Texts in Conversation
Malachi gives God’s verdict that Esau is rejected and Edom’s hills left a wasteland. Jubilees moves that judgment earlier, having Isaac say that Esau and his line will be uprooted from the earth for abandoning the God of Abraham.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Malachi 1:2
Hebrew Bible
1 This is an oracle, the Lord’s message to Israel through Malachi: 2 “I have shown love to you,” says the Lord, but you say, “How have you shown love to us?” “Esau was Jacob’s brother,” the Lord explains, “yet I chose Jacob 3 and rejected Esau. I turned Esau’s mountains into a deserted wasteland and gave his territory to the wild jackals.” 4 Edom says, “Though we are devastated, we will once again build the ruined places.” So the Lord of Heaven’s Armies responds, “They indeed may build, but I will overthrow. They will be known as the land of evil, the people with whom the Lord is permanently displeased.
Jubilees 35:14
Pseudepigrapha
13 Isaac said to her: ‘I, too, know and see the actions of Jacob who is with us — that he wholeheartedly honors us. At first I did love Esau more than Jacob, after he was born; but now I love Jacob more than Esau because he has done so many bad things and lacks the ability to do what is right. For the entire way he acts is characterized by injustice and violence and there is no justice about him.’ 14 ‘Now my mind is disturbed about his actions. Neither he nor his descendants are to be saved because they will be destroyed from the earth and be uprooted from beneath the sky. For he has abandoned the God of Abraham and has gone after his wives, after impurity, and after their errors — he and his sons.’ 15 ‘You are saying to me that I should make him swear not to kill his brother Jacob. Even if he does swear, it will not happen. He will not do what is virtuous but rather what is evil.’
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Notes and References
... Resort to the verb 'hate' in connection with Jacob and Esau reminds one of Malachi 1:2-3: 'I have loved you, says the Lord. But you say, "How have you loved us?" Is not Esau Jacob's brother? Says the Lord. Yet I have loved Jacob but I have hated Esau; I have made his hill country a desolation and his heritage a desert for jackals.' If Jacob hated Esau, he would be doing no more than what the Lord himself did. Yet in the narrative of Jubilees there is no evidence that Jacob hated Esau or his sons. True, he had threatened to kill Esau if he tried to dispatch him (27:4), but Jacob had maintained good relations with his brother (29:13) and had sworn to his mother: 'Trust me that nothing bad against Esau will come from me or my sons. I will not be first except in love only' (35:26). ...
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