Romans Chapter 9 Vs. 13

 

God's Sovereign Choice

As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Rom 9:13

Jacob have I... I have loved you.

Fourteen statements of God to Israel and ten rebellious answers of Israel to God:

1. I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet you say, Wherein have You loved us? (Mal. 1:2).

2. The priests despise My name. And you say, Wherein have we despised Your name? (Mal. 1:6).

3. You offer polluted bread upon My altar. And you say, Wherein have we polluted You? (Mal. 1:7).

4. You have profaned My table. You say, The table of the Lord is polluted ... His meat is contemptible (Mal. 1:12).

5. You said also, what weariness is it! and you have snuffed at it (Mal. 1:13).

6. You brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick for offerings. Should I accept such offerings?

7. Judah has dealt treacherously (Mal. 2:11).

8. Judah has profaned the holiness of the Lord which He loved.

9. You have practiced hypocrisy—weeping and crying in insincerity so that He will not regard your offerings. Yet you say, Wherefore? (Mal. 2:13-14)

10. You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, wherein have we wearied Him? (Mal. 2:17)

11. Even from the days of of your fathers you have gone away from My ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto Me and I will return unto you. But you said, Wherein shall we return? (Mal. 3:7)

12. Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me. But you say, Wherein have we robbed You? In tithes and offerings (Mal. 3:8).

13. Your words have been stout against Me. Yet you say, What have we spoken so much against You? (Mal. 3:13)

14. You have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? (Mal. 3:14)

Jacob and Esau were born approximately in 2005 B.C. Esau was the first born and when he was born, it was discovered that Jacob was holding onto his heel. He was called “heel-grabber”. It is of Hebrew origin, and its meaning is “he who supplants, trips up another and takes his place.”

Esau was also the father of the Edomites.

We know that God would not hate Esau without a cause. God hated Esau, not because of who he was, but because he did not regard his birthright as being very valuable. In fact, he thought so little of it that he sold it to his brother for a bowl of soup.

Mal. 1:2-3 “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,” “And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.”

The blessing of God through Abraham and Isaac then would come through the second son Jacob. From him, the 12 tribes of Israel would come. I say again, God did not just hate Esau without a cause. Esau turned his back on God.

Now having said all of that let me explain the love and hate being mentioned.

Actual emotional hatred for Esau and his offspring is not the point here. Genesis mentions no divine hatred toward Esau but (Oba. 1-21), indicated that the Lord’s hatred was against Esau’s idolatrous descendants. In the same way, the Lord’s love for Jacob refers to his descendants who were His sovereignly elected people through whom the world’s Redeemer would come.

The love/hate relationship language does not signify a comparative love in which God loved Jacob more and Esau less. Rather, the context here speaks of love as “choosing for intimate fellowship” and hate as “not choosing for intimate fellowship” in the realm of redemption.

God’s “love” for Jacob was revealed in His choice of Jacob and God’s “hatred” for Esau was seen in His rejecting Esau for the line of promise. Hatred in this sense is not absolute but relative to a higher choice (cf. Mat. 6:24; Luke 14:26; John 12:25).