A gospel preacher has noticed that Hosea 9:15 "is the only instance" in the Bible "stating that God hates anyone." Indeed, of the ten tribes of northern Israel, about 750 B.C., God said, "I hated them" and "I will love them no more."

Hate. Literally and actually God, who is "Love" (1 John 4:8, 16), has never hated anybody. Since Adam is called a "son" of God (Luke 3:23, 38), all of us are sons or daughters of the heavenly Father. What kind of father is he? "As a father is tender toward his children, so the Lord is tender to those who reverence him. He, even he, knows how we are made, and he remembers that we are dust" (Psalm 103:13-14).

Similarly, a normal earthly father, when he has a misbehaving son, the father never hates him, but only what the son does. Likewise, when God said of the sinful Jews in 750 B.C., in the days of Hosea, that "I hated them," the meaning must be that he hated not the Jews themselves, but "their sinful deeds" (Hosea 9:15, NIV), "the wickedness of their doings" (ASV). For example, "These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven he detests" (Proverbs 6:16). He hates, not the people themselves, but the "things" they do.

Love. What is the meaning of the Lord’s statement about the Israelites of the northern kingdom in about 750 B.C., "I will love them no more" (Hosea 9:15)? There are two aspects of love: (1) affection, as in phileo: (2) commitment, as in agapao.

1. Affection: One cannot say that the Lord did not have tender affection for each one of the Israelites, even in their "wickedness." Always, not just when God sent Jesus, God has "so loved the world" of sinners. His tender and caring affection for each human being is everlasting, for "he knows how we are made, and he remembers that we are dust" (Psalm 103:14). It follows, then, when God told Hosea to write, "I will love them no more," he was not talking about a deadening of loving affection for each Israelite.

2. Commitment: One has to say that the Lord did not have a loving commitment to restore the kingdom of Israel. The Lord "was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight" (2 Kings 17:18). "So Israel was carried away out of their land into Assyria" (2 Kings 17:33). Love as a commitment to restore Israel’s kingdom, with its capital in Samaria, was not in the Lord’s plan. Therefore, when he said, "I will love them no more," he was not speaking of a cessation of affection for each individual, whom he would continue to love, but of a permanent cessation of the northern kingdom of Israel.

There is a sense in which, not the affection of love, but its commitment, ceases when a son disobeys his father. Jesus said, "If you keep my commandments, you will continue in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and I continue in his love" (John 15:10). Of this divine love, Adam Clarke wrote, "Hence we learn that it is impossible to retain a sense of God’s pardoning love without continuing in the obedience of faith."

All Christians are commanded to "keep yourselves in the love of God" (Jude 21). Jude’s statement does not mean that Christians are to keep loving God (the meaning of 1 John 4:19), but Christians are to keep themselves under the shelter of God’s love, "the love which God has in us" (1 John 4:16). God’s love "in us" is maintained by keeping "his word" (1 John 2:5). Of Jude’s statement, Matthew Henry wrote: "Keep yourselves in the way of God, if you would continue in his love."

Besides Hosea 9:15 there are two more verses that say God "hates" someone: "I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated" (Malachi 1:2-3; Romans 9:13). Since it is impossible for God (who "so loved the world" of sinners (John 3:16; Romans 3:23) that he would send Jesus to die for them) to hate any sinner, what is the explanation of his statement that "Esau I hated"?

We found, in the study of Hosea 9:15, that God did not hate "the sinful Jews of 750 B.C." personally, but he hated "their sinful deeds" (Hosea 9:15, NIV), the "wickedness of their doings" (Hosea 9:15, ASV). Similarly, God did not hate Esau personally, nor his successors, the Edomites, but only their "wickedness" (Hebrews 12:16; Malachi 1:4).

A second name for Esau (`Esaw, hairy) is Edom (‘Edom, red), because "Esau said to Jacob, ‘Red stew! Give me some, for I am famished!’ This is he reason his name was called Edom, Red" (Genesis 25:30). "Esau is Edom" (Genesis 36:8), and so "Esau is the father of the Edomites" (Genesis 36:43).

God commanded the Israelites, "You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother" (Deuteronomy 23:7). Could God say, "I loved Jacob (the Israelites) but Esau (the Edomites) I hated" (Malachi 1:2-3), and still command the Israelites not to "abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother"? Would God do something that no Israelite was allowed to do? And if an Edomite was not to be abhorred because he was a brother, could God (a father) hate or abhor an Edomite who was his son?

I do not believe that God ever abhorred or hated an Edomite personally, for every human being is loved by a heavenly Father who is "not willing" that anyone, anywhere, at any time, "should perish" (2 Peter 3:9), but he has always abhorred and hated the wickedness of the Edomites and of everyone else.

A gospel preacher asks, "Can the word ‘hate’ be proved to mean ‘love less’?" Indeed so, but not in Hosea 9:15; Malachi 1:2-3; Romans 9:13, where it means God hates the wickedness of anyone, but God still loves him forever, never "less."

In other contexts, the word ‘hate’ does mean "love less." "Leah was hated" (Genesis 29:31), but only in the sense that Jacob loved "Rachel more than Leah" (Genesis 29:30), which means Leah was loved less. Similarly, every disciple of Jesus must "hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brother and sister, yes, even his own life" (Luke 14:26), but only in the sense that he "loves father or mother, son or daughter" less than he loves Jesus (Matthew 10:37).

6-13-2000