A Question on Hate
Joos van Cleve. The Holy Family (oil on wood), c. 1512.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
(Listen to an audio version of the blog post above!)
Since launching the NEW logosbiblestudy.com, Dr. C. has been answering a lot of your questions during weekly Zoom discussion sessions, twice-weekly online “Office Hours” and via email.
Periodically, we’d like to share some of those questions and answers with you.
Here’s a question we received from Jennifer K:
I’m having a really hard time with Luke 14: 25-27. Is Jesus actually telling us to hate our father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters and even one’s own life in order to be his disciple? Please clarify!
Here’s the answer:
When Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters…” (Luke 14: 26), the Greek verb is μισέω (mis-eh’-o), expressed grammatically as a third person present active indicative verb, and it means just that: hate.
“But wait!” you say. How could the Jesus who calls us to love our enemies (Matthew 5: 43-46); the one Isaiah dubs the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9: 6); and the one who says that the world will know his followers by their love for one another (John 13: 35) tell us to “hate” those closest to us, our own parents, husbands, wives and siblings?
Matthew 10: 37-39 may help us out here. In Matthew’s gospel Jesus says: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.” In Jesus’ eyes, his call to discipleship is both radical and revolutionary: if we’re going to be “in” with him, we have to be “all in”; following Christ is not a halfway proposition. Jesus emphasizes this with his startling language: “If anyone comes to me without hating x, y and z, he cannot be my disciple.” In this statement Jesus makes use of hyperbole, a deliberate, forceful exaggeration to make a point; it is not meant to be taken literally.
Jesus uses hyperbole elsewhere, as well, to great effect. In the Sermon on the Mount, for example, he says: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away . . .” (Matthew 5: 29-30). Obviously, Jesus doesn’t mean for you literally to gouge out your eye or chop off your hand! Again, he uses hyperbole, an exaggerated statement to make make a point; it’s a common rhetorical trope.
We have similar uses of hyperbole in the Old Testament. Consider, for example, the opening verses of Malachi, when God says: “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I hated . . .” (Malachi 1: 2-3). Clearly, God chose Jacob rather than Esau for a unique role in the plan of salvation, but he didn’t literally love Jacob and hate (Hebrew: שָׂנֵא, saw-nay’) Esau. The use of hyperbole in Malachi simply draws a dramatic contrast between the two.
Hendrick ter Brugghen. Esau Selling His Birthright (oil on canvas), c. 1627.
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid.