WHAT GOD HATES

We are so used to characterizing God as a loving God that it may come as a shock to some that He is also said to hate or despise something or someone in a surprising number of places in the Bible. Below is a more or less complete listing of those hated things in the order they appear in Scripture. Most of these require no further explanation, but a few do. In those latter instances, I have attached some comments, mainly from the scholarly literature.

    Deuteronomy 12:31 – every abhorrent thing people do for their gods, including human sacrifices

“Both Ahaz (2 Chr. 28:3) and Manasseh (2 k. 21:6) were guilty of child sacrifice. Just as here in Deuteronomy, the crime is described as one that could lead to expulsion from the land (see v. 30), as in fact it happened with the northern kingdom (2 K. 17:17-18). To assume the right to sacrifice a child was to assume a prerogative that was God's alone, the prerogative over human life. In the fullness of time, God exercised that prerogative in the offering of his only Son as a complete sacrifice for the sins of men.” (Craigie)

    Deuteronomy 16:21-22 – planting a tree as a sacred pole beside God's altar or setting up a stone pillar

These were in fact Canaanite cultic objects (see Deuteronomy 7:5; 12:3; Exodus 34:13) and therefore what God is objecting to is the introduction of synchretism into pure Israelite worship of Yahweh.

These first two examples seem to illustrate the commonplace statement that “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.” But that facile motto scarcely gives the whole story, as demonstrated by the following people from the Psalms whom God is said to hate:

    Psalm 5:5 – all evildoers

    Psalm 11:5 – the lover of violence

    Psalm 31:6 – those who pay regard to worthless idols

Getting back to hated behavior, we come upon the following:

    Psalm 45:7 – wickedness

    Proverbs 6:16-19 provides us with a whole poetic litany of things that God feels are an abomination to Him. The first five on the list are expressed poetically in terms of human anatomy. These despised things include:

        haughty eyes

        a lying tongue

        hands that shed innocent blood

        a heart that devises wicked plans

        feet that hurry to run to evil

They are followed by two types of people whom God hates:

        a false witness

        one who sows discord in a family.

    Isaiah 1:13-14 – the Israelites' new moons and festivals

    Isaiah 61:8 – robbery and wrongdoings

Alternatively, NRSV suggests the translation “robbery with a burnt offering.” Thus, as in Isaiah 1:13-14, it was not the very religious practices which God had instituted that were the objects of His hatred, but the fact that they were carried out by people who were continuing to sin egregiously at the same time.

    Jeremiah 12:8 – “my heritage, my house”

D.R. Jones explains that “'heritage' in the Deuteronomic writings is a regular description of Canaan, the promised land, and of Israel as the subject of the promise. This makes it marginally more likely that 'house' here refers to Israel rather than to the Temple.” “Yahweh's heritage has acted like a lion in the forest 'roaring defiance' at her Lord...Such a reaction is hateful to Yahweh, and such lions have to be destroyed.” (Thompson)

    Jeremiah 44:4 – serving other gods

    Hosea 9:15 – those at Gilgal because of their wicked deeds

What is God talking about here? Gilgal was condemned as being “the site of illicit worship (4:15; 12:11; Am 4:4; 5:5). Also, at Gilgal the LORD reluctantly acceded to the people's request for a king (1 Sam 10:14-11.25).” (Mobley)

Andersen and Freedman add, “The verb [hate] describes the hostility of a broken covenant relationship.” And Dearman states that “a number of interpreters have seen in 9:15 an allusion to his [Saul's] failed leadership and an institutional criticism of the monarchy.”

    Amos 5:21 – Jewish festivals and solemn assemblies

This denunciation of the people is quite similar to that in Isaiah 1:13-14. In this particular case it is the combination of paying attention to the required religious observances while coupling it with lack of justice and righteousness in the land, as clearly expressed in Amos 5:24.

    Amos 6:8 – the pride of Jacob and his strongholds

“God's response to their pride is stated in strong terms filled with the agony of pathos. God loathes, detests, abhors, and hates this kind of attitude...God detests the palace-fortresses because the people trust in them and center their life around the luxury and violence within them (Amos 2:6-8; 3:9-10; 4:1; 5:10-13; 6:1-7). God is no longer the sovereign power that controls their personal or national life. The mighty fortress is their god.” (Gary Smith)

    Zechariah 8:17 – devising evil and uttering false oaths

    Malachi 1:3 – Esau

This is the only case in which a particular person is singled out for hatred. However, it is widely believed that the statement occurs as part of a Hebrew idiom in which phrases such as “hate X and love Y” really means to love Y more than X. We see Jesus using the same sort of phraseology in Matthew 6:24 when he states that no man can serve two masters for he will hate the one and love the other.

That we cannot take Malachi 1:3 as strictly literal is seen in the fact that God did, in fact, bless Esau abundantly in earthly wealth even though he did not inherit God's spiritual blessing.

    Malachi 2:16 – divorce and covering one's garments with violence

    Romans 9:13 – Paul quotes from Malachi 1:3 above, using it as an example of God's sovereign choice.

    Hebrews 1:9 – wickedness

    Jude 23 – “the tunic defiled by their body”

Michael Green explains that “Jude's readers are invited to 'show mercy, mixed with fear...hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.' That is to say, they are to have pity upon even the most abandoned heretic, but to exercise great care while getting alongside him lest they themselves become defiled...The idea seems to be that they are so corrupt that their very clothes are defiled. This is, of course, a hyperbole, but one with plenty of scriptural background.” See Leviticus 13:47-52; Isaiah 61:10; 64:6; Zechariah 3:34; and Revelation 3:4; 7:14.

    Revelation 2:6 – the works of the Nicolaitans

We are somewhat at an disadvantage in not knowing exactly the details of all the heretical ideas circulating at that time and place in history, but Beale says, “The Nicolaitans taught that some degree of participation in the idolatrous culture of Ephesus was permissible” since the “city's prosperous economy was partly dependent on trade associated with that [city's pagan] temple (Acts 19:23-24).” If he is correct in this assertion, then this is another example of synchretism as seen in Amos 5.

Finally, to balance this list out, even more consistently given in the Bible (all in the Psalms) are those people and things which God does not despise:

    Psalms 22:24 – the affliction of the afflicted

    Psalms 51:17 – a broken and contrite heart

    Psalms 69:33 – his own who are in bondage

    Psalm 102:17 – the prayer of the destitute