Stacy.
At 03:15 AM 11/05/2003 +0000, you wrote:
-JWR- > I went looking for some scriptural evidence that God ever hates > any of his children, and my cursory survey did not turn up > anything. Am I missing something? Surely God hates wickedness, > but does he hate the wicked? He hates sin, but does he hate > sinners? Perhaps you could point me to some scripture where > the object of God's hatred---and yes I do believe in a God who > hates---is a person rather than a concept or behavior.
The one that came to mind was Helaman 15:4: "But behold my brethren, the Lamanites hath he [God] hated because their deeds have been evil continually, and this because of the iniquity of the tradition of their fathers". Malachi employs the same type of usage in Malachi 1:2-3 (cited in Romans 9:13): "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."
I also found a proverb (Proverbs 6:16) and two psalms (Psalm 5:5 and Psalm 11:5) that speak of the Lord hating the wicked. This last psalm is particularly interesting, because there is a Joseph Smith translation of it that reaffirms the Lord's hatred of the wicked and those who love violence:
JST Psalm 11:5: "Behold his eyelids shall try the children of men, and he shall redeem the righteous, and they shall be tried. The Lord loveth the righteous, but the wicked, and him that loveth violence, his soul hateth."
The context can be seen from reading the psalm from the beginning; Joseph retranslated verses 1-5, which can be read on page 800 in the JST section in the back of the LDS edition of the Bible.
God's love is so far above our mortal idea of love, so much greater, deeper, and more encompassing, that even calling it "love" is but a faint echo of its reality. But we do the best we can with the tools (words, in this case) that we have. Similarly, God's hatred is far beyond our petty mortal ideas of hatred, so much stronger, deeper, and more powerful, that "hatred" probably does not begin to describe the Godly emotion being portrayed. Still, God has seen fit to represent his feeling as hatred, so I don't think we have much business telling him he's wrong. In any case, I don't find God's hatred of the wicked to be a particularly ennobling concept, so I don't spend much time dwelling on it.
Stephen
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