The Love Of YHWH For Jacob, And His Hatred For Esau (Malachi 1:2-5).
YHWH now makes a positive affirmation of love for His people Israel (Jacob). This love had often been affirmed by previous prophets. ‘When Israel was a child, I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt' (Hosea 11:1). ‘YHWH did not love you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because YHWH loves you, and because He would keep the oath that He swore to your fathers, has He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt' (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). ‘YHWH appeared of old to us saying, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with covenant love have I drawn you' (Jeremiah 31:2).
It was a love that arose out of God's sovereignty, it was guaranteed because of His promises to their forefathers, it was a love that drew them into His covenant, and it was also a love that required obedience. ‘And it will come about that because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, YHWH your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers, and He will love you and bless you ---' (Deuteronomy 7:12-13). It was also a love that would write His Instruction in their inner hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). Thus it was a love for those who truly responded to Him, although also reaching out to them even when they were holding back (as they were now).
“I have loved you,” says YHWH.
“Yet you say, ‘In what have you loved us?'
Was not Esau Jacob's brother?” says YHWH.
“Yet I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated,
And made his mountains a desolation,
And gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness.'
Here then YHWH affirms His love for His people. But the question lying deep in His people's hearts, and brought to the surface by Malachi, was ‘how have you loved us?' And they could have added, ‘here we are living under hard conditions with our capital city in ruins, and with the future not at all rosy. Where is the coming King you promised us? Where is the prosperity? Where is the subservience of the Gentile nations? Why are we still ruled by Persia?' What evidence is there of your love?'
God answers the suggested question by a negative example. ‘Consider Esau,' He says. ‘I did not have the same love for him. And when, as with you, I made his land a desolation, and his heritage was handed over to the wild beasts of the wilderness, I did not restore him like I have restored you. For I hated Edom (Esau) because of how they had treated you.'
It is probable that they were intended to see this declaration of YHWH as an invitation and a warning, as well as a declaration of love. He is saying that His love was stretched out towards them, but that it was not unconditional. It was theirs if they would respond to it. Thus in Malachi 3:16-17 He will later describe those on whom His love is finally set.
It should be noted that Edom is not cited here because it was a Gentile nation (contrast Malachi 1:12), because that was not how it was seen. It is precisely because it was a brother nation that the situation arose. It is a warning that those who see themselves as among the chosen must not presume.
“Whereas Edom says,
‘We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places,'
Thus says YHWH of hosts,
‘They will build, but I will throw down,
And men will call them The border of wickedness,
And The people against whom YHWH has indignation for ever.'
And your eyes will see, and you will say,
‘YHWH be magnified beyond the border of Israel.' ”
‘Indeed,' says YHWH. ‘Edom do plan to return and build up their land again like you are doing, but the fact is that I will not allow it. I will throw it down, so that men will call them ‘The border of wickedness', (the place in which wickedness abounds once you cross their border) and ‘the people against whom YHWH has indignation for ever' (compare Isaiah 34).
This judgment on them was partly because of the way that Edom had regularly behaved when Judah was invaded, taking advantage of it for their own benefit and adding to Judah's tribulations, and partly because of their general attitude towards Israel, which had even been patent in the time of Moses (Numbers 20:14-21). That was why centuries before Isaiah had spoken of the coming destruction of Edom (Isaiah 34:5-17; compare Jeremiah 24:7-10; Amos 1:11-12; 2 Chronicles 28:17; Psalms 137:7; Obadiah 1:11-14). There may, of course, also have been other factors of which we are not aware.
But however that may be, destruction was certainly to be the experience of the remnants of Esau/Edom. For the Nabataeans swept into Edom and the Edomite refugees were gradually driven into southern Judah, settling in Idumaea in the Negev, where they were eventually forced by John Hyrcanus, a Jewish leader in 1st century BC, to be circumcised and become Jews. (So even in this judgment they indirectly experienced the possibility of mercy. For if they did truly respond to the God of Israel they would now find mercy).
‘And your eyes will see, and you will say, ‘YHWH be magnified beyond the border of Israel.' And one of the results of what will happen to Edom will be that the eyes of His people will see what happens and recognise that God is not just effective in Israel, but is revealed as powerful even outside the borders of Israel. Thus it will make them comment to one another that YHWH is magnified even outside Israel.
So YHWH was emphasising to His people that His love was truly being shown to them in the fact that He was preserving them in the land to which He had returned them, in spite of their undeserving, while acting externally against their enemies. But He will then go on to demonstrate why in spite of that, the remainder of the promises have not been fulfilled. It is because they have not been faithful to the covenant. Thus they need to take Edom as a salutary warning lest they lose His love and it happen to them.
This charge to consider their ways is demonstrated first in relation to the failures of the priesthood, then in relation to the people stumbling at His Instruction because of the priesthood (Malachi 2:8; Malachi 3:5; Malachi 3:15; Malachi 4:1), and then in relation to their behaviour with regard to divorce (Malachi 2:14-16) and foreign wives (Malachi 2:11), followed by a charge that they were failing to give their tithes to His House (Malachi 3:8-9) and were openly speaking against Him (Malachi 3:13). And all these failures indicated an underlying hardness of heart.
Note On ‘Jacob Have I Loved And Esau Have I Hated'.
The word translated ‘hate' has a wide variety of meaning. For example it is used in Genesis of Jacob as ‘loving Leah less' than Rachel (Genesis 29:30-31). Furthermore the words here in Malachi clearly refer initially to God's relationship with Jacob and Esau. But a glance at Genesis reveals that God did not hate Esau in any sense in which we mean hate. He simply arranged for him to have a lesser inheritance, and one that did in fact suit his nature better. He certainly made the greater promises through Jacob (and we should note that He did so from birth). So the point is that Esau was simply not taken up into His promises as Jacob was. There is no doubt that this was partly because of the weakness in his character, but as Paul stresses the decision was made before either of them had done good or bad. Thus Paul saw it as evidence of God's activity in ‘election'. On the other hand God did always insist that Israel treat Edom as brothers (Deuteronomy 23:7). However, that very fact in itself was partly what drew God's and Israel's ‘hatred' on Edom because of its later treatment of its ‘brother' Judah when things were going hard for Judah, for they took advantage of it, invading their land and greatly adding to Judah's troubles. This was why they now came under His judgment (compare Amos 1:11-12; 2 Chronicles 28:17; Psalms 137:7; Obadiah 1:11-14).
End of note.