That there is no question at all about the eternal welfare of the individual Esau's soul--that the question is simply of the comparative status of Israel and Edom in this world--appears plainly in the passage of Malachi, which St. Paul quotes. And we must notice how unexpected an application St. Paul gives to this passage in a direction most unfamiliar to Jewish thought. For Edom was to the Jew the very type of all that was most hateful. He anticipated for the Edomites God's worst vengeance, as for Israel God's best blessings. But St. Paul forces him to think--Why should he assume that he will be better off than Edom? Edom was once physically on Israel's level, or his superior in claim, when their first fathers were but just born infants. But God chose one {30} and not the other. He may exercise the like unscrutable selectiveness upon the seed of Israel to-day. And Edom did not remain in a merely secondary position. He sank to be a byword for all that is most hateful to God. Be warned, St. Paul would say, it may be that 'with change of name the tale is told of thee[25].' [1] Exod. iv. 23; Hos. xi. 1. [2] Exod. xvi. 10. [3] Or 'pray' (marg.) literally 'I was praying.' [4] Cf. Eph. v. 8-14. [5] Cf. Col. iii. 9. [6] Exod. xxxii. 32. [7] 2 Esdr. viii. 15-16, x. 21-23. The latter passage is not spoken to God, but by one Jew to another. [8] 2 Cor. iii. 8. [9] See 1 Cor. x. 1-13. [10] Heb. x. 29. [11] 1 Thess. i. 10; Rom. viii. 3. [12] Acts xx. 28. [13] Phil. ii. 6-11. [14] Without the article which makes it a proper name of the Father. [15] R. V. margin^2. It does further violence to the Greek to translate as R. V. margin^1, 'He who is God over all is (be) blessed for ever.' I have nothing to add on the matter to S. and H. _in loc._, especially p. 236. [16] Tit. ii. 13. This is probably the right rendering. [17] St. Matt. iii. 9. [18] Great stress was laid by the prophets on the absence of any original merit or power in Israel, which caused the divine election; see Ezek. xvi, Deut. xxvi. 5. [19] See especially Amos ix. 7-10: 'Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir? Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord. For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all the nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.' [20] Gen. xii. 3; Isa. lxvi. 18; Zech. viii. 23, &c. [21] Matt. viii. 11, 12.