Malachi 1:3
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but Esau I have hated, and I have made his mountains a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
God's Love, and the Contempt of His NameMalachi 1:1-2:9 The Lord has shown love to Israel (Mal 1:2-5), but Israel refuses Him the gratitude which is due, since the priests despise His name by offering bad sacrifices, and thereby cherish the delusion that God cannot do without the sacrifices (Mal 1:6-14). The people are therefore punished with adversity, and the priesthood with desecration (Mal 2:1-9).
Open source ↗Thus prophet is sent first to convince and then to comfort, first to discover sin and to reprove for that and then to promise the coming of him who shall take away sin. And this method the blessed Spirit takes in dealing with souls, Joh 16:8. He first opens the wound and then applies the healing balm. God had provided (and one would think effectually) for the engaging of Israel to himself by providences and ordinances; but it seems, by the complaints here made of them, that they received the grace of God in both these in vain. I. They were very ungrateful to God for his favours to them, and rendered not again according to the benefit they received (Mal 1:1-5). II. They were very careless and remiss in the observance of his institutions; the priests especially were so, who were in a particular manner charged with them (Mal 1:6-14). And what shall we say of those whom neither providences nor ordinances work upon, and who affront God in those very things wherein they should honour him?
Open source ↗1:3 rejected (literally hated, the antonym of loved in 1:2): Love and hate form a polar word pair in Old Testament legal and prophetic texts (see Deut 7:9-10; Amos 5:15), often used to describe the alienation of a broken covenant relationship. Here, God says that he rejected Esau (and his descendants, the Edomites). Esau had despised and rejected covenant relationship with the Lord (see Gen 25:34; 26:34-35). • Esau was the ancestor of the Edomite nation, and his inheritance, the territory of Edom, was located on the southeastern rim of the Dead Sea. The mention of Jacob and Esau calls to mind the twin brothers’ rivalry (Gen 25:23-26).
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame and cut off forever.
Egypt will become desolate, and Edom a desert wasteland, because of the violence done to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood.
But I will strip Esau bare; I will uncover his hiding places, and he will be unable to conceal himself. His descendants will be destroyed along with his relatives and neighbors, and he will be no more.
Babylon will become a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals, an object of horror and scorn, without inhabitant.
“And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple.
For behold, I am on your side; I will turn toward you, and you will be tilled and sown.
Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: I have sworn with an uplifted hand that surely the nations around you will endure reproach of their own.
The parched ground will become a pool, the thirsty land springs of water. In the haunt where jackals once lay, there will be grass and reeds and papyrus.