Malachi cites Jacob and Esau to answer Israel’s question about God’s love Malachi 1:2. God says he loved Jacob but made Esau’s hill country a desolation Malachi 1:2–3. The contrast is used as historical proof of God’s covenant choice and judgment Malachi 1:4–5.
In Malachi 1:2–5 Yahweh opens with a direct claim: “I have loved you.” The people challenge that claim, asking how it has been shown. Yahweh answers by pointing to Israel’s ancestral story: Jacob and Esau were brothers, yet Yahweh set love on Jacob. These verses function as the book’s opening exchange, setting a pattern for the rest of Malachi: Yahweh states something, the people question it, and Yahweh responds with an explanation grounded in observable reality and shared memory.
Malachi opens with a direct divine claim: Yahweh tells Israel, “I have loved you” (explicit claim). The people do not accept the claim at face value and ask for evidence (“How have you loved us?”).
A careful answer keeps the immediate passage, the book's argument, and the whole-Bible storyline together, so the question is answered in context instead of as a detached idea.
Start with Malachi 1:2, then read the surrounding section so the answer stays connected to the passage's flow.
2I have loved you, says Yahweh. Yet you say, Wherein have you loved us? Was not Esau Jacob`s brother, says Yahweh: yet I loved Jacob;