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Selected Verse: Malachi 1:2 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Mal 1:2 |
King James |
I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
I have loved you--above other men; nay, even above the other descendants of Abraham and Isaac. Such gratuitous love on My part called for love on yours. But the return ye make is sin and dishonor to Me. This which is to be supplied is left unexpressed, sorrow as it were breaking off the sentence [MENOCHIUS], (Deu 7:8; Hos 11:1).
Wherein hast thou loved us?--In painful contrast to the tearful tenderness of God's love stands their insolent challenge. The root of their sin was insensibility to God's love, and to their own wickedness. Having had prosperity taken from them, they imply they have no tokens of God's love; they look at what God had taken, not at what God had left. God's love is often least acknowledged where it is most manifested. We must not infer God does not love us because He afflicts us. Men, instead of referring their sufferings to their proper cause, their own sin, impiously accuse God of indifference to their welfare [MOORE]. Thus Mal 1:1-4 form a fit introduction to the whole prophecy.
Was not Esau Jacob's brother?--and so, as far as dignity went, as much entitled to God's favor as Jacob. My adoption of Jacob, therefore, was altogether by gratuitous favor (Rom 9:13). So God has passed by our elder brethren, the angels who kept not their first estate, and yet He has provided salvation for man. The perpetual rejection of the fallen angels, like the perpetual desolations of Edom, attests God's severity to the lost, and goodness to those gratuitously saved. The sovereign eternal purpose of God is the only ground on which He bestows on one favors withheld from another. There are difficulties in referring salvation to the election of God, there are greater in referring it to the election of man [MOORE]. Jehovah illustrates His condescension and patience in arguing the case with them. |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
I have loved you, saith the Lord - What a volume of God's relations to us in two simple words, "I-have-loved you" . So would not God speak, unless He still loved. "I have loved and do love you," is the force of the words. When? And since when? In all eternity God loved; in all our past, God loved. Tokens of His love, past or present, in good or seeming ill, are but an effluence of that everlasting love. He, the Unchangeable, ever loved, as the apostle of love says Jo1 4:19, "we love Him, because He first loved us." The deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, the making them His Rom 9:4, "special people, the adoption, the covenant, the giving of the Law, the service of God and His promises," all the several mercies involved in these, the feeding with manna, the deliverance from their enemies whenever they returned to Him, their recent restoration, the gift of the prophets, were so many single pulses of God's everlasting love, uniform in itself, manifold in its manifestations. But it is more than a declaration of His everlasting love. "I have loved you;" God would say; with "a special love, a more than ordinary love, with greater tokens of love, than to others." So God brings to the penitent soul the thought of its ingratitude: I have loved "you:" I, you. And ye have said, "Wherein hast Thou loved us?" It is a characteristic of Malachi to exhibit in all its nakedness man's ingratitude. This is the one voice of all people's complaints, ignoring all God's past and present mercies, in view of the one thing which He withholds, though they dare not put it into words: "Wherein hast Thou loved us Psa 78:11? Within a while they forgot His works, and the wonders that He had showed them Psa 106:13 : they made haste, they forgot His works."
"Was not Esau Jacob's brother! saith the Lord: and I loved Jacob, and Esau have I hated." "While they were yet in their mother's womb, before any good or evil deserts of either, God said to their mother Gen 25:23, The older shall serve the younger. The hatred was not a proper and formed hatred (for God could not hate Esau before he sinned) but only a lesser love," which, in comparison to the great love for Jacob, seemed as if it were not love. "So he says Gen 29:31. The Lord saw that Leah was hated; where Jacob's neglect of Leah, and lesser love than for Rachel, is called 'hatred;' yet Jacob did not literally hate Leah, whom he loved and cared for as his wife." This greater love was shown in preferring the Jews to the Edomites, giving to the Jews His law, Church, temple, prophets, and subjecting Edom to them; and especially in the recent deliverance "He does not speak directly of predestination, but of pre-election, to temporal goods." God gave both nations alike over to the Chaldees for the punishment of their sins; but the Jews He brought back, Edom He left unrestored. |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| Loved you - Both personally considered and relatively, in progenitors. Us - Who have been captives, and groaned under it all our days 'till of late. Was not Esau - Did not one father beget them, and one mother bear them? I loved Jacob - I preferred him to the birthright, and this of free love. I loved his person, and his posterity. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
Was not Esau Jacob's brother? - Have I not shown a greater partiality to the Israelites than I have to the Edomites?
I loved Jacob - My love to Jacob has been proved by giving him greater privileges and a better inheritance than what I have given to Esau. |
13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
1 The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.
2 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob,
3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
4 Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever.
1 When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.
8 But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
31 And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.
23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.
13 They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel:
11 And forgat his works, and his wonders that he had shewed them.
4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;
19 We love him, because he first loved us.