LOATHING
It is an emotion that leads the person who feels it to a strong opposition against the object of this intense aversion.
The Bible marks hatred as the motive for homicide punishable by death, instead of what many modern legislations do, which give an exalted feeling of hatred as a mitigating cause (Num. 35:9-28).
The accidental murderer was protected, while he who killed out of enmity could not be exonerated for any reason (Num. 35:19-21).
One could not put away one’s wife out of simple hatred (Deut. 22:13-19).
A just cause had to be given. If this did not exist, and the husband had falsely accused his wife, he had to be punished, fined and could never abandon his wife (Deut. 22:19).
If the accusation of premarital unchastity was true, the woman was harshly punished (Deut. 22:21).
Hatred is a consequence of sin, which always causes division, distrust, jealousy and hatred.
One of the consequences of sin in relation to God is the abhorrence that God feels for sin, and against the character of sinful man, from His holiness (Ps. 11:5; Mal. 1:3), although desiring the salvation of the sinner (Ez. 18:32).
The child of God must in this imitate his Lord (Heb. 1: 9; Rom. 5: 8; cp. 2 Cor. 5: 19-21).
The exhortation to hate father, mother and wife (Lk. 14:26), given by the Lord to his followers, must be understood in a relative sense.
The love of the Lord is so delicate that, in comparison, other loves are abhorrence. See, in this regard, the case of Leah (Gen. 29:30, 31, where “despised” is a translation of the Hebrew verb “hate”); and also that of the father who, by spoiling his child, actually acts as if he hated her, by depriving her of the good of discipline (Prov. 13:24).