Jacob Have I Loved, But Esau Have I Hated

Below is but a small measure of revelation that my father had received from the Lord. I hope this will be a blessing to you. All that is written below are the words of my father.

Jacob Have I Loved, But Esau Have I Hated  

In loving memory of my father
Robert Louis (Bob) Padgett
July 28, 1931-May 22, 2023

11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth;)
12 It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Romans 9:11-13

The above verse is perhaps one of the more difficult verses in the Bible to understand. On the surface that verse appears to contradict the following two sets of verses.


16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:16-17

34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:

35 But in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him. Acts 10:34-35

But there are no contradictions in the Bible. The only contradictions are in the minds of the carnal man. God is not the author of confusion. We also know that God is love; but God is also a God of judgment. So now the question is, Why? Why did God love Jacob but hate Esau? And that even before they were born? Some may say because of the sovereignty of God. But that makes no sense if we think about it. Do you really think that God deliberately created some men just so He could send them to hell? Let us search the Scripture to try to find the answer to the question.

God is omniscient; He lives in eternity; He knows the decisions we will make before we make them. So the Lord knew what Esau would do, even before he was born.

Jacob speaks of the natural man; Israel speaks of the spiritual man. Let us first of all try to see why God loved Jacob. Jacob was selfish, which is characteristic of all natural men. When Esau came in from the fields and was hungry, Jacob would not give him food unless Esau gave him something in return. Jacob was deceitful with his blind father when he used kid skins and deliberately lied in order to obtain a spiritual blessing. In a real sense he was the victim of his mother's partiality (Rebekah loved Jacob - Genesis 25:28) but He was much less than honorable when he went along with his mother's plan to get that blessing. Jacob was a man of guile, but Jacob had two encounters with the Lord. The first was at Bethel.


10 And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran.

11 And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.

12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

13 And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;

14 And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.

17 And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

18 And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.

19 And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.

20 And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on,

21 So that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God:

22 And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto Thee. Genesis 28:10-22

Even after that encounter with the Lord, Jacob was still Jacob ... a natural man. He did not yet understand that we can make no demands of the Lord. Verses 20-22 speak of his lack of spiritual understanding. But the Lord still loved Jacob because He saw the end of his decisions.

One of the principle characteristics of the ways of God is found in Psalm 18.

20 The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath He recompensed me.

21 For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

22 For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away His statutes from me.

23 I was also upright before Him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity.

24 Therefore hath the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His eyesight.

25 With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright;

26 With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward. Psalm 18:20-26

Verse 26b can be translated as, "With the perverse or crooked or contender, thou will wrestle." That is what happened when the angel (Hosea 12:4) wrestled with Jacob. Jacob's second encounter with the Lord was at Peniel (or Penuel), which means "the face of God."


24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.

26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.

27 And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.

28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

29 And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.

30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. Genesis 32:24-30 

Many believe that the angel who wrestled with Jacob was Michael, the arch-angel ... the chief angel. If so, then why does 1 Thessalonians 4:16 indicate that it was the Lord Himself? Moreover, if the "wrestler" were both a man and an angel, then more credence must be given to the assumption that it was indeed the Lord himself who wrestled with Jacob. In addition, Jacob believed that he had wrestled with God. We believe this "wrestling match" was mental, spiritual, and physical. Obviously Jacob was no match for the Lord in any kind of wrestling bout. That was the grace of God, who wanted to see how intense Jacob was for the Lord Himself.

Many long years ago when I read the verses in Psalm 18, the Holy Spirit quickened another phrase to me: "With the intense, the LORD will show Himself intensely." But there is a caveat. Our intensity must be for the LORD Himself. I have always been one of the least emotional persons you have ever seen. In the natural realm, before the Lord apprehended me, I remember only three times in my life that I exhibited intense emotion. Once was at a football game in 1949, when I was a freshman in college. The freshmen were required to wear a little beanie until a football game with our arch-rival was completed. If our team won the football game, then we were no longer required to wear the beanie; but if we lost the game, then we had to wear the beanie the rest of that semester. Well our team was ahead until the last few seconds of the game. Then the rival team scored a touchdown in the last few seconds and our team lost. I was so angry that I jammed that beanie on my head so hard that the beanie ripped open.

Starting at about the age of 8 or 9 I used to play golf quite a bit. Although I never had a golf lesson in my life, I was naturally gifted in that area. For many years I held the course record at the city course in High Point, N.C., when I was six under par for the first nine holes. I also won the North Carolina state high school golf championship tournament in 1949. I thought about being a golf professional as a vocation and actually played in three PGA tournaments. I was very intense about golf. Many times I would play by myself if no one else wanted to play. On one occasion when I missed a putt I got so mad that I threw my putter about 100 feet up in the air. Another time when I hit a bad shot I wrapped my club around a tree.

The third, and last time I exhibited intense emotion, was in the spring of 1967, when we were attending a Methodist church. Neither my wife nor I knew the Lord at that time. Someone told me about a husband and wife named Conway who were members of that same church and who were doing some "funny" things like speaking in tongues. I got so mad that I told my wife that if they wanted to do things like that then they ought to get out of the church!

Moses was an intense man. When Moses was in the mount with God, as He wrote with His finger the two tables of stone, the people were making merry and turned their gold into an idol. When Moses came back to the people and saw the golden calf and the dancing, he became very angry and broke the two tablets of stone. "And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written" (Exodus 32:31-32).

Stephen was an intense man. He was the first man (other than Jesus of course) to stand up against the Jewish Sanhedrin. Some could say that Stephen made a mistake by doing that. Just think of all of the good that Stephen could have done on earth if he had just exercised more wisdom. But that is not the way that the Lord saw it.


51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.

52 Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:

53 Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.

54 When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.

55 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,

56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.

57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,

58 And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul.

59 And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

60 And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Acts 7:51-60

There are at least seven verses in the New Testament that tell us that after the risen Christ Jesus ascended into heaven, He sat at the right hand of the Father. Five of those verses are in the book of Hebrews. The significance of Him sitting down is that He had finished His work on earth. Now note in Acts 7:55 that Stephen saw Jesus standing on the right hand of God. Perhaps when Jesus saw the intensity of Stephen for the Lord, He stood up as if to applaud Stephen and say, "that is my man!"

Elijah was an intense man for the Lord. Certainly so were Peter and Paul. That is why Paul received so much revelation. Throughout the last 2000 years there have been any number of men who were likewise intense for the Lord. Likewise, I cannot tell you how many times I have wept and groaned in my spirit that the Church might mature.

Now let us consider why the Lord hated Esau.

34 And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father.

35 And he said, Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing.

36 And he said, Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing. And he said, Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?

37 And Isaac answered and said unto Esau, Behold, I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren have I given to him for servants; and with corn and wine have I sustained him: and what shall I do now unto thee, my son?

38 And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept.

39 And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above;

40 And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.

41 And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob. Genesis 27:34-41

Every believer knows that Esau sold his birthright to his brother, Jacob, for a mess of red pottage (Genesis 25:29-34). He despised his birthright (Genesis 25:34). But we do not believe that was the reason why God hated Esau, who was a man of the earth who lived for worldly things and nothing else. Esau's repentance was directed only to his natural father, Isaac. Esau never repented to God. In fact Esau never even mentioned the name of the Lord or God. Esau was simply sorry that he had lost his birthright and then lost the blessing due to the elder son. He was only interested in worldly pursuits. Even his stated repentance to his father Isaac was superficial and me-centered, because he still hated Jacob and vowed to kill him (Verse 41, above). That was why the Lord hated Esau.

Hebrews 6:1 speaks of repentance from dead works. But that is not sufficient to please the Lord. We also must exhibit repentance toward God (Acts 20:21). The first word of the Kingdom is "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." May the Holy Spirit quicken to each believer the depth of that word.