"Hate" is Relative

The Greek verb for "hate" is miseo. This word doesn't have the passionate or emotional intensity of our word “hate” in English. It expresses a negative preference, not a strong passion. Jesus uses this word as the opposite of both the Greek words translated as "love," whose meanings are closer to “care for” and “enjoy” (see this article). So, miseo means “not caring for” and “not enjoying.” Jesus, uses this verb show a relative dislike of one thing over another. In many of these comparisons, our English verbs “despise” and “reject” captures his sense better. In this article, we will see how translating these verses with words closer to how his listeners would have heard him, enlightens us about what Jesus was saying.

Many of these verses seem harsh and even extreme if we translate miseo as “hate.” This article ends by explaining the Jesus verse that seems the harshest, but which is actually both wise and humorous.

The Greek Word

The Greek word miseo (μισέω) is used by Jesus in twenty verses. "Miseo, which is translated from ancient Greek generally as "to hate" “would not suffer,” and in passive, "to be hated." It is meaning is relative, saying something is valued much less than something else. If nothing else specific is specified in the comparison, it means valued much less than all similar things.

This "hate" is like we use the word to describe our opinion about things other than people. When comparing two things where you dislike something relative to another thing, you might say, "I hate Chinese food but love Italian". However, this doesn't mean that you get emotionally upset at Chinese food. It means simply that you would prefer not to eat it. When not compared to something specific, the aversion of the Greek "hate" becomes more extreme.

Contrasted with “Love”

Thirty percent of Jesus’s “hate” verses are used in contrast with one of the two words translated as “love,” phileo and agapao. There are four verses with agapao and two with phileo. Le us start with a couple of agapao examples.

In Matthew 6:24, we don’t have to guess at his meaning. Jesus offers his own definition of both miseo and agapao.

NIV:  No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Listeners Heard: No one has the power to slave for two masters. Because either he will despise the one and the other he will care for, or one he will attach to himself and the other he will look down upon. You do not have the power to slave for God and mammon.

In this verse, Jesus defines “love” as “attach himself to,” and “hate” as “look down on.” If “hate” means “to look down on,” it is more like "despise” or “disrespect.” The relative comparison is between God and mammon, a non-Greek word, possibly from the Aramaic mamona, whihc means "riches" or "wealth."

Next, we have Matthew 5:43:

NIV:  You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
Listeners Heard: You heard that it was said, "You should care for the one close to you, and you should despise the one hostile to you."

The contrast doesn’t stop with this verse. Jesus goes on to contrast this teaching with his own. He is not teaching this but contradicting it. He also says that we must care about those hostile to us.

We should also look at a verse that uses miseo as the opposite of phileo, the other “love” word that means “enjoy.” This is John 12:25:

NIV: Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Listeners Heard:  The one enjoying that self of his destroys it. And the one despising that self of his in this society shall defend for its ongoing life.

Here, the comparison is between those enjoying their worldly self and those despising it. Two different words are translated as “life.” The first one means “self” (see this article), the last one is a word that does mean “life.”

Applied to the World

In one-quarter of the verses in which Jesus uses this word, the one disliking something is “the world” or “society” (see this article). A good example is John 7:7:

NIV: The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil.
Listeners Heard: This society doesn't have the power to despise you. Me, however? It despises because I myself might testify about it because these works of it are worthless.

Here, the comparison is the world’s preference for his followers rather than him. And it gives the reason: because he said things that society didn’t like.

Not all of Jesus’s uses of miseo put it in opposition to a “love” word or compares two groups of people. Sometimes, “society” is described as “those people.” For example, in Luke 6:22, Jesus contrasts “being fortunate” with “being hated.”

NIV: Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.
Listeners Heard: Fortunate are you whenever those people despise you, and whenever they cut you off and criticize and toss out that name of yours as worthless on account of this Son of the man. 

In this verse, we see even more things to which Jesus equates “hate”: “being cut off,” “being criticize”, and “being tossed out as worthless.” These actions equate to the emotion of “hate”.

The Final Example

This brings us to our final and most controversial example in Luke 14:26:

NIV:  If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.
Listeners Heard:  If anyone shows up before me and he doesn't despise that father of his own, and that mother, and that spouse and those children and those brothers and those sisters. Still even more: that self of his own. He doesn't have the power to be my student. 

This verse seems very harsh (or crazy) to anyone who reads a standard translation, but what is Jesus really saying if we hear it as his listeners did?

First, we should see that it uses Jesus’s typical humorous style: a long, exaggerated, and even shocking setup. This initial exaggeration is followed by a final setup, the “still even more.” Spoken, this would be followed by a pause so people could wonder what is even more than despising all your family members. The answer is despising themselves. That “self” is the self of what we call “ego” (again see this article), what Jesus calls earlier in John 12:25, “that self of the world.” The comparison is that the person that hates his family should despise that self “more” than all those other people. Why? Because someone who hates his family, truly does hate himself.

Why is that important to becoming Jesus’s student? Because his teaching was for people who are flawed and unhappy with themselves and their society.

Final Thoughts

This sampling of “hate” verses is fairly representative of how Jesus uses miseo. In many of these verses, it seems like he works to better define the word, in case any of his listeners misunderstand it. Still, we too often do because of the way it is translated.

Jesus never says that he “hates” or “despises” anything or anyone. It is “society” “those people” who are hating, but he wants them to become his students so that they might stop it.