[153] Mal. i. 2, 3.—It is plain that "hatred" in such a connexion (and cp. Matt. vi. 24, Luke xiv. 26) need mean no more than relative repudiation. No personal animosity is in question, but a decisive rejection of a rival claim. See Grimm's N. T. Lexicon (Thayer), s.v. μισεῖν.
[154] Observe the vital personality of the phrase; "the Scripture speaks." Cp. Gal. iii. 8 for perhaps the strongest example of the kind.
[155] Cp. Psal. lxxxi. 12, and above, i. 24, 26.
[156] In the Hebrew, literally, "I will pity the not-pitied one" (feminine, of the idealized people or church; so in the Greek here, ἠγαπημένην). Divine "pity" is more than "akin to" divine "love."
[157] i. 10 (Hebrew, ii. 1).
[158] Ὑπέρ: with the thought of a lament over the ruined ones. The preposition appears here in its original and literal meaning.
[159] Isa. x. 22, 23: perhaps with an insertion of the phrase, "the number of," from Hos. i. 10. As to wording, he quotes freely from the Hebrew, more nearly from the Lxx. But the substance is identical as compared with both. Following considerable documentary evidence, we omit here the Greek words represented by "in righteousness; because a short work."
[160] The equivalent of the Lxx. for the "very small remnant" (שׂריד) of the Hebrew.
[161] For the seventh and last time he uses this characteristic phrase.
[162] Δέ: in slightly suggested contrast to the ideal of the Jew, a merited acceptance.