’. It is ‘not of works’ — neither works accomplished at the point in time when God chooses, nor works carried out at a later date: it is ‘not of works’ at all! See also verse 16. It is ‘of him that calls’. Here is the true source, origin and centre of divine purpose and election: it is in ‘him that calls’, in God Himself.

In verse 13 Paul adds another weighty statement: ‘according as it is written, I have loved Jacob, and I have hated Esau’. Previously, Paul had quoted from the first book of the Old Testament; now he quotes from the very last book, Malachi. Many years had passed since God had first pronounced His choice of Jacob. The two brothers had grown up and lived their lives. Over the following centuries, Esau’s family had perpetuated the profane character of their father. It was only then that God stated that He had hated Esau.

(Vv. 10-12). The Apostle next takes up the story of Isaac and proves the same principle by his two sons. In regard to Abraham, a Jew might object that the sons were by different mothers; but no such objection could be raised in the case of the sons of Isaac. Jacob and Esau were both the sons of Rebecca. If then the blessing is by natural descent the seed of both sons would inherit the promises; but then the Jew would have to include the Edomite. This no Jew would do. Here again, then, natural descent is shut out, and the blessing is seen to be on the ground of sovereign choice, which said, "The elder shall serve the younger". Moreover this was said before they were born, and therefore before they had "done any good or evil" proving that God's sovereign call does not depend upon the works of the one that is called, but upon the grace of the One that calls.

(V. 13). Furthermore, long centuries after their lives had been lived, and their characters had been developed, God had said "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated". Jacob, with all his many faults, was a man of faith, and comes into blessing on the ground of grace. Esau, with many natural excellencies, had no fear of God, and misses the blessing though the elder son by natural descent.

Verse 13. Jacob was loved because God loved him — no other reason could be adduced. Esau, on the contrary, was hated because he despised the birthright. This was written long years after their history had run its course (see Malachi 1:1-3; Hebrews 12:16-17). Of Esau we read in the latter Scripture, "For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought is carefully with tears." We say just here that what he sought was not repentance, but the blessing which he had bartered for "a mess of pottage."