Question:
I cannot understand why God should love Jacob better than Esau, for Jacob and his mother were deceitful and told a lie. Why should God bless him more than Esau?
Answer:
We do not know how many lies Esau told. The Lord does not tell us that. Satan’s special object has been to get God’s people to sin. That has ever been true, and the devil must have planned preeminently to destroy Jacob, the one through whom the promised Seed should come.
But it is worth knowing that in the great choice the two brothers made—an eternal choice involving eternal character — unconverted though Jacob was, he stood for God’s plan. The birthright was everything. Esau was willing to sell it for a mess of pottage. Jacob longed for it above everything else, and, being unconverted, he was ready to use any worldly means he could to secure it. However, we find his humble and heartfelt repentance following. As he returned from Syria and met Esau, he could tell the Lord that he was unworthy of the least of all His mercies. In his wrestling with the Angel at the ford Jabbok, the heart of Jacob was emptied and yielded to God forever. As a result, we find the change of his name indicative of a character change. No longer should his name be called Jacob, the supplanter, but Israel, the prevailer with God. See Genesis 32:22-30.
It is character, then, to which God refers when saying, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” The passage is first found in Malachi 1:2, 3. But by reading the context, we can readily see that it has reference not to Jacob and Esau as individuals but to them as a people. The reason why God loved the one—Jacob—was that he sought Him and followed Him. The other—Esau—not only turned away from God but turned their hands against God’s people.
Neither does it mean, by “hate,” that God cherished evil feelings against Esau. Through His prophet, Isaiah, the Lord pleads, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all, the ends of the earth.” And Esau is included among those whom the Lord would save.
It is well for us to remember that these persons who stand out in the Old Testament are frequently taken for types of character, such as Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, Ishmael and Isaac, Jezebel and Elijah. Remembering this will help us to understand some of the references made to them in later scriptures.
