Often denotes in Scripture only a less degree of love, Ge 29:30-31; De 21:15; Pr 13:24; Mal 1:2-3; Lu 14:26; Ro 9:13. God has a just and perfect abhorrence of sin and sinners, Ps 5:5. But hatred in general is a malevolent passion, Ga 5:20, and no one who is not perfect in love, can hate without sin.

HATE. To hate is not always to be understood rigorously, but frequently signifies merely a less degree of love. "If a man have two wives, one beloved and another hated," De 21:15; that is, less beloved. Our Saviour says that he who would follow him must hate father and mother; that is, he must love them less than Christ, less than his own salvation, and not prefer them to God. "Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated;" that is, have deprived of the privileges of his primogeniture, through his own profanity; and visited him with severe judgment on account of his sins.