And I {c} hated Esau, {1} and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

(c) For besides this the signs of my hatred appeared even when he was made servant to his younger brother, being yet in his mother's belly, and also afterward in that he was put from his birthright. Yet even now before your eyes the signs of this are evident, in that his country lies waste, and he will never return to inhabit it.

(d) Whereas you my people, whom the enemy hated more than them, are by my grace and love towards you delivered; read Ro 9:13.

Wesley's Notes

1:3 I hated - I loved not Esau's posterity as I loved Jacob's. His heritage - Mount Seir with the neighbouring mountains. Waste - By Nebuchadnezzar's arms five years after the sacking of Jerusalem, and whereas Jacob's captivity returned, and their cities were rebuilt, Esau's never were. The dragons - Creatures which delight in desolate places, by which the utter desolation of Esau is signified.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. hated-not positively, but relatively; that is, did not choose him out to be the object of gratuitous favor, as I did Jacob (compare Lu 14:26, with Mt 10:37; Ge 29:30, 31; De 21:15, 16).

laid his mountains . waste-that is, his territory which was generally mountainous. Israel was, it is true, punished by the Chaldeans, but Edom has been utterly destroyed; namely, either by Nebuchadnezzar [Rosenmuller], or by the neighboring peoples, Egypt, Ammon, and Moab [Josephus, Antiquities, 10.9,7; Maurer], (Jer 49:18).

dragons-jackals [Moore] (compare Isa 34:13). Maurer translates, "Abodes of the wilderness," from an Arabic root "to stop," or "to abide." English Version is better.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:1-5 All advantages, either as to outward circumstances, or spiritual privileges, come from the free love of God, who makes one to differ from another. All the evils sinners feel and fear, are the just recompence of their crimes, while all their hopes and comforts are from the unmerited mercy of the Lord. He chose his people that they might be holy. If we love him, it is because he has first loved us; yet we all are prone to undervalue the mercies of God, and to excuse our own offences.