"I have loved you," says the LORD. But you ask, "How have You loved us?" "Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" declares the LORD. "Yet Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated, and I have made his mountains a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals."
But because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers, He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Significance
Malachi 1:2-3 declares "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated," demonstrating God's sovereign election by contrasting the fates of the twin brothers and their national descendants. This echoes Deuteronomy 7:8's assertion that God's love (אַהֲבָה, ahavah) for Israel was not based on Israel's merit but on His sovereign choice and covenant oath to the fathers. The contrast with Esau/Edom (whose mountains are made "a wasteland") demonstrates the enduring consequences of divine election. Malachi appeals to this Deuteronomic theology of unmerited love to rebuke postexilic Israel's ingratitude: the visible desolation of Edom should remind them that God's electing love remains actively operative on their behalf. Deuteronomy 7:7 makes this point explicit — God chose Israel "not because you were more numerous than any other people" — and Malachi's Jacob/Esau contrast supplies the starkest historical proof of that same unmerited, sovereign love.