Bible Study on Malachi - Part 2, Malachi 1:2-5

We began with prayer and then looked at the first of a series of statements, questions, and answers that the prophet Malachi used in presenting God’s Word to the people of Jerusalem, as inspired by the Lord. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?”(Malachi 1:2). God often speaks of His love for His people; but the skeptical, maybe even sarcastic question of many of the Israelites may seem surprising to us. (Or maybe not. Remember that we are called to think about what our own response might be today to God. Do we also sometimes wonder if He really cares about us and loves us, especially if we have been going through rough times, as many of the Jews had been, after their return from captivity in Babylon?)

Remember also that what is said is in Old Testament terms. The Savior, Jesus, had not yet come. We might have expected something like the words of Hosea 11:1-5,8-9. Read how God pictures Himself as a loving parent, caring for His child, rescuing him from Egypt and helping him, though that child was often rebellious.

That, in fact, is the story of God’s people of Israel in the Old Testament. An old poem says, “How odd of God to choose the Jews.” Read Deuteronomy 7:6-8 and 9:4-7 and 10:14-22 to see that God did not choose the Jews because they were more numerous and powerful than others, or because they were better or more righteous than others and deserved to be this special people, but simply because of His mercy and love for them.

This choice was also not just for their benefit, but that through their nation would come the Savior for the whole world - an Offspring through Whom all the families of the earth would be blessed. See the promise to Abraham, when he was called to be the father of the Jewish nation in Genesis 12:1-3. The promise is repeated in Genesis 22:17-18, with the prediction that the Lord will provide His own Offspring, His only Son, as a sacrifice for the benefit of all nations. The promise is repeated again to Jacob in Genesis 28:14 and other places. God’s plan of salvation would be through a Jewish Savior for all people, and God therefore, in love for the Jews and for the world, would keep that nation going, so that the Savior could come.

In Malachi 1:2-5, God then focuses upon just one part of that salvation history, the story of Jacob and Esau, but does so in a surprising and almost disturbing way. “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert” never to be fully restored. We think of God as a God of love, as he is. What does God mean, then, when He says that He hated Esau? Scholars call this a Hebrew way of talking, with no gray areas, only contrasting black and white, to make a point.

When you read through the story of Jacob and Esau, you find that this simply means, to begin with, that God in His wisdom did not choose to bring the line of the promised Savior through the oldest son, Esau, as might be expected, but through the younger son, Jacob. This was predicted while the two boys, twins, were still in the womb. Read Genesis 25:21-26. Neither boy was perfect. Esau despised and was willing to sell his birthright  privilege as the oldest son to his brother, just for some food (Genesis 25:29-34). Jacob was willing to trick his father and get the primary blessing from him by deception, pretending to be Esau (Genesis 27). Neither son “deserved” the primary blessing, but it was given, by undeserved love and favor, to Jacob. Esau was not really “hated” but Jacob, not Esau, and his descendants received the special privilege and blessing of being the chosen people from whom the Savior would come.

This does not mean that Esau was cut off from God’s help and blessing. Esau hated Jacob for a while, but they were later reconciled, and Esau offered to help Jacob. Later on, God told the Jews to give special privileges and respect to Esau’s descendants, the Edomites, in Deuteronomy 2:1-6. Sadly, the Edomites rejected the true God and became very wicked and extreme enemies of God’s people, and later on warnings were given by a number of Old Testament prophets that the Edomites faced destruction if they kept on resisting God without repentance. See Psalm 137:7, Amos 1:11-12, and Jeremiah 49:6-11, as examples.

Judgment finally did fall on the Edomites. Other history tells us that between 550 and 400 BC, Arab peoples forced the Edomites from their lands, never to return again as a nation. This is probably what is described in Malachi 1:3-5. It happened, though, not because God literally hated Esau and his descendants, but because of their continual sin and rejection of God and his mercy.

There are other examples of this love/hate language in the Scriptures, as a sharp contrast. In Genesis 29, Jacob is deceived into marrying the wrong woman. He chooses to marry a second wife, too. (The Bible describes this, but does not show approval, and there is always trouble when we see examples of polygamy and other immorality.) Jacob loves his second wife, Rachel, more than his first wife (Genesis 29:30). In the very next verse, we hear that “the Lord saw that Leah was hated.” We don’t know if Leah was really “hated” in our sense of the word. All we know is that Rachel was loved more. This passage goes on to tell us that Jacob had several more children through Leah, including Judah. It was through this son of Jacob that the line of the promise of the Savior ran. In spite of messy, sinful human beings, God continued His loving plan of salvation, with His people and sometimes in spite of them.

Here is one more example of this unusual use of the word “hate”, from Jesus Himself. Read Luke 14:25-26. Read this in light of Matthew 10:34-37. Does Jesus really want us to hate our family members and even our own lives? Clearly not, based upon many other Scriptures that teach us to love one another, including and especially our family. See Ephesians 5:25,28,33; 6:1-2; 1 John 3:1-2; and on and on, including Jesus’ example with His mother in John 19:25-27. What Jesus means is that we are to love Him more than we love family (Matthew 10:37). If it is a question of doing what our family wants or what God wants, “We ought to obey God, rather than man” (Acts 5:27-29 and Acts 4:17-20).

(I dwell on this because in my ministry I have seen some extreme cultic groups that have tried to control people, by cutting them off from their family and allowing them only to listen to fellow members of their cult. They quote Luke 14:26, distorting the context of the whole of the Scriptures, in trying to isolate people and make people hate their families and stick with false, cultic ideas. Rather, we should let Scripture help us interpret Scripture.)

Finally, Paul quotes Malachi 1:2,3 in Romans 9:13, in the New Testament. This passage could use lots of study. You will see, though, that Paul uses this and the story of Jacob and Esau to show that people are not saved by their race or bloodline, but by being “children of the promise” through faith in Jesus by the mercy and love of God. “Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,” Paul says (Romans 9:6-13).

He agonizes, as a Jew, over the fact that many of his fellow Jews are part of God’s Old Testament chosen people and yet are rejecting the Savior, Jesus, Who came to save them and the whole world (Romans 9:1-5, 31-10:4). Paul emphasizes that people will be saved not by their race, even as Jews, or by their own efforts, but by being brought to faith by the grace of God and to see and know the love of God through God’s plan and will, ultimately carried out through Jesus (9:30-10:4). It is “not because of works, but because of Him who calls... So then, it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, Who has mercy” (9:11,16).

We still may have questions about all this. Paul raises several and responds to them all. Has the Word of God failed? (9:6) No, it still saves, though people can resist its clear message. “Is there injustice on God’s part? Why does He find fault?” (9:14,19) Ultimately, Paul says, Who are we to challenge the Almighty God and His plan for mercy and love, centered in Jesus? Can the clay challenge the Potter or the molded its Molder? (9:20-21)

We are grateful to live in New Testament times, where we can look to Jesus our Savior and the certainty we have in Him and what He has done for us. We listen to Gospel promises like John 3:16, Romans 5:6-8, Romans 8:32-35, 1 John 4:11,16, and so many more. We simply trust God and His life-giving Word in the whole Bible, but especially in Jesus.

Martin Franzmann has written, in his commentary on Romans 9, page 172: “The Word of God, then, creates the people of God and defines the people of God. The Lord spoke, and His will was done... What Paul is saying is this: If you would know where Israel is, look where the promise is, not at Abraham and Hagar and Ishmael, (and all the) tawdry stories of the flesh of man at work. The will of God in sovereign freedom overrules the fleshly will of man; God creates His Israel as He wills.”