Malachi 1:3

And I hated Esau,.... Or, "rejected" him, as the Targum; did not love him as Jacob: this was a negative, not positive hatred; it is true of him, personally considered; not only by taking away the

And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

I hated; I loved not Esau or his posterity as I loved Jacob and his posterity: this not loving, comparatively, is a hating, God showed not the same kindness to the twin brothers; the one was more enriched with the fruits of God’ s love, and had cause to be thankful; the other had no cause to complain, for God did him no wrong. Esau; containing his posterity with him; for though the hatred or lesser love began towards Esau’ s person, yet the effects of it appeared more manifestly in Esau’ s posterity. His mountains and his heritage; Mount Seir with the neighbouring mountains given to Esau for inheritance, as here it is said, and which he and his posterity did enjoy about one thousand two hundred years. Waste, by Nebuchadnezzar’ s arms five years after the sacking of Jerusalem, as foretold by Ezekiel, Ezekiel 35. The people were slain or captivated, or forced to lice from the sword of the enemy, their cities taken, plundered, and burnt. It is possible that they might meet with worse usage than the Jews met with herein; however, their state seems equal, and here is no token of unequal hatred; but what follows doth manifestly discover it, for whereas Jacob’ s captivity returned, and their cities were rebuilt, Esau’ s never were. For the dragons; or jackals, or owls, for the word is so used and explained by some; or all these with dragons doleful creatures, which delight in desolate places; by which the utter desolation, and the perpetuity of the desolation, of Esau is signified.

Malachi 1:3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.Ver. 3. And I hated Esau] i.e. I loved him not as I did Jacob; I passed him by, and let him alone, to perish in his corruption and for his sin. And for his posterity, whereas they were carried captives by Nebuchadnezzar (as Israel also was), I have not turned again their captivity, but laid their land desolate; rased and harassed their cities and castles, made them a habitation of dragons and devils; and all this as an argument of my deep hatred and utter detestation of them. True it is, that Judea lay utterly waste during the seventy years of their captivity; the land kept her sabbaths, resting from tillage. Upon the slaughter of Gedaliah all the Jews that were left in the land fled to Egypt: and God kept the place empty, and free from the invasion of foreigners, until the return of the natives out of Babylon. Now it was far otherwise with Idumea, the desolation whereof is here described to be both total and perpetual, according to that foretold by Ezekiel 35:7; Ezekiel 35:15, O mount Seir, I will make thee to be most desolate, or (as the Hebrew hath it, emphatically and eloquently) wasteness, and wasteness extreme and irrecoverable. A πανολεθρια, or utter, ruin, befell that country, being part of Arabia Petrea (hence mention of their mountains), and abounding naturally with serpents, or dragons; it being in the wilderness of this country of Edom where the Israelites were so stung with these fiery serpents, Numbers 21:6 : hence it became afterwards a very den of dragons lurking there.

Verse 3. And I hated Esau] I have shown him less love; Genesis 29:30-31. I comparatively hated him by giving him an inferior lot. And now, I have not only laid waste the dwelling-place of the Edomites, by the incursions of their enemies; but (Malachi 1:4) they shall remain the perpetual monuments of my vengeance. On the subject of loving Jacob and hating Esau, see the notes on Genesis 27:21-46, and Romans 9:13. Let it be remembered, 1. That there is not a word spoken here concerning the eternal state of either Jacob or Esau. 2. That what is spoken concerns merely their earthly possessions. And, 3. That it does not concern the two brothers at all, but the posterity of each.

3. for the dragons] Rather, jackals. The unusual form of the word here (fem. instead of masc. as elsewhere) has led many to render, dwellings (LXX. δώματαἐρήμου; and Syr.). But the derivation and meaning are not satisfactory. Rather, with R.V., I made his mountains a desolation, and gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness. Unless indeed we neglect the accents and adopt a third rendering, which seems still better to preserve the parallelism, I made his mountains a desolation, and his heritage a wilderness for jackals. The desolation of Edom here referred to was in all probability caused by Nebuchadnezzar, in fulfilment of the prophecy of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 49:17-22. Comp. Jeremiah 27:3-6). See Obadiah, Introd. pp. 20, 22, in this Series.

And I made his mountains a waste, and his heritage for the jackals of the wilderness - o Malachi attests the first stage of fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy (Joe 3:19, vol. i. pp.

JEHOVAH’S LOVE OF ISRAEL, Malachi 1:2-5.The contents of these verses form the basis of all subsequent appeals, for they emphasize the fatherly love of Jehovah toward the Hebrews, which entitles him