Malachi 1:2

Loved us. So they thought, (Theodoret) and perhaps spoke. (Haydock) --- Jacob. I have preferred his posterity, to make them my chosen people, and to load them with my blessings, without any merit on their part, and though they have been always ungrateful; whilst I have rejected Esau, and executed severe judgments upon his posterity. Not that God punished Esau or his posterity beyond their deserts, but that by his free election and grace he loved Jacob, and favoured his posterity above their deserts. See the annotations upon Romans ix. (Challoner) --- Neither deserved any thing. God's choice was gratuitous, both with respect to the fathers and their offspring. (Worthington)