[ArGee]

Not being a Hebrew scholar, my understanding is that the language would be better represented as "Jacob have I favored and Esau have I punished." or something to that effect.

In all things, though, we have to remember we are describing an infinite G-d with finite language. The First Commandment, wherein G-d says He is jealous, does not mean what it means if I am jealous because my wife is flirting with another man. It's just as close to what G-d means as you can get with human language.

Shalom.

[John O]

This is true. All the commentaries (John Gill; Matthew Henry; Jamieson, Fausset, Brown) that I have access to at the moment seem to imply "reject" as a better word but still use "hate" in the description of these verses. I checked this to be sure I was correct in my usage. I haven't found anything in the commentaries to show me my error.

The important thing to remember though is that it is possible to love and hate something at the same time. Hate is not the opposite of love (even if the dictionary defines it that way)

Apathy is the opposite of love. You have to care about something in order to hate it.

Ah well, interesting (but ranging far off topic) discussion.