Albert Barnes Commentary Malachi 1:3

"but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation, and [gave] his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness." — Malachi 1:3 (ASV)

And I made his mountains a waste, and his heritage for the jackals of the wilderness.

Malachi attests the first stage of fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy (Joel 3:19, vol. i. pp. 214, 215), “Edom shall be a desolate wilderness.”

In temporal things, Esau’s blessing was identical with Jacob’s; “the fatness of the earth and of the dew of heaven from above;” and the rich soil on the terraces of its mountain-sides, though yielding nothing now except wild, beautiful vegetation, and its deep glens, attest what they once must have been, when artificially watered and cultivated.

The first desolation must have been through Nebuchadnezzar, in his expedition against Egypt, when he subdued Moab and Ammon; and Edom lay in his way, as Jeremiah had foretold (Jeremiah 25:9, Jeremiah 25:21).