“Just as it is written: “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.’” Rom. 9:13, NASB. 

Footsteps #358. Is this text really in the Bible? Yes, twice. Once here in Romans 9:13 and once in Malachi 1:2, 3, the source for Paul’s quotation. 

OK, you may be thinking, it’s in the Bible, but do we have to use it as a worship text? I don’t like it. Why not read our Bible as if the passage doesn’t exist? 

Too often we skip over those parts of the Bible we don’t like. I would suggest that it’s better to understand what God meant. Who knows, there might be a blessing in this passage for us? 

We need first to remember that the Bible doesn’t always use words in the same sense we do. For example, Jesus claimed that we must “hate” our father and mother and wife if we are to be His followers (Luke 14:26). How do you line up that injunction with the fifth commandment, which tells us that we must honour our parents? The obvious implication is that we are not to hate our parents in the modern sense of the term but to choose to put Christ first in our life. Therefore, as the idiomatic expression implies, we are to love others less if we are to put Jesus first. “In the words of the Scriptures, “I loved Jacob, but I rejected Esau.” NLT. 

The same applies to Jesus’ saying that His followers needed to “hate” their own life if they wanted life eternal (John 12:25). “Hate” in the Bible does not necessarily mean aggressive hostility. As in the case of Jacob’s relationship to Rachel, whom he loved, and Leah, whom he “hated” (Gen. 29:31, 31), Scripture often employed the term to express a preference for one thing or person over another, both of whom one could feel affection for i.e. to love less than. 

That biblical usage lines up with statements that claim that God is love (1 John 4:8), that He so loved the world that He sent Jesus (John 3:16), and that He loves sinners (Rom. 5:8). The plain fact is that God chose the nation (both passages dealing with loving Jacob and hating Esau refer not to individuals but nations) flowing from Jacob (Israel) over the nation issuing from Esau (Edom). It was His choice to send the Messiah through one and not the other. 

In the same way, when Jacob’s offspring (the Jews of Christ’s day) rejected Jesus, God felt compelled to give Israel’s blessing to another nation – the church (Matt. 21:33-43). Thus, Paul states in Romans 9:1-13, God hasn’t changed. He still operates on the principle He did when He chose Jacob over Esau. The Lord is not captive to any religious group. His promises have not failed. But because of Israel’s rejection of their Messiah, He has selected a new people to carry out His mission on earth