Is God Altruistic? Is God Happy?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Which has precious little to do with Bible-speak. I've found that Bibliophiles resort to the metaphor argument to explain away uncomfortable verses. 'God is love, but God said he hated Esau, so clearly he didn't mean "hate".'

Come on.

Boru

I don't  know want Bible-speak means. The bible is a book, containing a variety of stories, that rely heavily on parables, and metaphors allegories, etc......

Orthodox believers, hold to variety of fundamental beliefs about the nature of God, such as omniscience, omnibenovelent, , immutability, etc.. So if a biblical passage appears to contradict any of these fundamental aspects, it implies either that passage is false, relies on an early but false conception of God, that the writer of such passages didn't hold to an immutable view of God's nature, or they did, and is expressing it non-literally.

It should also be said that Malachi also contains passage indicating God's immutability: "Malachi 3:6 ESV

“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed."

That's a metaphor.  When God says he doesn't change, he means, 'I am mutable as fuck.'  See, puny mortals that we are, we simply cannot grasp what God says when he claims '...I the Lord do not change', so it clearly means something else.
 
Boru