“As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.'” (ESV)
This verse has given interpreters and readers a lot of trouble over the centuries. The biggest reason for this is that somewhere along the line the basic understanding of the ideas of love and hate changed to be in line with how we think about them today. We most often think of love and hate as emotions. In the Scriptures, though, they are both decisions of the will that have less to do with how someone is feeling about the object of the decision than about their intentions toward them. More specifically, to love someone throughout the Scriptures is to choose them. To hate someone is to not choose them. The reasons for these choices may be many, but it is choice, not emotion, that is the basic idea. Read the rest…
The Nexus 