“God loves you.” Have you ever heard someone say that to you? It’s a theme reiterated throughout Scripture. God declares His love for the people of Israel in Malachi 1:2, “’I have loved you,’ says the LORD. But you say, ‘How have You loved us?’ ‘Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ declares the LORD. ‘Yet I have loved Jacob;’” Here we see God declaring His love for His people as these people were hearing the prophecies or reading them. Pay careful attention to how God tells them that he loves them. “‘I have loved you,’ says the LORD.” God is talking specifically to Israel, not to all people around the world. But Israel doubts that love. “But you say, ‘How have You loved us?’”
The book of Malachi is framed around a series of questions that the people ask. They ask 23 questions and “How have You loved us?” is the first question they ask God.
They ask this because their history consisted of destruction, deportation, and humiliation. They question God’s goodness. The days of king David and king Solomon where Israel was prominent and influential in the region were gone. Now Israel was one nation of many on the long list of countries that Babylon and Persia had conquered, subdued, and reigned over.
Israel asks if God still loves them because of what God has allowed to happen. They’ve been conquered and carried away to another nation. While David and Solomon were good kings, Rehoboam—Solomon’s son—led the nation away from the Lord and His ways. God sent them prophets to warn them, but they didn’t return back to God. So in 586 BC God sent Babylon came and conquered them and took them into exile.
But there was a glimmer of hope. King Cyrus of Persia in 539 BC overtook the Babylonians and allowed the nation of Israel to return to the land.[1] The people were passionate and excited to get to be back into the land. The people hollered: “God’s not done with us yet” and “He will still be faithful to us.” But when Malachi writes in 400 BC that passion had since past. No longer were they following the temple rules, being loyal to God with their offerings, or marrying Jewish women in order to keep their names and lives pure. They had wandered from God. The glory and honor they thought they would experience from being back in the land never occurred.
As God speaks in Malachi 1:2, God reminds them of His love through their heritage and history. “’Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ declares the LORD.” This was a rhetorical question designed to reaffirm that Esau was Jacob’s brother, which was the foundation for the next statement. “Yet I have loved Jacob;” (Jacob represents the nation of Israel.)God is saying that He loves Israel because He chose Jacob.
Jacob and Esau were the two twin sons of Isaac and Rebecca. Jacob was the kind-tendered hearted younger son. He was called “a peaceful man, living in tents” (Genesis 25:27). While Esau was the wild-outside hunter gatherer older son. He was called “a skillful hunter, a man of the field” (Genesis 25:27).
Someone might read this and say, Of course God chose Jacob. Jacob was mostly good and obedient while Esau was wild and worldly. But Genesis 25:22-23 says that the two boys were struggling against each other in Rebecca’s womb. God told Rebekah that two nations were in her womb and that one would be stronger than the other. God then told Rebekah that the older child would serve the younger child. God chose Jacob over Esau before they were even born. In these verses we see God chose Jacob not because of what he had done (because he wasn’t born yet).
The apostle Paul quotes this verse from Malachi 1:2 and further explains it in his letter to the Romans, “And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, ‘THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.’ Just as it is written, ‘JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED’” (Romans 9:10–13).
God chose Jacob and made a covenant with Israel so that they would be a holy nation. He chose them, loved them, and made a covenant with them. God’s love for Israel is seen in the fact that He chose them without reason.
Back to Malachi now. If we are honest we too, like the Israelites, question God’s goodness. When we have a marriage that falls apart, when a beloved family member passes away unexpectedly, when we lose our job, or when our health fades away. We all ask, God, if you love me, why did you allow this to happen to me?
Let’s not miss this: Malachi 1:2 tells us that God loves us. We know God loves us because He chose us before we were born. Paul writes to the believers in Ephesus saying, “[God] chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of His will” (Ephesians 1:4-5). We are reminded of God’s love for us when we remember that we, like Jacob, were chosen before we were born.
We know God loves us because He sent His son to die for us. Galatians 2:20b, “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
We know God loves us because He makes us sons and daughters of Him. The Bible says that when we place our faith in Christ we become part of God’s household. And in that way, we become sons and daughters of God as in Galatians 4:5, “God sent him [Jesus] to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children” (NLT).
We know God loves us because He lives inside of us. 1 Corinthians 6:19, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”
God’s love is passionate and constant. But most importantly, we need to know God loves us even if we don’t feel it. The message Malachi was delivering to Israel then and the message to us now is this: God loves us even when we don’t feel it.
[1] King Cyrus issues the decree in 538 BC decree and in 536 BC the people arrive and to attempt to rebuild their temple and city walls in Jerusalem.