The Lord God of Israel says he hates divorce. (Malachi 2:16) So the “he” which is contained in the verb here, the second word, is connected to the “Lord God of Israel”. You need to understand that “he” goes back to the “Lord God of Israel” and that’s terribly important because that’s not what the Talmud is going to do. It’s not the husband hating the wife, in fact the word husband doesn’t appear in the passage. There’s nothing in the Hebrew or word order there that infers the “he” which is understood from the text refers to the husband in the passage.
Let’s see what the Talmud does with this lovely thing here. I’m quoting Dr Brown. I have to admit my electronic version of Talmud is a little limited so sometimes it’s a lot easier to go to Dr Brown than try to pull the tractate out. I try to reference the tractate where I can but sometimes it’s just a little difficult. So he says what is the Talmudic interpretation this verse reflected in the Talmud, the Targums and the rabbinical commentaries? Now that’s kind of interesting. There is a little change from the Aramaic. Okay brace yourself. “If you hate her” (referring to the husband, divorcer) and Michael Brown says “I kid you not” because the Hebrew syntax doesn’t allow for that. And so this Talmud passage is turning the meaning on its head. Instead of the Lord God hates divorce, which we get from the syntax of the Hebrew, it says “if the husband hates her, divorce her.” By the way, that almost makes it like a command.