Esau and Jacob

An anecdote from Dr. J. Vernon McGee:

Dr. Griffith Thomas was approached one day by one of his Old Testament students. The young man said, “Dr. Thomas, I am struggling with Malachi 1:2-3: ‘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, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.’ How is it that God hated Esau?”

Dr. Thomas answered, “I find that passage rather difficult as well. Only, my struggle is with how God could find it to love Jacob.”