How could God hate Esau?

John 3:16 does beautifully describe the gospel message: the message of God’s love for sinners. What kind of God would love sinners? The only God, the God who “is love” (1 John 4:16).

And yet, the Bible tells us that the God of love who loves sinners also hates sin and hates sinners (Psalm 5:5). That is the message of the law. The messages of the law and the gospel are not contradictory messages; they are different messages.

If Esau died without saving faith, the verse from Malachi you cited could reference God’s declaration of an unbeliever on the last day. On the other hand, the verse you cited could describe how God lovingly treated two individuals in different ways. Let me explain.

To the Jews of Malachi’s day who grumbled about the lack of love on God’s part (Malachi 1:2), God reminded them that he had showed generous, undeserved love to their ancestor Jacob by overriding the normal order of the birthright, taking that blessing from Esau and giving it to Jacob. In that sense, God “hated” Esau in much the same way as when Jesus instructed people to “hate” members of their family: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). “Hatred” there too speaks of a lesser degree of love.

The verse from Malachi that you quoted can be understood in different ways. However, it cannot be understood to mean that God, from eternity, chose Esau to be condemned. That is not the God of the Bible. The Triune God does not want “anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). He “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).