Great is the Lord - even beyond the borders of Israel; Malachi

Malachi 1:1-5
The Lord says, "Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated."
Edom will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wraths of the Lord.
Great is the Lord - even beyond the borders of Israel.
The name Malachi means 'My messenger'.
From the book itself we can deduce the historical setting. It would seem be around 460-430 BC either just before Nehemiah became Governor of Jerusalem, or during his absence later on.
It is a difficult waiting time, and disillusion has set in. Times are hard, the people are poor, ground down by foreign powers. The prosperity promised by Haggai if they get their priorities right has not materialized, and Zechariah's glorious predictions of the future messianic king and the day of God's judgment and restoration have not come to pass. It is hard to hold on to hope as the waiting drags on. The people are beginning to double the words of the prophets, to feel God has forgotten them and let them down.
Malachi's starting-point is God's love. His people, struggling with economic hardship, cannot see much evidence of it.
In answer they are told to look at their brother-nation Edom- overrun like themselves by Babylon, but not restored.
Why?
Love.. Hate: The Hebrew idiom is over strong in English. It means, not literal love/hate but the special choice of one and not the other.
Waiting time is hard, but suffering gets patient, patient gets hope.
How?
God loves us, yet we have not seen any evidence, but his word never fail. The time of the Lord is beyong our time.