Hebrew Word Study – Hate – Sane – שנא  – Sene Nun Aleph

Rom. 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

Malachi 1:2: “I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? [Was] not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, (3) And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.”

This is a very disturbing passage for many Christians.  How is it possible for God who is perfect in love to hate?  Many just pass this off saying: “Well, God is only human and He can hate just as much as the rest of us.”  Some even use it as an excuse: “If God can hate Esau then I don’t see why I can’t hate…”   We look at some wicked people and feel they are really deserving of God’s hatred.  You have Hitler, mass murderers, atheist who mock and curse the very notion of God.  Surely, we can allow God some room for hatred here, can we not?  

If we use that reasoning where do we draw the line?  Does God love a person who murdered just one person but hates the mass murderer who killed fifty people?  What about forty? Would he hate someone who killed twenty people?  Now I am beginning to sound like Abraham in Genesis 18:26-33.  Where does dislike turn to hate in God’s nature?  We do things that God dislikes but could he dislike us personally?  Is that possible in perfect love?  I guess we can play around with semantics and nuances of the word hate, dislike, detest or have an aversion  and we will never reach a conclusion.

Today we have laws against hate speech and hate crimes. On the surface these laws sound very noble and most likely those who pushed to have such laws enacted had the noblest intentions.  The only problem is, if you move beyond the obvious hate speech and hate crimes you end up in some pretty murky waters as to whether a statement was hateful and a crime was a hate crime. Even after many precedencies to these laws are established, there will always be new cases to consider and be debated. One man’s hate is another man’s dislike of some thing they do not personally agree with.

Here is the issued that disturbs me.  If God could hate someone like Esau who really was not what we call a despicable person (ok, maybe in the minds of some he was) then what would it take for God to hate me?  Just assigning the English word hate to God automatically puts us on slippery slope where it can be argued that if we commit just one sin God will hate us. 

The word in Hebrew for hate is sane which has other usages rather than hate but in the twenty seven different English translations of the Bible I looked at only three used a word other than hate and those three used the word reject. Even that is disturbing because I always believed it is us that reject God and not God rejecting us.  If God can reject us then that means I may cross some line and at some point I go to God to ask forgiveness and He will say: “So sorry old chap, but you just committed that sin one too many times, I am afraid I will have to reject your request for forgiveness. 

The reason translators walk in lock step rendering sane as hate is because hate is the direct opposite of love and that is the most logical word to use when comparing the love God had for Jacob and the feelings He had for Easu which appears to be the opposite.  But then who is to say that the word ahav, the word used for love here needs to be translated as love? Just like sane, ‘ahav has multiple usages as well.  Maybe you could say: “Jacob I related to intimately.”  You could also say: “Jacob in whom I was able to kindle a fire.”  Then you would be able to express something lessor than hate when contrasted with Esau.  Sane in its Semitic root expresses the idea of creating distance, estrangement, turning away or alienation.  

It would be just as proper to render this passage as: “Jacob, whom I was able to draw near to and kindle a fire of passion, but with Esau I was alienated and unable to draw near to him.”  There is nothing wrong with that English translation from both the Hebrew Old Testament and the Aramaic New Testament, except it just doesn’t go with tradition. It just doesn’t speak the party line and it is not walking in lock step with the teachings of certain churches who consider themselves the front line of defense against a God who is angry and will hate you if you cross a certain line. Why. if not for these churches who give you a chance to appease this God’s anger every Sunday where would we all be? And it only cost you 10% of your income to join this exclusive club and to hold back this wild beast of a god. OMG!!! That is hate speech.

So, at the risk of sounding like I am teaching about a God of perfect love, always ready to forgiven, filled with eternal mercy and compassion who cannot possibly  hate you,  I only present this little study as an option and leave it to you to decide which translation you wish to go with.   

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