THE BIBLE DOES NOT TEACH HATE

Q: I'm working through the passage in Malachi that talks about God hating Esau and loving Jacob. Of course, in Christian texts, you have Jesus using similar language (if you don't hate your father and mother, you're not worthy of me). Exactly how should I understand "hate" in this context? How is this Hebraism meant to be understood? I poured over the Midrash's dealings with the Genesis account of Jacob and Esau and didn't really get anything satisfying. Help! - J. Price

A: Given the recent and justified hysteria about preachers who preach hate, your question offers a welcome opportunity to go to the source. This is not the place for a full-scale biblical disquisition of the nature of hate in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, but here are some direct responses to your laudable biblical concerns:

First, the New Testament text you're referencing is Luke 14:26: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Jesus is not commanding his followers to hate their parents, even though that is the direct meaning of the text. This cannot be its meaning because hating one's parents would contradict that commandment in the Big Ten that we must honor our father and our mother.

It seems obvious to me Jesus is teaching (and it would be a good idea to go beyond Rabbi Gellman to a Christian theologian of your choice) that in matters of allegiance to God and God's commandments for our life, even the teachings of our parents must be rejected if their teachings are immoral. He's raising only the case where the teachings of faith and the teachings of family contradict each other.

If you have any doubt that Jesus is offering a teaching of love, I urge you to re-read Matthew 5:43-48: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect."

Or check out Luke 6:27-30: "But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back."

I'm certain that your struggle with the prophetic book of Malachi begins at the beginning (Malachi 1:1-3): "The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. 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, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness."

What this verse is describing is what the people are saying, not what God is saying. This verse is condemning their hateful attitude. It goes on to equally condemn the Edomites for their boatful of hatreds, and then in Chapter 2:10 we come to what God is really saying: "Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers?"

I'm disappointed when Christians claim that the New Testament teaches love, while the Old Testament teaches vengeance. The truth is, both texts teach love and both teach hate, the proper form of hate -- the only form of hate that is spiritually acceptable: "Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked." (Psalm 97:10).

We must hate the evil in the world because that hatred is the spiritual fuel we need to get off our behinds and do something real to save those who live in all the modern houses of bondage and who await their own deliverance with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.

If you don't like the word hate, then just call it a passion for justice, call it an attempt to repair our broken world. Love, after all, is not merely a passion for the good. Love is also a passion to fight evil. Without that passion, love is empty and evil prospers.

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