As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

Mark Seifrid, the Romans commentator in the Carson/Beale work “Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament” (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, ©2007), wrote the following:

It is Jacob whom God has chosen, according to the word to Rebecca. In the context of Malachi, Israel lives under straitened conditions in the early Second Temple period, in which the Lord seems distant and indifferent to the conduct of his people (Malachi 3:8–15). The opening words of the oracle thus constitute a rebuke to the nation: “‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord” (Mal 1:1). The Lord answer’s Israel’s unbelieving response, “How have you loved us?” by pointing to Esau. Although Esau is Jacob’s brother (and therefore in no way differs from him), the Lord has loved Jacob and hated Esau. As in Romans 9, God’s love is here defined by its freedom. The evidence for the Lord’s love for Israel lies in the return from exile and the rebuilding that has already taken place. The Lord has brought Esau’s land to ruin, as he has done with Israel. Yet no matter how resolutely Edom determines to rebuild its ruins, the Lord will tear them down (Mal 1:3–5). Matters are obviously different for God’s people. Israel, blind to the evidence all about it of the Lord’s love, seeing only the unrequited conduct of the wicked and the righteous, lives in unthankfuness, indifference, and disobedience (Mal 1:4–14).

The prophetic announcement “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” is intended to open Israel’s eyes. Paul’s appeal to the text implies that the pattern has been repeated in his day. God in freedom has set his love on some within Israel, but not on others. And yet, faintly, the passage also brings a reminder of God’s love for all Israel, which has its beginning in “Jacob” and the word spoken before his birth. Paul later names that nation according to its beginning as he speaks of its final salvation (Rom 11:26–27). The reminder of God’s love for Jacob casts a shadow, faint though it may be, of the salvation of Israel yet to come.