“I have loved you,” says the Lord.
But you say, “How have You loved us?”
“Was Esau not Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and given his inheritance to the jackals of the wilderness.”
Malachi 1:2-3 (NASB)
In Malachi 1, (and later in Romans), there’s this perplexing passage about God “hating” Esau, the brother of Jacob.
We wrestle with this text, because we are forced to ask: “am I Jacob in this passage? Or am I Esau? What does God think of me?”
The answer seems to matter, as the notion of being “hated by God” is heavy. It’s an impossible burden.
But perhaps we have a clue about the deeper meaning in Genesis 29.
Three times before we get to Jacob’s feelings about Leah, the text tells us that Jacob LOVED Rachel. We know he loves her.
Now the Lord saw that Leah was [a]unloved, and He opened her womb, but Rachel was unable to have children.
Genesis 29:31 (NASB)
[a] Lit hated
But when we get to Leah, it doesn’t merely tell us that Leah was “unloved.” In Hebrew, it says she was HATED.
It’s in this place of hatred that God opened Leah’s womb so she could be… fruitful. Blessed. So she could live out her purpose of mothering of the nation of God’s people. She is the mother of Judah, from which Salvation enters the world.
So when the text tells us that Esau is hated… perhaps we are meant to remember Leah.
Though hatred brings us to a place of desolation and barrenness, perhaps God is telling us about redemption. About healing.
Perhaps God will make all things new.