QUESTION BOX: Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated" Rom. 9:13

Paul in Romans 9-11 doesn't just start talking about predestination and God's love to Israel. He does so within the context of the preceding eight chapters of Romans, in which he has emphasized that the Gospel, the good news, is of salvation for sinners by grace alone. He goes on to talk about Israel as a parade example of this; and whilst we may not fully understand predestination, Paul raises this concept to prove that to some extent, it does exist, and therefore provides another window into the idea of grace - undeserved favour, God just deciding to be kind, nice, forgiving and saving. That His grace doesn't depend upon human works and worthiness is exemplified in His undying love for His people Israel- sinners whom He could have "cast off", indeed He felt like casting them off many times and yet He kept coming back to them because of His grace. To heighten the extent of His radical grace, God speaks of how He loved Jacob but hated Esau. But the idea of 'hate' in this context doesn't involve malice of any kind. The Lord spoke of how we can't serve two masters- we hold to the one and 'hate' the other (Mt. 6:24); and how we can't be His disciple unless we 'hate' our families (Lk. 14:26).

It's been suggested that 'hate' means 'to love less', but this isn't what the original words translated "hate" really means - at best, the "to love less" suggestion is an interpretation, not a translation. The 42 times where the Greek word 'miseo' occurs means 'hate', simple as that. The original passage in Mal. 1:3, "I hated Esau" likewise uses a Hebrew word which unambiguously means 'hate'. Instead of explaining away Hebrew and Greek words, I suggest we need to read this as a literary device, in this case hyperbole, i.e. an exaggeration in order to make a point. Relative to God's bottomless love for Jacob, Esau was as it were 'hated'. But only within the boundaries of the device of hyperbole. The point being made by the hyperbole is simply that 'God loves Jacob / His people an unreasonable and colossal amount'. This may sound strange to the ears of those whose native language is English or some other European language, but in Semitic [and other] languages, hyperbole is so common that it occurs very frequently. Arab media can publish statements that the temperature in Damascus is 500 degrees Centigrade; they mean 'It's very hot'. The IDF kill 5 Palestinian militants in Gaza, and the Arab press speak of "thousands" slain; they mean 'A relatively large number'. To European mindsets, such statements are libellous, inaccurate, lacking in integrity and so forth. But that perception comes from the relatively literalistic, precise usage of language in the European languages [not least English]; the relationship between words and meaning simply functions differently, and in a far more elastic sense, in a language like Hebrew or Arabic. At the risk of generalizing, we could say that the Semitic languages require more interpretation to be provided by the reader / listener. It tends, therefore, to be Europeans who have a problem with statements like, "I hated Esau" rather than native speakers of the original languages. God doesn't irrationally hate some human beings because of their ethnicity. Indeed, the parable of the prodigal son is shot through with allusion to the story of Jacob and Esau; the prodigal younger son finally returns from exile, but the Father still protests His eternal love for the elder son too. But that's homework for the enthusiast.

Duncan Heaster