1:2b-3 - 'Was not Esau Jacob's brother?' declares the Lord. 'Yet I have loved Jacob, ³but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.'

'Was not Esau Jacob's brother?' declares the Lord
In response to the people's scepticism about His love, Yahweh answers with what seems to us like a non sequitur. To Malachi's audience, however, the direction pointed by the question would have been immediately apparent and it comes in the next affirmation.

'Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated
Esau had been Jacob's elder brother, the natural inheritor of all the titles, inheritance, and honour of their father Isaac as his birthright. Yet it was Jacob who had, historically, inherited the birthright and blessings of Isaac. And out of Jacob had come the elect people that was the nation of Israel. In comparative terms, therefore, Yahweh's relationships between Him and Jacob and Him and Esau could be viewed as distinct as love and hate. We say 'comparative' because Yahweh's hatred of Edom, the nation descended from Esau, was not absolute; indeed, when Israel was approaching Esau on their way to the Promised Land to conquer it, Yahweh commanded Israel through Moses that they should "be very careful. Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on. I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own" (Deut 2:4-5). Further down in in Deut Israel was commanded not to "despise an Edomite, for the Edomites are related to you" (23:7). Some commentators note that "love" and "hate" is very much covenantal terms, so that this comparision between Jacob and Esau is not a matter of divine passion but of divine decision, i.e., framed within the covenantal context of this book, 'love' means "have chosen" while "hate" means "have not chosen."1 At the same time, the impact of the language on the audience should not be dismissed. Obadiah had famously denounced the Edomites for their treachery in joining in with the Babylonians in ransacking Judah. This was against everything that could have been expected from a people who were related by ancient bonds of brotherhood. This absolute disappointment is well expressed by Obadiah:2

Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame; you will be destroyed for ever. On the day you stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them. You should not gloat over your brother in the day of his misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast so much in the day of their trouble. You should not march through the gates of my people in the day of their disaster, nor gloat over them in their calamity in the day of their disaster, nor seize their wealth in the day of their disaster. You should not wait at the crossroads to cut down their fugitives, nor hand over their survivors in the day of their trouble (Oba 1:10-14).

For a people seething with "Damn Edom" sentiments, such as Malachi's audience was, it is not difficult to see how effective "I love Jacob but I hate Esau" would bring home the point about Yahweh's love for Israel. His love for Israel was founded upon a choice, not a matter of accident. He did not "fall in love" with Israel, as it were. Rather He sovereignly chose to love her. This is the central fact of election. That this was how Paul understood Malachi to be saying is clear in Rom 9. There Paul speaks of his deep grief at the fact that so few of his own people, the Jews, seemed to care about Jesus. How to explain it? Paul says it is a matter of divine election, of sovereign choice, citing Malachi, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" (v3) (and Exo 33:19) "in support.

and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals
If the Edomites though that they could profit from the miseries of their brothers and get away with it, they were badly mistaken. In 533 BC (fifty-three years after the fall of Jerusalem) the Babylonians invaded Edom. Their weakened state would eventual expose them to incursions by the Nabateans from the south, pushing them westward into southern Judah. A wasteland inherited by desert jackals was what former Edom became.3 The fact that Malachi's audience was there, restored in their homeland, and could actually ask the question they asked, is proof that Yahweh loved them, and still did.

Low Chai Hok

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