Romans 9:13

By quoting Malachi 1:2-3 Paul raised his discussion from the level of personal election to national election. Malachi was speaking of nations, as the context of this Malachi quotation shows. Paul’s point was that God does not wait until He sees how individuals or nations develop and what choices they make before He elects them. God chose Jacob and the nation of Israel for reasons that lay within Himself, not because they merited election (cf. Deuteronomy 7:6-8). This is a powerful refutation of the claim that election results from prior knowledge, that God chooses a person for salvation having foreseen that he or she will believe the gospel.

"The connection of this quotation with Romans 9:12 suggests that God’s love is the same as his election: God chose Jacob to inherit the blessings promised first to Abraham. . . . If God’s love of Jacob consists in his choosing Jacob to be the ’seed’ who would inherit the blessings promised to Abraham, then God’s hatred of Esau is best understood to refer to God’s decision not to bestow this privilege on Esau. It might best be translated ’reject.’ "Love’ and ’hate’ are not here, then, emotions that God feels but actions that he carries out." [Note: Ibid., p. 587. Cf. Cranfield, 2:480. See also Matthew 6:24; Luke 14:26; and John 12:25.]

"The strong contrast is a Semitic idiom that heightens the comparison by stating it in absolute terms." [Note: Mounce, p. 199.]

"As to ’Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,’ a woman once said to Mr. Spurgeon, ’I cannot understand why God should say that He hated Esau.’ ’That,’ Spurgeon replied, ’is not my difficulty, madam. My trouble is to understand how God could love Jacob!" [Note: Newell, p. 364.]

In Romans 9:6-13 Paul established that Israel was the object of God’s choice for special blessing because of His own gracious will. He did not choose Israel because of the Israelites’ natural descent from Abraham or because of their superior qualities.