I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? [Was] not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob,
Ver. 2. I have loved you, saith the Lord] Thou hast loved us (might they reply) while we were willing and obedient. Thou lovest them that love thee, Proverbs 8:17 "and showeth mercy to thousands of them that love thee, and keep thy commandments,"Exodus 20:6; but now "thou hast utterly rejected us: thou art very wroth against us," Lamentations 5:22. Nay, saith God, I do love you, so Tremellius renders this text: I am Jehovah, "I change not," Malachi 3:6. I do rest in my love, and will seek no further, Zephaniah 3:17. Surely "Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of his God, of the Lord of hosts: though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel," Jeremiah 51:5. Thus it was before the captivity. But how after? See Zechariah 1:17. The Lord had professed before that he had been sore displeased with their fathers, Zechariah 1:2, and it appears, Zechariah 1:3,4, they were no better than their fathers; all which notwithstanding, see a sweet promise, Zechariah 1:17 "Cry yet, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad, and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem." There are four "yets" in the text, and all very gracious ones; to show that the fulness of sin in us doth not abate the fulness of love in God towards his people. And the same in effect is thankfully acknowledged by those holy Levites at their solemn fast, held much about the time of our prophet Malachi, Nehemiah, where they make a catalogue of the many fruits and expressions of God's love to themselves and their fathers. Besides extraordinary favours not a few, he gave them good laws, Nehemiah 9:13, good sabbaths, Nehemiah 9:14, his good spirit to instruct them, Nehemiah 9:20. He forsook them not when they dealt proudly against him, Nehemiah 9:16,17, but crowned them with outward comforts, Nehemiah 9:21; Nehemiah 9:25, afflicted them when they provoked him, Nehemiah 9:26,27, sent them saviours when they cried to him, Nehemiah 9:27, after often revolts was often entreated, Nehemiah 9:28, withheld his worst and consuming judgments for a long time, Nehemiah 9:30,31. And was there not love in all this? Might not God well say, I have loved you? Ribera thinks there is an aposiopesis a in the words, as if God would have said more; but very grief breaks off his speech, out of a deep sense of their detestable ingratitude. David hath such an abrupt expression, Psalms 116:1, I love, because the Lord hath heard my voice. Such a pang, such a passion he felt, that he was not able to say, I love the Lord, but I love, and so breaks off abruptly. The like whereunto may here be conceived of God; who cannot endure to have his love lost, his grace undervalued, as it was by these obstreperous questionists, who put him to his proof, as those did Jeremiah 2:25 .
Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us?] Their recent captivity and calamity so stuck still in their stomachs, that they could not see wherein he had showed them any love. But had they considered Daniel's weeks they might have known that (besides their free election, all blessings flowing therefrom, as Dan 9:3-5), for their seventy years' captivity, they had seven seventies of years granted them afterwards for the comfortable enjoyment of their own country. Sed ingrato quod donatur, deperditur, But for ingratitude which was forgiven, he is utterly destroyed, saith Seneca. And Amare non redamantem est amoris impendia perdere, saith Jerome. All is lost that is laid out upon an unthankful people, who devour God's best blessings as brute beasts their prey, haunch them up and swallow them, as swine do swill; bury them, as the barren earth doth the seed; use them as homely as Rachel did her father's gods, which she laid among the litter, and sat upon; yea, fighting against God with his own weapons (mercies, I mean), as Jehu did against Jehoram with his own messengers, as David did against Goliath with his own sword, as Benhadad against Ahab with that life that he had given him; as if God had hired them to be wicked, &c.
Was not Esau Jacob's brother?] Did they not both tumble in a belly? were they not both dug out of the same pit, hewn out of the same rock? Isaiah 51:1; and yet, as the Great Turk and his brethren, born of the same parents, the eldest is destined to a diadem, the rest to a halter, so here Esau, though the elder and heir, was rejected, at least he was less loved (for so the word hated is to be taken, Gen 29:31 Luk 14:20 Mat 10:37). Jacob, though the younger and weaker (for Esau was born a manly child, born with a beard, as some think, and was therefore called Esau, that is, Factus et perfectus pilis, a man already, rather than a babe), yet was God's beloved one. And so were his posterity too the people of God's choice, above the Edomites; who were now left in captivity at Babylon, when as the Jews were returned into their own country; yea, for the Jews' sakes and as a testimony of God's love to them, were these Edomites still held captives, and their land irreparably ruined because they showed themselves merciless and bloody in the day of Jerusalem's calamity, Oba 1:10-11 Psalms 137:7. God had charged the Israelites, saying, "Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother," Deuteronomy 23:7; but as Esau began betime to persecute Jacob, bristling at him, and bruising him in their mother's womb, Genesis 25:22, so his posterity were bitter enemies to the Church, joying in her misery, and joining with her enemies, wherefore thus saith the Lord God, "I will also stretch out mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it," Ezekiel 25:13,14 .
Yet I loved Jacob] And preordained him to a crown that never fadeth, as Paul expoundeth this text, Romans 9:13, of election to eternal life, which is the sweetest and surest seal of God's love. Let us secure our election, and so God's special love to our souls, by those infallible marks, 2 Thessalonians 2:13. First, belief of the truth, that articularity and propriety of assurance Secondly, sanctfficahon of the Spirit, unto the obedience of truth. And as God loved Jacob's person, so he loved his posterity, the Israelites, above all other people; not because they were more in number, or better in disposition, ex meliore luto, &c.; out of better clay, but "because the Lord loved you, therefore he set his love upon you, and chose you," saith Moses, Deuteronomy 7:7,8 : the ground of his love was wholly in himself; there being nothing in man, nothing out of God's self, that can primarily move and incline the eternal, immutable, and omnipotent will of God. The true original and first motive of his love to his creature is the good pleasure of his will. See Ephesians 1:5, where all the four causes of election are showed to be without us.
a A rhetorical artifice, in which the speaker comes to a sudden halt, as if unable or unwilling to proceed. ŒD