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As I looked through the local used bookstore yesterday, I found a copy of Jerry A. Coyne’s book Why Evolution is True ((2009). New York: Viking). The jacket flap contained praise from Edward O. Wilson, Christopher Hitchens, Steven Pinker, and Richard Dawkins, all assuring me that this book is extremely brilliant and devastating to those who would deny evolution. If you are familiar with the boasts of Darwinists, you’ll know how empty those promises are. But I figured it was only $9.98, so I might as well look at it.

While I have only just started it, the book has thus far been underwhelming. The introduction simply asserts repeatedly that evolution is true and only fundamentalists don’t believe it. For example (all italics mine):

What [Dover trial Judge] Jones had done was imply prevent an established truth from being muddled by biased and dogmatic opponents (xiii).

But evolution is far more than a “theory,” let alone a theory in crisis. Evolution is a fact (xiii).

…this volume gives a succinct summary of why modern science recognizes evolution as true (xiv).

Evolution gives us the true account of our origins, replacing the myths that satisfied us for thousands of years (xv).

But it is more than just a good theory, or even a beautiful one. It also happens to be true (xvi).

Indeed, if ever there was a time when Darwinism was “just a theory,” or was “in crisis,” it was the latter half of the nineteenth century, when evidence for the mechanism of evolution was not clear, and the means by which it worked—genetics—was still obscure. This was all sorted out in the first few decades of the twentieth century… (xvii).

True, evolution is as solidly established as any scientific fact (it is, as we will learn, more than “just a theory”), and scientists need no more convincing (xvii).

In 2006, for example, adults in thirty-two countries were asked to respond to the assertion “Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals,” by answering whether they considered it true, false, or were unsure. Now, this statement is flatly true… (xviii).

Why teach a discredited, religiously based theory, even one widely believed, alongside a theory so obviously true? (xix).

My first through reading all that was: “The gentleman doth protest too much.” But the above isn’t why I wrote this post. Instead, I want to move on to one of Coyne’s analogies. Coyne writes:

Starting with the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1635, biologists began classifying animals and plants, discovering that they consistently fell into what was called a “natural” classification. Strikingly, different biologists came up with nearly identical groupings. This means that these groupings are not subjective artifacts of a human need to classify, but tell us something real and fundamental about nature. But nobody knew what that something was until Darwin came along and showed that the nested arrangement of life is precisely what evolution predicts. Creatures with recent common ancestors share many traits, while those whose common ancestors lay in the distant past are more dissimilar. The “natural” classification is itself strong evidence for evolution.

Why? Because we don’t see such a nested arrangement if we’re trying to arrange objects that haven’t arisen by an evolutionary process of splitting and descent. Take cardboard books of matches, which I used to collect. They don’t fall into a natural classification in the same way as living species. You could, for example, sort matchbooks hierarchically beginning with size, and then by country within size, color within country, and so on. Or you could start with the type of product advertised, sorting thereafter by color and then by date. There are many ways to order them, and everyone will do it differently. There is no sorting system that all collectors agree on. This is because rather than evolving, so that each matchbook gives rise to another that is only slightly different, each design was created from scratch by human whim.

Matchbooks resemble the kinds of creatures expected under a creationist explanation of life. In such a case, organisms would not have common ancestry, but would simply result from an instantaneous creation of forms designed de novo to fit their environments. Under this scenario, we wouldn’t expect to see species falling into a nested hierarchy of forms that is recognized by all biologists (pp. 9-10).

Of course, Coyne’s entire premise is false. First off, it is not at all surprising that biologists tend to classify animals similarly when you realize that they are classifying animals for similar reasons. After all, Coyne makes a big deal about how you can sort matchbooks by “size” or “color” seeming to forget that there’s nothing stopping biologists from arranging animals by size or color too. But biologists don’t do that. Why? Because when they begin their classification, they start with the assumption that the animals are related, and then sort based on those assumptions. They are not looking to classify by size; they are looking to classify by how organisms are related.

I daresay that if you hand several matchbooks to various random collectors and tell them, “These are all related to each other and we want to see if you can find out how” they will come up with many arrangements that are similar to each other. Similarity in organization does not, as Coyne claims, prove these classifications “are not subjective artifacts of a human need to classify.” That would only be true if each person came to classification without any prior concept of how they should be classified and still classified everything the same way. Furthermore, there are lots of dissimilarities in various classification schemes that are simply glossed over here by Coyne.

Coyne is also in error when he says “we don’t see such a nested arrangement if we’re trying to arrange objects that haven’t arisen by an evolutionary process of splitting and descent.” Has Coyne never seen a fractal, used a computer, or examined the management of a corporation? We see hierarchical sorting and nested arrangement all the time in intelligently created processes and objects.

Consider computer programs in more detail. With the advent of object oriented programming, the structure of all but the simplest of programs must be hierarchical. It is the most efficient means of writing complex programs across multiple platforms by hundreds of different programmers.

Furthermore, computer programs will often use the exact same libraries. Not because one program evolved from another, but because someone designed a bit of code that performed a specific function useful in many different applications, so the code snippet gets put in a library for other programmers to use. Entire modules can be created in the same way, and various different programs assembled from these modules. If someone was not aware that the programs were designed that way, it would be quite facile for someone to imagine the programs came about by descent with modification instead of being tailor made from bits of previously designed code. The evidence would seem compelling, but only because one starts off with the assumption that intelligence is not involved.

Coyne also has the following endnote that damages his matchbook analogy:

Unlike matchbooks, human languages do fall into a nested hierarchy, with some (like English and German) resembling each other far more than they do others (e.g., Chinese). You can, in fact, construct an evolutionary tree of languages based on the similarity of words and grammar. The reason languages can be so arranged is because they underwent their own form of evolution, changing gradually through time and diverging as people moved to new regions and lost contact with one another. Like species, languages have speciation and common ancestry. It was Darwin who first noticed this analogy (endnote 2, p. 235).

That’s right, after telling us that the nested arrangement proves that species were not created, Coyne shows a nested hierarchy of language. Yes, language. One of the indicators of intelligence. Talk about evolved irony!

Even if we agree with Coyne that language shows a “form of evolution” that form of evolution is most certainly NOT Darwinist. There are no random mutations followed by survival of the fittest; there is instead intelligent agents tinkering with their language. To the extent that language is an analogy of evolution, it is an analogy of theistic evolution, not Darwinism.

Thus far, Coyne’s arguments are far from persuasive. Indeed, Coyne seems to operate from a very simplistic viewpoint. He seems to believe that anything that indicates evolution must be proof of Darwinism, when in fact Darwinism is not the only theory of evolution (indeed, no one believes in Darwin’s Darwinism these days). Furthermore, Coyne seems to think that anything that looks like evolution cannot be equally explained by intelligent design either. Both of these flaws render his arguments considerably less than sound.

Perhaps he will improve as I get further in the book. But given past experience reading all the other “definitive” books on Darwinism, I won’t be holding my breath.

I’ve been mulling over something. I noticed that in discussions involving responsibility and culpability, there is often a hidden variable smuggled into the definition of terms. It’s a variable that, when you think about it, doesn’t seem to be relevant to the discussion; yet it is one which nearly every philosopher discussing the subject has, at the very least implicitly (and quite often explicitly), in his or her definition. That variable is time.

Consider for a moment a typical generalized libertarian definition of responsibility. “A person is responsible if at time (t) a person could have done other than he did do.” Here we have an explicit reference to time. Yet it can also be hidden in the shorter version: “A person is responsible if he could have done otherwise.” The assumption of “could have done” is that time is relevant to determining responsibility. (Note: to be fair, the “could have done otherwise” is really dealing more specifically with the idea of “freedom” rather than “responsibility,” but this is usually crammed together in the idea that “one cannot be responsible unless one is free” so I will be treating this concept as being part of “responsibility” throughout.)

This is immediately awkward when we view God. God is outside of time. He is eternal and transcends time. Indeed, time itself was created by God. If responsibility implies a time aspect, then it seems to me that by definition God can be responsible for nothing that has been created. For “God is responsible for creation because at time (t) God could have done otherwise” is nonsensical—there is no time (t) before God created time.

Yet it seems completely absurd to say that God is not responsible for creating the universe. It seems that only if responsibility refers instead of the concept of cause that God is responsible for creating the universe, because He caused the universe. Yet causality requires no reference to time, it only requires logical precedence. In other words, a logical effect cannot logically precede its cause, which (when it comes to the physical world) will typically mean the logical effect cannot temporally precede its cause too; however, there are certain relative space-time frameworks where a cause and its effect are temporally simultaneous (Einstein’s example of a moving train with a signal being observed simultaneous to some other event for the observers on the train, but not simultaneous for those outside the train, being an example of such a relative framework).

Or think of it this way. Suppose C is a cause and E is an effect such that E cannot occur unless C has caused E. C is therefore responsible for E (in the causative sense), no matter what; yet C is only responsible for E if C could have done otherwise in the libertarian sense, and that requires a temporal distinction between C and E.

E cannot occur apart from C regardless of any temporal aspect though. E necessitates a logically prior C regardless of the length of time between C’s occurring and E coming about. We can even think about E temporally preceding C (such could even already occur with antimatter, which is mathematically described as normal matter going backwards through time). Regardless of that, one can always say C and E can be simultaneous.

So it seems to me that any definition of responsibility that requires a temporal aspect must be a completely different “animal” than any definition of responsibility that deals only with a logically causal chain. Perhaps the libertarian will say that this shows the difference between moral responsibility and causative responsibility. I think this means merely that which definition you chose will automatically beg the question.

Regardless, it appears to me that under libertarian principals, God’s responsibility for creating the universe cannot have any moral connotations. That is, He was not commendable for His creation, nor can He be condemned for it. In other words, this would automatically defuse the concept that God is the author of evil in any moral sense of the word “author.”

On the other hand, if one were to claim that God is still morally responsible for creation (as I would argue—after all, we commend Him for what He has done), then it seems to me that one cannot keep a view of responsibility that necessitates a temporal aspect within its definition.

Thoughts?

I have recently been involved in an email discussion with an Arminian on the issue of God’s hatred of Esau in Malachi 1:2-3. One of the key issues to resolve is just what the word “hate” meant to the Hebrew people. This is especially relevant in light of the fact that my Arminian correspondent quoted from a pastor who argued that hate was not the opposite of love, but rather apathy was the opposite of love, and further a claim was made that God could both love and hate the same individual at the same time.

Malachi 1:2-3 states:

“I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.”

In my e-mail exchange, I made the point that God is setting up “love” and “hate” as direct polar opposites in this passage. He loves Jacob, yet He hates Esau. And it is the very existence of that hate the proves His love for Jacob, in this passage. In other words, God says: “I have loved you.” The people then ask God to prove it, by questioning: “How have you loved us?” and God’s proof is, essentially, “I loved Jacob and I hated Esau. Look what I did to Esau. I didn’t do that to you. Therefore, that’s proof I love you.”

What I take away from this is that, since God is using what He did to Esau and saying, “Because I didn’t do that to you, that’s proof I love you” then it seems to almost necessitate the opposite, “Because I did do that to Esau, that’s proof I do not love him.” In other words, God is saying: “You do not lay waste to a person’s hill country and leave his heritage to the jackals of the desert if you love that person.”

That was my main argument. Now I want to further buttress it by showing how the Hebrew word sane’ (hate) in verse 3 is used throughout the Old Testament. I believe that it will clearly show that love and hate are opposites, and further that “hate” is a much stronger word than Arminians are comfortable acknowledging of God.

If you look at the resource I have compiled, you’ll see all the verses where the word sane’ appears in Scripture. In every instance, save one, if the word “love” also appears in the verse, the Hebrew word for “love” is ’ahab (the exception is Hosea 9:15, which uses the obviously related word ’ahabah). Thus, whenever we see “love” and “hate” in the same verse (in the list), it is a comparison between ’ahab and sane’.

And what do we see? We see that the two terms are in contradistinction to each other. They are polar opposites. One of the most obvious examples is found in 2 Samuel 19:6. After David’s son, Absalom, revolted and was killed by David’s general, Joab, David wept bitterly at the death of his son. Joab was angered, and chastised David by saying: “You have today covered with shame the faces of all your servants, who have this day saved your life and the lives of your sons and your daughters and the lives of your wives and your concubines, because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you, for today I know that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased.”

This passage links the opposites. Love is the opposite of hate. This is why Joab was so mad that David would “love those who hate [him] and hate those who love [him].” (Note that we are not concerned with whether or not David’s behavior was accurately described by Joab, nor are we concerned with whether or not either of them was acting justly. Rather, what matters is what the words mean. And it is clear in this context that love and hate were considered opposites.

To give another example, Proverbs 9:8 says: “Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.” This passage shows a double parallel. There is the parallel between the “scoffer” and the “wise man” and there is a parallel between their reactions. Just as a “scoffer” is the opposite of a “wise man”, so too is “hate” the opposite of “love.”

Proverbs is full of similar contrasts. To take just one more, Proverbs 13:24 says “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” Again, the love/hate polarity is displayed.

To give one final example, in Ecclesiastes 3 we are treated to a long list of opposites. The passage states:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

In so much as “born” is the opposite of “die”, “plant” is the opposite of “uproot”, “kill” is the opposite of “heal”, “tear down” is the opposite of “build”, “weep” is the opposite of “laugh”, “mourn” is the opposite of “dance,” “scatter” is the opposite of “gather”, “embrace” is the opposite of “refraining from embracing”, “searching” is the opposite of “giving up”, “keep” is the opposite of “throw away”, “tear” is the opposite of “mend”, “silence” is the opposite of “speak”, and “war” is the opposite of “peace”; so too is “love” the opposite of “hate.”

The second aspect of the word sane’ includes the concept of “enemy.” In fact, there are a couple of passages where the word is translated exactly that way (as either “enemy” or “foe”). A couple of those passages are:

Exodus 1:10 “Come, let us deal shrewedly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies [sane’] and fight against us and escape from the land.”

Deuteronomy 30:7 “And the LORD your God will put all these curses on your foes [sane’] and enemies who persecute you.”

Proverbs 25:21 “If your enemy [sane’] is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink…”

Additionally, in Scripture “hate” is itself often linked with “enemy” even when a different word for “enemy” is used. Some examples are:

Leviticus 26:17a “I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you…”

Psalm 21:8 “Your hand will find out all your enemies; your right hand will find out those who hate you.”

Psalm 44:7 “You have saved us from our foes and have put to shame those who hate us.”

Psalm 68:1 “God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered; and those who hate him shall flee before him!”

Psalm 139:22 “I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies.”

The Psalms are especially interesting in that they often use parallelisms, stating the same thing in different ways. Hence, in Psalm 68:1 (above), we have “his enemies shall be scattered” in parallel with “those who hate him shall flee.” Similar concepts repeated in different ways. The same is also stated in Number 10:35, where Moses says :”Arise, O LORD, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee before you.” One final example from Psalm 21:8 (above) should suffice: “Your hand will find out all your enemies” is coupled with “Your right hand will find out those who hate you.”

So to hate someone is to be their enemy. When we return to Malachi 1:2-3, it is important to note that God is the actor. He is the subject. Jacob and Esau are the objects. So when it says, “Esau I have hated” then, if the term “hate” is linked to being an enemy, then this passage is saying that God is Esau’s enemy; it is not saying that Esau is God’s enemy, although we know from other passages that that is also true.

Finally, let us look at further action that goes along with hatred. That is, many verses deal with hatred and include more concepts of what goes along with hate. So we see in Genesis 26:27, “Isaac said to them, ‘Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?’” So to hate is to drive someone away. See also Judges 11:7 and Isaiah 66:5

In Genesis 37:4, Joseph’s brothers saw their father loved Joseph more than them, and “they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.” So hatred means one cannot speak peaceably.

In Deuteronomy 12:31 we see “every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods”, showing that to hate something is to consider it an abomination. See also Proverbs 6:16 (“There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him”) and Jeremiah 44:4.

Psalm 41:7 says “All who hate me whisper together about me; they imagine the worst for me.” So to hate someone is to plot the worst outcome for that person.

Amos 5:21 says, “I hate, I despise your feasts” showing that to despise something is to hate it. See also Isaiah 1:14.

Amos 6:8 says, “I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds” linking hatred and abhorrence.

So putting these together, we see that hatred encompasses driving someone away, not speaking peaceably to them, considering them an abomination, despising them, considering them abhorrent, and wishing the worst for them. And it is this word, that contains these shades of meaning, that God uses of Esau.

So we’ve seen that the Old Testament clearly used “hate” as an opposite of “love”, and we’ve seen that to hate someone is to be their enemy, and further we’ve seen that “hate” holds all of the negative connotations one would expect. And we’ve further seen that God uses this very word to describe His attitude toward Esau.

A search of one of the Hebrew words for “hate”, sane’ (Strong’s number H8130):

Genesis 24:60
And they blessed Rebekah and said to her,

“Our sister, may you become
thousands of ten thousands,
and may your offspring possess
the gate of those who hate him!”

Genesis 26:27
Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?”

Genesis 29:31
When the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.

Genesis 29:33
She conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Because the LORD has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also.” And she called his name Simeon.

Genesis 37:4
But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.

Genesis 37:5
Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more.

Genesis 37:8
His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.

Exodus 1:10
Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”

Exodus 18:21
Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.

Exodus 20:5
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me

Exodus 23:5
If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.

Leviticus 19:17
“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.

Leviticus 26:17
I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you.

Numbers 10:35
And whenever the ark set out, Moses said, “Arise, O LORD, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee before you.”

Deuteronomy 4:42
that the manslayer might flee there, anyone who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without being at enmity with him in time past; he may flee to one of these cities and save his life:

Deuteronomy 5:9
You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

Deuteronomy 7:10
and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.

Deuteronomy 7:15
And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.

Deuteronomy 12:31
You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.

Deuteronomy 16:22
And you shall not set up a pillar, which the LORD your God hates.

Deuteronomy 19:4
“This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past?

Deuteronomy 19:6
lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past.

Deuteronomy 19:11
“But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities,

Deuteronomy 21:15-17
“If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him children, and if the firstborn son belongs to the unloved, then on the day when he assigns his possessions as an inheritance to his sons, he may not treat the son of the loved as the firstborn in preference to the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn, but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the firstfruits of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his.

Deuteronomy 22:13
“If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her

Deuteronomy 22:16
And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her;

Deuteronomy 24:3
and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife,

Deuteronomy 30:7
And the LORD your God will put all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you.

Deuteronomy 32:41
if I sharpen my flashing sword
and my hand takes hold on judgment,
I will take vengeance on my adversaries
and will repay those who hate me.

Deuteronomy 33:11
Bless, O LORD, his substance,
and accept the work of his hands;
crush the loins of his adversaries,
of those who hate him, that they rise not again.”

Joshua 20:5
And if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not give up the manslayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor unknowingly, and did not hate him in the past.

Judges 11:7
But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Did you not hate me and drive me out of my father’s house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress?”

Judges 14:16
And Samson’s wife wept over him and said, “You only hate me; you do not love me. You have put a riddle to my people, and you have not told me what it is.” And he said to her, “Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?”

Judges 15:2
And her father said, “I really thought that you utterly hated her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.”

2 Samuel 5:8
And David said on that day, “Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack ‘the lame and the blind,’ who are hated by David’s soul.” Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”

2 Samuel 13:15
Then Amnon hated her with very great hatred, so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. And Amnon said to her, “Get up! Go!”

2 Samuel 13:22
But Absalom spoke to Amnon neither good nor bad, for Absalom hated Amnon, because he had violated his sister Tamar.

2 Samuel 19:6
because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you, for today I know that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased.

2 Samuel 22:18
He rescued me from my strong enemy,
from those who hated me,
for they were too mighty for me.

2 Samuel 22:41
You made my enemies turn their backs to me,
those who hated me, and I destroyed them.

Kings 22:8
And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the LORD, Micaiah the son of Imlah, but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil.” And Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say so.”

2 Chronicles 1:11
God answered Solomon, “Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked possessions, wealth, honor, or the life of those who hate you, and have not even asked long life, but have asked wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you may govern my people over whom I have made you king,

2 Chronicles 18:7
And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the LORD, Micaiah the son of Imlah; but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but always evil.” And Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say so.”

2 Chronicles 19:2
But Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him and said to King Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the LORD? Because of this, wrath has gone out against you from the LORD.

Esther 9:1
Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s command and edict were about to be carried out, on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.

Esther 9:16
Now the rest of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces also gathered to defend their lives, and got relief from their enemies and killed 75,000 of those who hated them, but they laid no hands on the plunder.

Job 8:22
Those who hate you will be clothed with shame,
and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”

Job 31:29
“If I have rejoiced at the ruin of him who hated me,
or exulted when evil overtook him

Job 34:17
Shall one who hates justice govern?
Will you condemn him who is righteous and mighty,

Psalm 5:5
The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers.

Psalm 9:13
Be gracious to me, O LORD!
See my affliction from those who hate me,
O you who lift me up from the gates of death,

Psalm 11:5
The LORD tests the righteous,
but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.

Psalm 18:17
He rescued me from my strong enemy
and from those who hated me,
for they were too mighty for me.

Psalm 18:40
You made my enemies turn their backs to me,
and those who hated me I destroyed.

Psalm 21:8
Your hand will find out all your enemies;
your right hand will find out those who hate you.

Psalm 25:19
Consider how many are my foes,
and with what violent hatred they hate me.

Psalm 26:5
I hate the assembly of evildoers,
and I will not sit with the wicked.

Psalm 31:6
I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols,
but I trust in the LORD.

Psalm 34:21
Affliction will slay the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.

Psalm 35:19
Let not those rejoice over me
who are wrongfully my foes,
and let not those wink the eye
who hate me without cause.

Psalm 36:2
For he flatters himself in his own eyes
that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.

Psalm 38:19
But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty,
and many are those who hate me wrongfully.

Psalm 41:7
All who hate me whisper together about me;
they imagine the worst for me.

Psalm 44:7
But you have saved us from our foes
and have put to shame those who hate us.

Psalm 44:10
You have made us turn back from the foe,
and those who hate us have gotten spoil.

Psalm 45:7
you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.
Therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;

Psalm 50:17
For you hate discipline,
and you cast my words behind you.

Psalm 55:12
For it is not an enemy who taunts me?
then I could bear it;
it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me?
then I could hide from him.

Psalm 68:1
God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered;
and those who hate him shall flee before him!

Psalm 69:4
More in number than the hairs of my head
are those who hate me without cause;
mighty are those who would destroy me,
those who attack me with lies.
What I did not steal
must I now restore?

Psalm 69:14
Deliver me
from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
and from the deep waters.

Psalm 81:15
Those who hate the LORD would cringe toward him,
and their fate would last forever.

Psalm 83:2
For behold, your enemies make an uproar;
those who hate you have raised their heads.

Psalm 86:17
Show me a sign of your favor,
that those who hate me may see and be put to shame
because you, LORD, have helped me and comforted me.

Psalm 89:23
I will crush his foes before him
and strike down those who hate him.

Psalm 97:10
O you who love the LORD, hate evil!
He preserves the lives of his saints;
He delivers them from the hand of the wicked.

Psalm 101:3
I will not set before my eyes
anything that is worthless.
I hate the work of those who fall away;
it shall not cling to me.

Psalm 105:25
He turned their hearts to hate his people,
to deal craftily with his servants.

Psalm 106:10
So he saved them from the hand of the foe
and redeemed them from the power of the enemy.

Psalm 106:41
he gave them into the hand of the nations,
so that those who hated them ruled over them.

Psalm 118:7
The LORD is on my side as my helper;
I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.

Psalm 119:104
Through your precepts I get understanding;
therefore I hate every false way.

Psalm 119:113
I hate the double-minded,
but I love your law.

Psalm 119:128
Therefore I consider all your precepts to be right;
I hate every false way.

Psalm 119:163
I hate and abhor falsehood,
but I love your law.

Psalm 120:6
Too long have I had my dwelling
among those who hate peace.

Psalm 129:5
May all who hate Zion
be put to shame and turned backward!

Psalm 139:21-22
Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.

Proverbs 1:22
“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
and fools hate knowledge?

Proverbs 1:29
Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the LORD,

Proverbs 5:12
and you say, “How I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof!

Proverbs 6:16
There are six things that the LORD hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:

Proverbs 8:13
The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil
And perverted speech I hate.

Proverbs 8:36
but he who fails to find me injures himself;
all who hate me love death.”

Proverbs 9:8
Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you;
reprove a wise man, and he will love you.

Proverbs 11:15
Whoever puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer harm,
but he who hates striking hands in pledge is secure.

Proverbs 12:1
Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
but he who hates reproof is stupid.

Proverbs 13:5
The righteous hates falsehood,
but the wicked brings shame and disgrace.

Proverbs 13:24
Whoever spares the rod hates his son,
but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

Proverbs 14:17
A man of quick temper acts foolishly,
and a man of evil devices is hated.

Proverbs 14:20
The poor is disliked even by his neighbor,
but the rich has many friends.

Proverbs 15:10
There is severe discipline for him who forsakes the way;
whoever hates reproof will die.

Proverbs 15:27
Whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles his own household,
but he who hates bribes will live.

Proverbs 19:7
All a poor man’s brothers hate him;
how much more do his friends go far from him!
He pursues them with words, but does not have them.

Proverbs 25:17
Let your foot be seldom in your neighbor’s house,
lest he have his fill of you and hate you.

Proverbs 25:21
If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat,
and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,

Proverbs 26:24
Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips
and harbors deceit in his heart;

Proverbs 26:28
A lying tongue hates its victims,
and a flattering mouth works ruin.

Proverbs 27:6
Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

Proverbs 28:16
A ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel oppressor,
but he who hates unjust gain will prolong his days.

Proverbs 29:10
Bloodthirsty men hate one who is blameless
and seek the life of the upright.

Proverbs 29:24
The partner of a thief hates his own life;
he hears the curse, but discloses nothing.

Proverbs 30:23
an unloved woman when she gets a husband,
and a maidservant when she displaces her mistress.

Ecclesiastes 2:17-18
So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me,

Ecclesiastes 3:8
a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

Isaiah 1:14
Your new moons and your appointed feasts
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.

Isaiah 60:15
Whereas you have been forsaken and hated,
with no one passing through,
I will make you majestic forever,
a joy from age to age.

Isaiah 61:8
For I the LORD love justice;
I hate robbery and wrong;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

Isaiah 66:5
Hear the word of the LORD,
you who tremble at his word:
“Your brothers who hate you
and cast you out for my name’s sake
have said, ‘Let the LORD be glorified,
that we may see your joy’;
but it is they who shall be put to shame.

Jeremiah 12:8
My heritage has become to me
like a lion in the forest;
she has lifted up her voice against me;
therefore I hate her.

Jeremiah 44:4
Yet I persistently sent to you all my servants the prophets, saying, ‘Oh, do not do this abomination that I hate!’

Ezekiel 16:27
Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you and diminished your allotted portion and delivered you to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior.

Ezekiel 16:37
therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness.

Ezekiel 23:28
“For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will deliver you into the hands of those whom you hate, into the hands of those from whom you turned in disgust,

Ezekiel 35:6
therefore, as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will prepare you for blood, and blood shall pursue you; because you did not hate bloodshed, therefore blood shall pursue you.

Hosea 9:15
Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal;
there I began to hate them.
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
I will drive them out of my house.
I will love them no more;
all their princes are rebels.

Amos 5:10
They hate him who reproves in the gate,
and they abhor him who speaks the truth.

Amos 5:15
Hate evil, and love good,
and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts,
will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Amos 5:21
“I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Amos 6:8
The Lord GOD has sworn by himself, declares the LORD, the God of hosts:

“I abhor the pride of Jacob
and hate his strongholds,
and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.”

Micah 3:2
you who hate the good and love the evil,
who tear the skin from off my people
and their flesh from off their bones,

Zechariah 8:17
do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the LORD.”

Malachi 1:3
but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.”

Malachi 2:16
“For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

[This passage was differently stated in the KJV.]

Malachi 2:16 (King James Version)
For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.

So I haven’t written much lately. This really won’t change that, other than to state the obvious. Will I write more later, though? I intend to! But for the delay, I must (as per custom) blame Bush.