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A T Robertson
But Esau I hated (ton de Esau emisēsa). This language sounds a bit harsh to us. It is possible that the word miseō did not always carry the full force of what we mean by “hate.” See Mat_6:24 where these very verbs (miseō and agapaō) are contrasted. So also in Luk_14:26 about “hating” (miseō) one’s father and mother if coming between one and Christ. So in Joh_12:25 about “hating” one’s life. There is no doubt about God’s preference for Jacob and rejection of Esau, but in spite of Sanday and Headlam one hesitates to read into these words here the intense hatred that has always existed between the descendants of Jacob and of Esau.
J H Thayer Greek Lexicon
Rom_9:13, the signification to love less, to postpone in love or esteem, to slight, through oversight of the circumstance that ’the Orientals, in accordance with their greater excitability, are accustomed both to feel and to profess love and hate where we Occidentals, with our cooler temperament, feel and express nothing more than interest in, or disregard and indifference to a thing
G Abbott Smith Greek Lexicon
As the Heb. H8130 is sometimes found with the modified sense of indifference to or relative disregard for one thing in comparison with another
BDAG Greek Lexicon
" to be disinclined to, disfavor, disregard in contrast to preferential treatment ...Rom 9:13"