Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Malachi 1:1
The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.
Ch. Mal 1:1. Title
1. burden ] either burden, from its weighty character as a Divine announcement, or oracle as that which is ‘taken up’ (Exo 20:17: Num 23:18) by the speaker. See note on Zec 9:1 in this Series.
Malachi ] See Introd. pp. 7 9.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel – o The word of the Lord is heavy, because it is called a burden, yet it hath something of consolation, because it is not against, but to Israel. For it is one thing when we write to this or that person; another, when we write against this or that person; the one being the part of friendship, the other, the open admission of enmity.
By the hand of Malachi; through him, as the instrument of God, deposited with him; as Paul speaks of 1Co 9:17; Tit 1:3, the dispensation of the Gospel 2Co 5:19, the Lord of reconciliation; Gal 2:7, the Gospel of the uncircumcision, being committed to him.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Mal 1:1
The burden of the Word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
A Divine burden
Some burdens are self-imposed; some laid upon us by our fellow-men; some by God. The prophets felt that the Word of God was a burden upon their souls.
I. It was a burden of Divine revelation. Words reveal. A true word is a manifestation of the soul. God was known by the utterances of these inspired men. His Word is now His choicest revelation. His Word is true, faithful, precious, enlightening, saving, eternal.
II. It is a burden borne by the holiest of men. God speaks through men. Many holy men now feel that the Word of God is in them. This burden should be borne by these holy men, humbly, prayerfully, thankfully, and conscientiously.
III. It is a burden borne for the world. Gods Word must not be hidden. Truth heard in the inner sanctuary of the soul must be proclaimed upon the housetops. Gods Word is for all nations. Whoever has it, has this burden for the world, He must carry it fearfully, distinctly, honestly, and unadulteratedly. Let the churches pray much for those who bear the burden of the Word. Often they are oppressed with their responsibilities. (W. Osborne Lilley.)
The burden of the Word of the Lord
The prophets of old were no triflers. They carried a burden. The servants of God mean business; they have something to carry, worth carrying. Those who speak for God must not speak lightly. Gods true servants, who are burdened with His Word, right willingly and cheerfully carry that burden. We bear a burden indeed, but we should be sorry not to bear it.
I. Why is the word of the Lord a burden to him that speaketh it? It is a burden because it is the Word of the Lord.
1. The Word of the Lord becomes a burden in the reception of it. No man can preach the Gospel aright until he has had it borne into his own soul with overwhelming energy. True preaching is artesian, it wells up from the great depths of the soul.
2. The Word of God is a burden in the delivery of it. He that finds it easy to preach, will find it hard work to give an account of his preaching at the last great day. To speak aright, Gods Word beneath the Divine influence is, in the speaking as well as in the getting of the message, the burden of the Lord.
3. When we have preached, the Gospel becomes a burden in after consideration. If God sends any of us to do good to our fellow-men, and to speak in His name, the souls of men will be a perpetual burden to us.
II. It is a burden because of what it is. What is it that the true servant of God has to bear and preach?
1. It is the rebuke of sin. If a man bears the burden of the Word of the Lord, he speaks most to his people upon the evil of which they are most guilty. Every true preacher must be careless of mans esteem, and speak faithfully; but this is a burden to one of a tender spirit.
2. The Word of the Lord gives a rebuff to human pride. The doctrines of the Gospel seem shaped on purpose, among other objects, to bring into contempt all human glory. So human nature does not like our message. And such preaching becomes the burden of the Lord.
3. The true preacher has to come into contact with the vanity of human intellect. The things of God are hidden from the wise and prudent, but revealed unto babes; and the wise and prudent are indignant at this act of Divine sovereignty. To face false science with the polishness of preaching, and to set up the Cross in the teeth of learned self-sufficiency, is a burden from the Lord.
4. The most heavy burden is that which concerns the future. We are heavy at heart for the many who will not turn to God, but persist in destroying their own souls for ever.
III. It is a burden because of the consequences of our bearing it to you. Suppose that we do not preach the Gospel, and warn the wicked man, so that he turn not from his iniquity, what then? He shall perish, but his blood will I require at thy hand. What will my Lord say to me if I am unfaithful to you? Then it becomes a great burden to me to preach the Gospel when I think of what those lose who will not have it.
IV. It is often the burden of the Lord, because of the way in which men treat the Word of God. Some trifle with it. The preoccupation of human minds makes it such a burden when we are in earnest to reach the heart and win the soul. Quite a number hear with considerable attention, but forget all that they hear. The sermon is all done with when they have done hearing it. There are even some that hear to ridicule. The preacher is in anguish to save a soul, and they are thinking about how he pronounces a word.
V. It is a burden when the preacher remembers that he will have to give an account. There will come a time when it will be said, Preacher, give an account of your stewardship. Remember the great Lord of all true Gospel preachers bore a far heavier burden than we. Since it is a burden in itself, I ask you not to make it any heavier. You add to my burden, if you do not aid me in the Lords work. But the greatest increase of my burden comes from those who do not receive the Gospel at all. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
THE BOOK PROPHET MALACHI
Chronological Notes relative to this Book
-Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3607.
-Year from the vocation of Abram, 1524.
-Year since the destruction of Troy, 787.
-Year since the commencement of the kingdom of Israel by the Divine appointment of Saul to the regal dignity, 698.
-Year from the division of Solomon’s monarchy into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, 578.
-Fourth year of the ninety-fifth Olympiad.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to the Varronian computation, 356.
-Year before the vulgar era of Christ’s nativity, 397.
-Cycle of the Sun, 5.
-Cycle of the Moon, 4.
CHAPTER I
This chapter begins with showing the great and free favour
which God had manifested to the Israelites, above what he had
done to the Edomites, who are threatened with farther marks of
the Divine displeasure; alluding, perhaps, to the calamities
which they suffered from Judas Maccabeus and John Hyrcanus,
(see 1Macc 5:65, and Joseph. Antiq. xiii. 9,) 1-5.
God then reproaches his people, and especially their priests,
for their ungrateful returns to his distinguished goodness, 6.
They are particularly charged with sacrificing the refuse of
beasts, 7-9,
for which God threatens to reject them, 10,
and choose other nations who will show more reverence to his
name and worship, 11-14.
NOTES ON CHAP. I
Verse 1. The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.] This prophet is undoubtedly the last of the Jewish prophets. He lived after Zechariah and Haggai; for we find that the temple, which was begun in their time, was standing complete in his. See Mal 3:10. Some have thought that he was contemporary with Nehemiah; indeed, several have supposed that Malachi, is no other than Ezra under the feigned name of angel of the Lord, or my angel. John the Baptist was the link that connected Malachi with Christ. According to Abp. Usher he flourished B.C. 416, but the authorized version, which we have followed in the margin, states this event to have happened nineteen years later. Both the Hebrew language and poetry had declined in his days.
Israel. – Here means the Jewish people in general.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The burden: see Zec 9:1; Nah 1:1. Usually it imports sad threats against those concerned in it, though sometimes it may be no more than the message of God.
Of the word of the Lord: the authority was Divine on which this prophet spake.
Malachi: my messenger, (saith the Lord,) so the Hebrew sounds. My angel, as some, though they err who take him to be an angel conversing with Jews in the form of a man; but angel, taken in the grammatical sense, i.e. messenger, he was, and God’s messenger, the last of the prophets sent to Israel before the great Prophet Messiah came. That he was Mordecai, or Ezra, as some conjecture without good ground, or who he was, of what tribe or family, the Scripture gives us no account, and we make no guess. His prophecy is of Divine authority, and so cited by three of the four evangelists, Mat 11:10; Mar 1:2; Luk 1:16; and by St. Paul, Rom 9:13.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. burdenheavy sentence.
to Israelrepresentednow by the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with individuals of theten tribes who had returned with the Jews from Babylon. So “Israel”is used, Ezr 7:10. Compare 2Ch21:2, “Jehoshaphat king of Israel,” where Judah,rather than the ten tribes, is regarded as the truest representativeof Israel (compare 2Ch 12:6;2Ch 28:19).
MalachiseeIntroduction. God sent no prophetafter him till John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, in orderto enflame His people with the more ardent desire for Him, the greatantitype and fulfiller of prophecy.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The burden of the word of the Lord,…. By which is meant the prophecy of this book, so called, not because heavy, burdensome, and distressing, either for the prophet to carry, or the people to bear; for some part of it, which respects Christ, and his forerunner, was matter of joy to the people of God; but because it was a message sent by the Lord, and carried by the prophet to the people; [See comments on Zec 9:1] [See comments on Zec 12:1] and this was not the word of man, but of God, a part of Scripture, by divine inspiration. The Syriac version is, “the vision of the words of the Lord”: and the Arabic version, “the revelation of the word of the Lord”; and the Septuagint version, “the assumption of the word of the Lord”; it was what was revealed, made known, and delivered by the Lord to the prophet, and taken up by him, and carried to Israel, which was the general name of all the twelve tribes, when under one prince; but when the kingdom was divided, in Rehoboam’s time, it was peculiar to the ten tribes, as Judah was to the two tribes of Benjamin and Judah; but after the return of these two from the Babylonish captivity, in which they were joined by some of the other tribes, it was given unto them as here:
by Malachi; or, “by the hand of Malachi” m; he was the instrument the Lord made use of; the person whom he sent, and by whom he delivered the following prophecy.
m “in manu”, V. L. Cocceius; “per manum”, Pagninus, Montanus, Piscator.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The first verse contains the heading (see the introduction), “The burden of the word of the Lord,” as in Zec 9:1 and Zec 12:1. On massa’ (burden), see Nah 1:1. The prophet commences his address in Mal 1:2, by showing the love for which Israel has to thank its God, in order that on the ground of this fact he may bring to the light the ingratitude of the people towards their God. Mal 1:2. “I have loved you, saith Jehovah; and ye say, Wherein hast Thou loved us? Is not Esau a brother of Jacob? is the saying of Jehovah: and I loved Jacob, Mal 1:3. And I hated Esau, and made his mountains a waste, and his inheritance for jackals of the desert. Mal 1:4. If Edom says, We are dashed to pieces, but will build up the ruins again, thus saith Jehovah of hosts: They will build, but I will pull down: and men will call them territory of wickedness, and the people with whom Jehovah is angry for ever. Mal 1:5. And your eyes will see it; and ye will say, Great is Jehovah over the border of Israel.” These four verses form neither an independent address, nor merely the first member of the following address, but the introduction and foundation of the whole book. The love which God has shown to Israel ought to form the motive and model for the conduct of Israel towards its God. denotes love in its expression or practical manifestation. The question asked by the people, “Wherein hast Thou shown us love?” may be explained from the peculiarities of Malachi’s style, and is the turn he regularly gives to his address, by way of introducing the discussion of the matter in hand, so that we are not to see in it any intention to disclose the hypocrisy of the people. The prophet proves the love of Jehovah towards Israel, from the attitude of God towards Israel and towards Edom. Jacob and Esau, the tribe-fathers of both nations, were twin brothers. It would therefore have been supposed that the posterity of both the Israelites and the Edomites would be treated alike by God. But this is not the case. Even before their birth Jacob was the chosen one; and Esau or Edom was the inferior, who was to serve his brother (Gen 25:23, cf. Rom 9:10-13). Accordingly Jacob became the heir of the promise, and Esau lost this blessing. This attitude on the part of God towards Jacob and Esau, and towards the nations springing from them, is described by Malachi in these words: I (Jehovah) have loved Jacob, and hated Esau. The verbs , to love, and , to hate, must not be weakened down into loving more and loving less, to avoid the danger of falling into the doctrine of predestination. , to hate, is the opposite of love. And this meaning must be retained here; only we must bear in mind, that with God anything arbitrary is inconceivable, and that no explanation is given here of the reasons which determined the actions of God. Malachi does not expressly state in what the love of God to Jacob (i.e., Israel) showed itself; but this is indirectly indicated in what is stated concerning the hatred towards Edom. The complete desolation of the Edomitish territory is quoted as a proof of this hatred. Mal 1:3 does not refer to the assignment of a barren land, as Rashi, Ewald, and Umbreit suppose, but to the devastation of the land, which was only utterly waste on the western mountains; whereas it was by no means barren on the eastern slopes and valleys (see at Gen 27:39). Tannoth is a feminine plural form of tan = tannm (Mic 1:8; Isa 13:22, etc.), by which, according to the Syrio-Aramaean version, we are to understand the jackal. The meaning dwelling-places, which Gesenius and others have given to tannoth , after the lxx and Peshito, rests upon a very uncertain derivation (see Roediger at Ges. Thes. p. 1511). “For jackals of the desert:” i.e., as a dwelling-place for these beasts of the desert (see Isa 34:13). It is a disputed point when this devastation took place, and from what people it proceeded. Jahn, Hitzig, and Koehler are of opinion that it is only of the most recent date, because otherwise the Edomites would long ago have repaired the injury, which, according to Mal 1:4, does not appear to have been done. Mal 1:4, however, simply implies that the Edomites would not succeed in the attempt to repair the injury. On the other hand, Mal 1:2, Mal 1:3 evidently contain the thought, that whereas Jacob had recovered, in consequence of the love of Jehovah, from the blow which had fallen upon it (through the Chaldaeans), Esau’s territory was still lying in ruins from the same blow, in consequence of Jehovah’s hatred (Caspari, Obad. p. 143). It follows from this, that the devastation of Idumaea emanated from the Chaldaeans. On the other hand, the objection that the Edomites appear to have submitted voluntarily to the Babylonians, and to have formed an alliance with them, does not say much, since neither the one nor the other can be raised even into a position of probability; but, on the contrary, we may infer with the greatest probability from Jer 49:7., as compared with Jer 25:9, Jer 25:21, that the Edomites were also subjugated by Nebuchadnezzar. Maurer’s assumption, that Idumaea was devastated by the Egyptians, Ammonites, and Moabites, against whom Nebuchadnezzar marched in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, is perfectly visionary. The threat in Mal 1:4, that if Edom attempts to rebuild its ruins, the Lord will again destroy that which is built, is equivalent to a declaration that Edom will never recover its former prosperity and power. This was soon fulfilled, the independence of the Edomites being destroyed, and their land made an eternal desert, especially from the times of the Maccabees onwards. The construction of as a feminine with may be explained on the ground that the land is regarded as the mother of its inhabitants, and stands synecdochically for the population. Men will call them ( , the Edomites) , territory, land of wickedness, – namely, inasmuch as they will look upon the permanent devastation, and the failure of every attempt on the part of the nation to rise up again, as a practical proof that the wrath of God is resting for ever upon both people and land on account of Edom’s sins.
Mal 1:5 These ineffectual attempts on the part of Edom to recover its standing again will Israel see with its eyes, and then acknowledge that Jehovah is showing Himself to be great above the land of Israel. does not mean “beyond the border of Israel” (Drus., Hitzig, Ewald, and others). does not mean this, but simply over, above (cf. Neh 3:28; Ecc 5:7). is not a wish, “Let Him be great, i.e., be praised,” as in Psa 35:27; Psa 40:17, etc. The expression does not suit this rendering; for it is an unnatural assumption to take this as an apposition to , in the sense of: Jehovah, who is enthroned or rules over the border of Israel. Jehovah is great, when He makes known His greatness to men, by His acts of power or grace.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Ingratitude of Israel; Judgments and Mercies. | B. C. 400. |
1 The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. 2 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, 3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. 4 Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever. 5 And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The LORD will be magnified from the border of Israel.
The prophecy of this book is entitled, The burden of the word of the Lord (v. 1), which intimates, 1. That it was of great weight and importance; what the false prophets said was light as the chaff, what the true prophets said was ponderous as the wheat, Jer. xxiii. 28. 2. That it ought to be often repeated to them and by them, as the burden of a song. 3. That there were those to whom it was a burden and a reproach; they were weary of it, and found themselves so aggrieved by it that they were not able to bear it. 4. That to them it would prove a burden indeed, to sink them to the lowest hell, unless they repented. 5. That to those who loved it and embraced it, and bade it welcome, though it was a light burden, as our Saviour calls it (Matt. xi. 30), yet it was a burden.
This burden of the word of the Lord was sent, 1. To Israel, for to them pertained the lively oracles of prophecy as well as those of the written word. Many prophets God had sent to Israel, and now he will try them with one more. 2. By Malachi, by the hand of Malachi, as if it were not a message by word of mouth, but a letter put into his hand, for the greater certainty.
In these verses, they are charged with ingratitude, in that they were not duly sensible of God’s distinguishing goodness to them; and such a charge as this may well be called a burden, for it is a heavy one.
I. God asserts the great kindness he had, and had often expressed, for them (v. 2): I have loved you, saith the Lord. Thus abruptly does the sermon begin, as if God intended, whatever reproofs should be given them, to reconcile them to his love, and to take care that they should still have good thoughts of him. As many as I love I rebuke and chasten. Thus kindly does the sermon begin. God will have his people satisfied that he loves them and is ever mindful of his love. This is the same with what he said of old to the virgin of Israel, that he might engage her affections to himself (Jer 31:3; Jer 31:4): Yea I have loved thee with an everlasting love. In this one word God sums up all his gracious dealings with them; love was the spring of all; he loved them because he would love them (Deu 7:7; Deu 7:8), loved them in their childhood, Hos. xi. 1. His delight was in them, Isa. lxii. 4. “I have loved you, but you have not loved me, nor made any suitable returns for my love.” Note, God’s people need to be often reminded of his love to them.
II. They question his love, and diminish the instances of it, and seem to quarrel with him for telling them of it: Yet you say, Wherein hast thou loved us? As God traces up all his favours to them to the fountain, which was his love, so he traces up all their sins against him to the fountain, which was their contempt of his love. Instead of acknowledging his kindness, and studying what they shall render, they scorn to own that they have been beholden to him, challenge him to produce proofs of his love that are material, and think and speak very slightly of the instances they have had of his kindness, as if they were so few, so small, as not to be worth taking notice of, and no more than what they had sufficiently made returns for, or at least than he had sufficiently balanced with instances of his wrath. “Have we not been wasted, impoverished, and carried captive; and wherein then hast thou loved us?” Note, God justly takes it very ill to have his favours slighted, as not worth speaking of; and it is very absurd for us to ask wherein he has loved us, when, which way soever we look, we meet with the proofs and instances of his love to us.
III. He makes it out, beyond contradiction, that he has loved them, loved them in a distinguishing way, which was in a special manner obliging. For proof of this he shows the difference he had made, and would still make, between Jacob and Esau, between Israelites and Edomites. Some read their question, Wherefore hast thou loved us? as if they did indeed own that he had loved them, but withal insinuate that there was a reason for it–that he loved them because their father Abraham had loved him, so that it was not a free love, but a love of debt, to which he replies, “Was not Esau as near akin to Abraham as you are? Was he not Jacob’s own brother, his elder brother? And therefore, if there were any right to a recompence for Abraham’s love, Esau had it, and yet I hated Esau and loved Jacob.“
1. Let them see what a difference God had made between Jacob and Esau. Esau was Jacob’s brother, his twin-brother: “Yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau, that is, took Jacob into covenant, and entailed the blessing on him and his, but refused and rejected Esau.” Note, Those that are taken into covenant with God, that have the lively oracles and the means of grace committed to them, have reason to look upon these as tokens of his love. Jacob is loved, for he has these, Esau hated, for he has not. The apostle quotes this (Rom. ix. 13), and compares it with what the oracle said to Rebecca concerning her twins (Gen. xxv. 23), The elder shall serve the younger, to illustrate the doctrine of God’s sovereignty in dispensing his favours; for may he not do what he will with his own? Esau was justly hated, but Jacob freely loved; even so, Father, because it seemed good in thy eyes, and it is not for us to ask why or wherefore.
2. Let them see what he was now doing and would do with them, pursuant to this original difference.
(1.) The Edomites shall be made the monuments of God’s justice, and he will be glorified in their utter destruction: For Esau have I hated; I laid his mountains waste, the mountains of Seir, which were his heritage. When all that part of the world was ravaged by the Chaldean army the country of Edom was, among the rest, laid in ruins, and became a habitation for the dragons of the wilderness, so perfectly desolate was it; as was foretold, Isa 34:6; Isa 34:11. The Edomites had triumphed in Jerusalem’s overthrow (Ps. cxxxvii. 7), and therefore it was just with God to put the same cup of trembling into their hands. And, though Edom’s ruins were last, yet they were lasting, and the desolation perpetual; and in this the difference was made between Jacob and Esau, and is made between the righteous and the wicked, to whom otherwise all things come alike, and there seems to be one event. Jacob’s cities are laid waste, but they are rebuilt; Edom’s are laid waste, and never rebuilt. The sufferings of the righteous will have an end and will end well; all their grievances will be redressed, and their sorrow turned into joy; but the sufferings of the wicked will be endless and remediless, as Edom’s desolations, v. 4. Observe here, [1.] The vain hopes of the Edomites, that they shall have their ruins repaired as well as Israel, though they had no promise to build their hope upon. They say, “It is true, we are impoverished; it is the common chance, and there is no remedy; but we will return and build the desolate places; we are resolved we will” (not so much as asking God leave); “we will whether he will or no; nay, we will do it in defiance of God’s curse, and that sentence pronounced upon Edom (Isa. xxxiv. 10), From generation to generation it shall lie waste.” They build presumptuously, as Hiel built Jericho in direct contradiction to the word of God (1 Kings xvi. 34), and it shall speed accordingly. Note, It is common for those whose hearts are unhumbled under humbling providences to think to make their part good against God himself, and to build, and plant, and flourish again as much as ever, though God has said that they shall be impoverished. But see, [2.] The dashing of these hopes and the disappointment of them: They say, We will build; but what says the Lord of hosts? For we are sure his word shall stand, and not theirs; and he says, First, Their attempts shall be baffled: They shall build, but I will throw down. Note, Those that walk contrary to God will find that he will walk contrary to them; for who ever hardened his heart against God and prospered? When the Jews had rejected Christ and his gospel they became Edomites, and this word was fulfilled in them; for when, in the time of the emperor Adrian, they attempted to rebuild Jerusalem, God by earthquakes and eruptions of fire threw down what they built, so that they were forced to quit the enterprise. Secondly, They shall be looked upon by all as abandoned to utter ruin. All that see them shall call them the border of wickedness, a sinful nation, incurably so, and therefore the people against whom the Lord has indignation for ever. Since their wickedness is such as will never be reformed, their desolations shall be such as are never to be repaired. Against Israel God was a little displeased (Zech. i. 15), but against Edom he has indignation, and will have for ever, for they are the people of his curse, Isa. xxxiv. 5.
(2.) The Israelites shall be made the monuments of his mercy, and he will be glorified in their salvation, v. 5. “The Edomites shall be stigmatized as a people hated of God, but your eyes shall see your doubts concerning his love to you for ever silenced; for you shall say, and have cause to say, The Lord is and will be magnified from the border of Israel, from every part and border of the land of Israel.” The border of Edom is a border of wickedness, and therefore the Lord will have indignation against it for ever; but the border of Israel is a border of holiness, the border of the sanctuary (Ps. lxxviii. 54), and therefore God will make it to appear (though it may for a time lie desolate) that he has mercy in store for it, and thence he will be magnified; he will give his people Israel both cause, and hearts, to praise him. When the border of Edom still remains desolate, and the border of Israel is repaired and replenished, then it will appear that God has loved Jacob. Note, [1.] Those who doubt of God’s love to his people shall, sooner or later, have convincing and undeniable proofs given them of it: “your own eyes shall see what you will not believe.” [2.] Deliverances out of trouble are to be reckoned proofs of God’s good-will to his people, though they may be suffered to fall into trouble, Ps. xxxiv. 19. [3.] Distinguishing favours are very obliging. If God rear up again the border of Israel, but leave the border of Edom in ruins, let no Israelite ask, for shame, Wherein hast thou loved us? [4.] The dignifying of Israel is the magnifying of the God of Israel, and, one way or other, God will have honour from his professing people. [5.] God’s goodness being his glory, when he does us good we must proclaim him great, for that is magnifying him. It is an instance of his goodness that he has pleasure in the prosperity of his servants, and for this those that love his salvation say, The Lord be magnified, Ps. xxxv. 27.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
CHART I
MALACHI
I.Jehovah’s Love Declared for Israel, Mal 1:1-5.
a) Yet, they seem blind to His love, v. 1, 2.
b) His Love demonstrated for them, v. 3-5.
II.Priestly Conduct Denounced, Mal 1:6 to Mal 2:9.
a) His name they despised, v. 6.
b) Four despised charges against the priesthood:
1)They offered blind animals for sacrifices, v. 8.
2)They offered the lame (cripple) and the sick for sacrifices, v. 8.
3)They sanctioned polluted bread, molded on the altar, v. 12.
4)They complained that it was a weariness to sacrifice, in
direct harmony with the Law of the Lord, thus
compromised truth, v. 13, 14.
c) They offered strange fire upon the altar, v. 10.
III.Conduct of the People of Israel Condemned, Mal 2:10 to Mal 4:3. a) Because of marriage to daughters of those who
worshipped a strange, idol god, Mal 2:11-12.
b) Because of divorce and remarriage, infidelity to wife of
their youth, Mal 2:14-15.
c) A warning of judgment and call to repentance, Mal 2:16 to Mal 3:6.
d) For robbing God of tithes, a call to amend their ways, Mal 3:7-15.
e) Jehovah rewards the faithful remnant, Mal 3:16 to Mal 4:3.
IV.A Final Warning, Mal 4:4-6.
a) Israel called to honor the Law, Mal 4:4.
b) Elijah’s coming foretold, Mal 4:5.
c) His ministry of reconciliation from judgment, Mal 4:6.
MALACHI …GENERAL ANALYSIS
WHO SPEAKS?
This book was written by Malachi, whose name means “My messenger.” Nothing more is revealed about him as a person. He was the last of a long line of Old Testament writing prophets, who for more than one thousand years told of the coming of the Messiah. Of the twelve minor prophets, he is the last; And of the three post exile prophets, he is the last. His last words of the Old Testament warns of a curse, while the first words of the New Testament recount the genealogy of the Christ who came to remove the curse, Mal 4:5-6; Mat 1:1; Mat 1:21.
TO WHOM?
It was addressed to Israel, as a nation, Mal 1:1; Mal 1:5; Mal 2:16; And it was addressed more specifically to the priests regarding their moral, ethical, and spiritual irreverence, and infidelity toward God in both their personal behavior and loose conduct in superintending sacrificial worship in a known corrupt manner before both God and the people. They took bribes, corrupt, crippled and torn sacrifices for personal profit and to please the people, Mal 1:7-8; Mal 1:13-14. The masses of the remnant of the people were also addressed and chided or scolded by Malachi for disobedience to God in: 1) withholding tithes, 2) divorcing the wife of their youth, 3) taking heathen, Gentile, idolatrous wives, Mal 2:12; Mal 2:14; Mal 2:16; Mal 3:7-9.
ABOUT WHAT?
Malachi writes chiefly of four things:
1) Of the Love of Jehovah for Israel, His chosen nation. 2) Of the Sins of the Priests. 3) Of the Sins of the People. 4) Of the Day of the Lord.
WHEN?
Malachi’s ministry was about 75 years after that of Haggai and Zechariah’s, 450 to 400 B.C. It was during the time Nehemiah was governor of Judah, when the walls of Jerusalem were being rebuilt, Neh 2:17-20.
WHAT WAS THE OCCASION?
Seventy five (75) years earlier Joshua had returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel, set up the altar, rebuilt the temple, restored the sacrifices, fasts, feast days, and religious rites of worship. But due to ignorant priests who knew not, studied not, taught not the commandments of God to the people, both people and priests became corrupt and wallowed in carnal disobedience to God, with little true fellowship with God; They needed this direct prophetic message, Mar 7:19; 1Pe 3:19.
MALACHI – CHAPTER 1
THE LOVE OF JEHOVAH FOR ISRAEL
Verses 1-5:
Jehovah’s Burden Of Love Disclosed
Verse 1 asserts that what is about to be revealed, through Malachi, concerning Israel, is the burden (“massa”, heavy load of care) Jehovah bears for Israel, Ezr 7:10; 2Ch 21:2; 2Ch 12:6; 2Ch 28:19. He is the last prophet God sent to Judah and a few people returned from captivity of the other ten tribes, until John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord.
Verse 2 affirms that the Lord-Jehovah has loved, or held in affection, the nation of Israel, above other descendants of Abraham, as disclosed Deu 4:37; Deu 7:7-8; Hos 11:1. Yet many of them were asking ignorantly, “wherein” He had loved them. He then relates His love as historically and traditionally related among them, and His choice of Jacob, as later described by Paul, Rom 9:10-13. God’s love for Jacob and hatred for Esau, relates to an old Hebrew idiom that means He loved Esau to a less degree than Jacob.
Verse 3 then relates that Jehovah hated Esau, not absolutely, but relatively, as a nation, referring more specifically to the Edomites; Esau’s offspring; He made their mountain ranges as their heritage a waste place for dragons, jackals of the wilderness, Jer 49:17-18; Eze 35:3; Isa 34:13. Several examples of love for one more than the other, where the latter is said to be hated, are found in the Scriptures: 1) Esau and Jacob, Gen 29:30-31; Genesis 2) Jacob feelings for Leah and Rachel, Deu 21:14-15; One wife loved, one hated, or less loved; Pro 13:24 states “He that spareth the rod hateth his son;” and our Lord asserted that if any man came to Him and “hated not his father and his mother he could not be His disciple,” simply meaning unless he loved them to a less degree than they did the Lord. Esau sold his birthright in unbelief, but Jacob believed and respected his, hence the Divine choice.
Verse 4 relates Edom’s obstinate refusal to acknowledge the Lord, even after Israel repented, returned and rebuilt the temple, while Edom bragged that she would return and rebuild their own desolate places without Jehovah. But Jehovah warned that He would cast them down, cause them to be known as the border of wickedness, forever, Isa 34:5. Esau’s lineage is given Gen 25:30.
Verse 5 foretells that Israel’s eyes would see the subjection of the Edomites at her borders and the Lord’s name would be magnified, as He punished them before Israel, Psa 107:2; Mic 5:4.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
They who explain משא, mesha, burden, as signifying prophecy, without exception, are mistaken, as I have elsewhere reminded you; for prophecy is not everywhere called a burden; and whenever this word is expressed, there is ever to be understood some judgment of God; and it appears evident from Jer 23:38, that this word was regarded as ominous, so that the ungodly, when they wished to brand the Prophets with some mark of reproach, used this as a common proverb, “It is a burden,” intimating thereby that nothing else was brought by the Prophets but threatenings and terrors, in order that they might have some excuse for closing their ears, and for evading all prophecies by giving them an unhappy and ominous name.
As we proceed it will become evident that the doctrine of Malachi is not without reason called a Burden; for as I have stated in part, and as it will be more fully seen hereafter, it was necessary that the people should be summoned before God’s tribunal, inasmuch as many sins had again begun to prevail among them, and such as could not be endured: and for this reason he says that God’s judgment was at hand.
But under the name of Israel he refers only to those who had returned to their own country, whether they were of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin, or of the tribe of Levi. It is nevertheless probable that there were also some mixed with them from the other tribes: but the Jews and their neighbors, the half tribe of Benjamin, had almost alone returned to their country, with the exception of the Levites, who had been their guides in their journey, and encouraged the rest of the people. They were yet called Israel indiscriminately, since among them only pure religion continued: but they who remained dispersed among foreign and heathen nations, had as it were lost their name, though they had not wholly departed from the pure worship of God and true religion. Hence, by way of excellency, they were called Israel, who had again assembled in the holy land, that they might there enjoy the inheritance promised them from above.
The word hand, as we have observed elsewhere, means ministration. The meaning then is, that this doctrine proceeded from God, but that a minister, even Malachi, was employed as an instrument; so that he brought nothing as his own, but only related faithfully what had been committed to him by God from whom it came. It then follows —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
MALACHIOR A MINOR PROPHETS MESSAGE TO MODERN BELIEVERS
Mal 1:1 to Mal 4:6.
IN discussing the Book of Malachi, I do not propose to give special time to the two subjects which students of this Book have made the occasion of much dispute, namely, the authorship, and the time of its origin. Suffice it to say that the so-called advanced critics, with a few notable exceptions, believe that no such person as Malachi lived, that the volume is anonymous, and the name came from the words, Behold, I will send My messenger where mal-akhi was the term chosen at a later time for the title. While the more conservative students, with a few exceptions, believe that Malachi was not only the name of a Prophet, but also of that Prophet who gave the world this Book. And these latter fix the dates for his work as between 436 and 347 B. C. In passing, permit me to remark that I believe that Malachi was a man, the last of the Minor Prophets, Gods messenger indeed to Israel, and also to us; and that this volume was his message.
While it does not make mention of him, there are in the Book internal evidences that his ministry practically coincided with Nehemiahs administration. Dr. Angus, in his Bible Handbook calls attention to what a good student of this Prophet would see, namely, that the second Temple was now built, and the services of the altar, with the sacrifices and offerings were established. And the very evils which Nehemiah, in the thirteenth chapter of his volume, so vigorously condemns, Malachi excoriates. The definite purpose of the volume seems to be the correction of Israel who had lapsed into a practical infidelity, and whose continued forms and ceremonies were in flagrant violation alike of the letter and the spirit of Gods Law, and therefore an offense unto Him! This apostasy had so far proceeded that even the priests of the Temple were putrid, and the people polluted and polluting.
Gods Prophet would have sung his song in a minor key, but for the single circumstance that prophets are also seers; and, distant as was the day of the Lord from where Malachi stood, a vision of the same was yet vouchsafed him, and he finishes with a forthsetting of its beauty, and victory for its banners.
Now shall we search the Book and see what Malachi had to say, and how much of this minor Prophets message is applicable to moderns.
The volume opens with a discussion of
THE INFIDELITY OF ISRAEL
The burden of the Word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast Thou loved us? (Mal 1:1-2).
That infidelity then expresses itself in the first instance by questioning Gods love. Yet ye say, Wherein hast Thou loved us? The remaining text to verse five included Gods answer and argument in proof of His demonstrated affection for them. He had made a distinction between Jacob and Esau and all His favors had gone to the former the father of this people; yea, to this people themselves, for were they not Israeli sons and daughters Israelites? It is bad enough when the unregenerate are infidel and in their folly say, There is no God. It is vastly worse when those who have once had a true knowledge of God turn away from the same. Hear Paul speak of the fate of such It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the Heavenly Gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame. I do not profess to understand the full meaning of these words of the Apostle, but I have found that when a man who has once counted himself a child of the King, becomes a scoffer, it is easier to win a thousand sinners to the Saviour than to convert him from the error of his way. There is something so unnatural in his infidelity; something so strange in his skepticism that neither reason nor revelation seem to reach his heart.
Have you not noticed that the greatest ingratitude is sometimes shown by those who have received the most signal favors? There is a man who was bankrupt and you went and stood at his side and gave him your sympathy, and freely offered your silver and gold; joined with him in his struggle and never left off until he was lifted up and prosperity came instead of poverty, and singing instead of sighing. And yet he soon forgot the favor and if one so much as makes mention of it he meets that mention with these questionsWherein did you ever love me? What did you ever do for me? What kindness did you ever show me? Such is the ingratitude born of the spirit of infidelity! And such is Israels state of mind when Malachi Gods messengerflashes the searchlight of newborn Scripture into her unbelieving bosom. But what man ever laid his fellow under such obligation as God has put every living soul? And yet they say, Wherein hast Thou loved us?
Again, that infidelity was evidenced in the transgression of Gods Law. He had said concerning the offerings,
All the firstling males that come of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thy bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep.
Thou shalt eat it before the Lord thy God year by year in the place which the Lord shall choose, thou and thy household.
And if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the Lord thy God (Deu 15:19-21).
But, despising that plain statement and the Name of Him who made it, He says,
Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine altar: and ye say, Wherein have we polluted Thee?
And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person?
Again, God had His Law concerning marriage. They were not to take a wife from strangers, nor to put one away save they had found some uncleanness in her. But here they have divorced the wives of their youth, against whom they had dealt treacherouslythe companions of covenant, whom God had made to be one with them; and taken unto themselves wives from the mixed nations round about, that they might gratify at once the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
When Israel was carried captive to Babylon some of the weakest and least favored of her fold were left in the land. Cut off from their fellows in the faith, widely scattered among the heathen, they soon accepted the adage of doing as the Romans about them, and amalgamated with the nations. They possessed much land, were well regarded socially, and really seemed a superior class to that Israel which was now recovered from the long captivity. And so Gods people saw an opportunity in such alliances to wealth and political influence, and defended the step by reminding themselves that these Samaritans were, after all, their forty-second cousins. The consequence was easy divorce, domestic disorder, and Divine offense.
It is perfectly apparent also from the text that the priests of the time had sanctioned and participated in these sins, and had attempted to supplant the spirit of service with mongrel ceremonies. It is little wonder that Malachi exposes this transgression! It is a true picture of ancient Israel; it is a clean-cut portrait of the modern church. We sometimes read from Genesis the words, The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose, to imagine that that speech is centuries old. And so it is,the old is often new. It is just what is being done todaythe sons of God are forming alliances with the daughters of men. The children of the church, while wearing the Name of Christ, are being unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And the mongrel society,in the church and out,silence every prophet who would dare speak against this agreeable and profitable arrangement. But let it be remembered that if the last John the Baptist was beheaded, the Book of God would remain, and every professed Christian man, and every professed Christian woman consorting with the world, or sending their children to do the same, must either leave it unstudied, or open it to read the condemnation of their conduct.
And yet again,the infidelity of Israel is expressed in that
They are withholding Gods offering. We learn in chapter one, verses seven and eight, that they brought the lame and sick instead of the firstlings of the flock, healthy and without blemish. We learn by referring to verses twelve to fourteen of this same chapter, that they even defended the practice by saying, The table of the Lord is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even His meat, is contemptible (Mal 1:12). And so the torn, and the lame, will suffice, while they kept back the male of the flock and offered in sacrifice a corrupt thing.
Beloved, here Gods minor Prophet presents again a message of which the so-called church of Christ stands in sore need. We may profess whatever faith we will, but we will never believe in our own profession, nor convince the world of our serious convictions while we treat the treasury of the Lord with neglect or contempt. The crucible for a good profession of faith is the contribution box. The man who is hunting for a church where no offering will be made, no sacrifice expected, or where, instead of giving the most, he may give the least to God, is hunting for an institution from which Gods Spirit has long since departed, and is himself controlled by an idea that crucifies Christ, who Being rich, yet for our sakes became poor, and sets up in His stead an image to covetousness.
Such was the infidelity of Israel! To question Gods love; to transgress Gods Law; to keep back Gods offering! The infidelity of this hour will repeat these processes! And its existence makes Malachis prophecy a reminder to the Church of our century.
Passing on in our study I call your attention to another fact, namely,
JUDGMENT IN NATURAL EFFECTS
It is painfully and yet extremely interesting to follow these lines of infidelity in Israel to see what fruits they bring forth. The Apostle Paul might have been thinking of the Minor Prophets message when he said, Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. You will see that the judgments made against Israel were according to natural law in the spiritual world.
His love was given to others. Seeing that they would not serve Him He said,
I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of Hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.
For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same My Name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto My Name, and a pure offering: for My Name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts (Mal 1:10-11).
Beloved, is God to be blamed?
A few years since the newspapers narrated the history of a woman to whom one of our noblest presidents proffered his hand in marriage while they were yet young. She rejected it. He grieved over the refusal, and went his way to woo and win another. When the time came that this second choice shared with him the first place in the land, and his first love found herself without property or position, no one thought to complain against the great man.
I have sometimes wondered if the Jews of the world, scattered and persecuted as they are, were not patient in their sufferings because they knew that they were without a cause of complaint, having rejected God, whose first choice they were, to see the Gentiles come into the Fathers fellowship and enjoy the Divine favor of centuries.
Let us not be blind to parallelisms. History is repeating in substance the very suggestion of the above quoted text. The great denominations of the past have fallen from their favored heights; and humble, despised folk have been exalted above them.
There was a day when Romanism looked with contempt upon Luthers movement. The great hierarchy with its head beside the Tiber was confident that it was the chosen of the Lord. But its very conduct was so much akin to that of this Israel to whom Malachi delivers his message that God could not remain their Friend, but turned rather to Luther and his humble followers, and made His Name great among them.
There was a time when the established Church of England scorned the pretentions of John Wesley and the ragged crowd who walked in his wake.
But the infidelity of the Establishment contrasted the fidelity of the Wesleyans, and Ichabod was written for the Church of England, and the words, Arise, shine; for thy Light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee expressed at once Gods command and commendation of the plain Methodist brethren.
Beloved, do you know the biggest fear that finds a place in my heart today? It is that these denominations of ours that number now over millions, should be puffed up with pride and become Laodicean indeed,lukewarm in love, insane in selfesteem, saying, We are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing! Lost, except they repent and invite into their lives and labors Him who stands at the door and knocks, saying, If any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.
It is not a strange circumstance that the Christian Alliance movement, originating but a little more than fifteen years ago, should have enjoyed such a growth and proven itself such a world-missionary power. Gods love and Gods great power are alike the heritage of them that humble themselves before Him, and undertake for Him.
He expressed contempt for their ceremonies.
But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the Law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of Hosts.
Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept My ways, but have been partial in the Law (Mal 2:8-9).
Few things are more offensive to God, the Father, than ceremonies when they have no spirit of service in them. Before Malachis day the Lord had said by Isaiahs lips concerning this custom, This people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour Me, but have removed their heart far from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of men (Isa 29:13).
And Ezekiel had also declared And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as My people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness (Eze 33:31).
One of the most difficult things in the Christian life is to keep form from displacing affection; and ceremony from killing the spirit. It is so much easier to bend the knee than to bow the heart, and to say prayers than to pray; to sing songs than to make a joyful noise unto the Lord; and to look pious while the offering passes than to part with our substance. Did I say it was much easier? No! It only seems to be! It is much harder! The man whose religion troubles him most is the one whose true spirit amounts to the least. It is better to have none than not enough. The out and out unbelievers of Christs time never incited His criticism as did the pious pretenders.
In Dr. Piersons volume on Gordons dream, How Christ Came to Church he tells the story of an aged and venerable clergyman whose son had gone over to the extreme of Roman ritualism. The boy importuned the father to come and preach in his chapel of ease. He finally yielded, but startled the congregation by choosing as his text, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is a lunatick.
And then he proceeded to show the utter insanity of the modern methods which had robbed us of simplicity and given place to elaborate ceremonials. We may question the propriety of the fathers procedure, and yet, we cannot rid ourselves of the Saviours declaration concerning the ceremonials of His time, In vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
And yet again,
This judgment expresses itself in the failure of the fruits of earth. Mark you here, God is following natural law again. They withheld from Him, and shortly they had nothing to give. There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty (Pro 11:24).
Will a man rob God? Yes, and without knowing it rob himself at the same time by severing himself from the source of all good. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee? He answers,
In tithes and offerings.
Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed Me, even this whole nation.
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine House, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of Hosts (Mal 3:8-11).
Beloved, I often wonder how much of our poverty is self-imposed? I often question whether the Church of Jesus Christ has not shorn herself by covetousness? And often have I wondered whether many of the deserts of earth would not long since have rejoiced and blossomed as the rose in fair fruitfulness, had men cheerfully contributed to every call of Him who is the Giver of every good and perfect gift.
David M. Torrey says, Having found God my Saviour, I thought I would try Him in temporal things, as I was out of business. The first day He allowed me to make 85. Then Mr. Torrey continues by telling how he went on tithing and God went on blessing, until thousands of dollars were poured into his lap.
The history of Wm. Colgate reads like a romance. His gifts were munificent, sacrificial; but Gods gifts to him were greater still, illustrating the words of Jesus, Give, and it shall be given unto you.
In the study of this Book I am profoundly impressed by a single verse in it, and believe it to contain a suggestion worthy definite notice, namely,
THE AFFECTION OF THE FAITHFUL
To me there are two beautiful touches in this Book of Malachi, aside from the bright prospect shown in the last chapter. One is the picture of an ideal priest, Mal 2:7,The priests lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the Law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts. The other is the verse referred to, and compasses the fellowship of the saints, Mal 3:16-17,Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His Name. And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
It is a blessed fact that the Lord is never without true followers. No matter how many speak against Him there are those to speak for Him. When Elijah, in his dejection, supposed himself to be left alone of all Gods followers, he was corrected by the assertion of the Divine One, Yet I have left Me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. And you will find that when the time of the antichrist comes, and that enemy of our God rules in all the world, there will be knees that will not bow to him; hands and foreheads that will refuse his mark. In the day of Malachi, miserable as was the situation of Israel, there were some saints, and they spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it.
They must have received strength by exchange of sympathy. Did you ever try to picture what it surely meant to the early disciples of Jesus at the time when they were enduring cruel mockings and scourgings, bonds and imprisonments; when they were sawn asunder, tempted and slain; when they wandered about in sheepskins and were destitute, afflicted and tormented, living in deserts and in caves of the earth? What strength they got from speaking often one to another; from exchange of sympathy! It is difficult to serve God alone. The very desolation of it incites despair. But to meet with kindred spirits and listen to their story of suffering or recitations of victory, and to know that they have learned the fellowship of Christs suffering! Ah, who is not made strong by that exchange?
If you have a friend worth loving
Love him,yes, and let him know
That you love him, ere lifes evening
Tinge his brow with sunset glow.
Why should good words neer be said
Of a friend till he is dead?
If you see the hot tears falling,
Falling from a brothers eyes,
Share themand thus by the sharing
Own your kinship with the skies.
Why should any one be glad
When a brothers heart is sad?
Courage also would come out of this conference of believers. Do you not suppose that is why Jesus commissioned His disciples to go out two by two? Have you not had hours when your heart sank within you; when you felt baffled, defeated; when you said, I am undone! when the coming of some Christian friend, and the converse that followed, filled you with fresh spirit, and caused you to stand forth again, saying, I can, and, God helping me, I will? Where one can chase a thousand, two can put ten thousand to flight.
Here again in this verse,
The communion of the saints called the Lord into the company.
And the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a hook of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His Name.
And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels (Mal 3:16-17).
We have long been accustomed to the thought that when the knees of two were bowed together in prayer God was there to hearken to the petition and to grant the request according to His promise.
Have we also forgotten His pledge that where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them? Did it ever occur to you to ask why Jesus appeared to the two on the way to Eramaus? It was because of the subject which engaged them in conversation. And I do not believe that His saints ever assemble anywhere and talk of high and holy things, but there sitting in the midst of them, is the Saviour Himself, taking note of all that is said and standing ready, when we have finished our conversation, to reveal Himself as He did to the two in the way, and teach us truths that no mortal tongue could ever tell. I know not what the fellowship of the saints may have meant to others but to me it has been strength, and courage, and holy communion, and Divine instruction!
But to finish the study of this Book, let me call attention to the fourth lesson.
THE FUTURE OF FIRE AND FAVOR
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall bum as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall bum them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
But unto you that fear My Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts.
Remember ye the Law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse (Mal 4:1-6).
Fire is Gods symbol of separation. That is taught not alone in this passage where all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: torn up root and branch, and trodden like ashes under the feet of Gods children, but many other Scriptures suggest the same thought. In Daniel it was fire that slew those men that took up Shadrack, Meshach, and Abed-nego to cast them into the burning fiery furnace; but Gods servants it preserved instead, and they walked in it without hurt, attended by the Son of God Himself.
There is an interesting passage in Isa 33:13-15, illustrating this,
Hear, ye that are far off, what I have done; and, ye that are near, acknowledge My might.
The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?
He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil.
And this illustration is not unnatural, it is the action of fire. When gold goes into fire it comes out refined, having lost nothing of its real value. When dross goes in it comes out a cinder. The very sun in the heavens is growth to the living trees, but destruction to the dead ones. When Jesus wanted to conclude His discourse of the end of the age, and declare the fate of infidel and faithful alike, He said to the latter, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, but to the former, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
But I will not dwell upon this imagery, with the Scripture extent of which you are familiar. It is a solemn warning against sin. And I hasten from the awful suggestion to remind you that,
Favor is Gods purpose and promise to them that fear Him.
But unto you that fear My Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall he ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts (Mal 4:2-3).
It is the Old Testament history; it is the New Testament teaching. When fire consumed Sodom, Lot was saved out of it only because he feared the Lord. When fallen Jericho was touched with a thousand flames, Rahab, the harlot, and hers, were preserved alive for the very same reason,she feared the Lord. As the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. The fear of the Lord is not only the beginning of wisdom but the secret of Gods favor forevermore.
But the crowning blessing belongs here with the coming of the Son. It is when He arises with healing in His wings that we are to grow up as calves of the stall; that we are to tread down the wicked until they shall be as ashes under the soles of our feet. And before the day of the Lord He shall send Elijah, the Tishbite, And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
Beloved, it is beautiful to me to see how though the Scripture conception of the end of the age is characterized by the supremacy of the antichrist, for a short time, that darkness will soon pass, as the hours of the night swiftly receive them, and, though with the rising of the Son of God,who is the Prophets Sun of Righteousness,the day of the Lord is on, and what a day it will be!
It has seemed to me that Joseph Parkers idea that this Scripture is a figure which signifies the inexpressible vigor of life, is justified by the whole text, Grow up as calves of the stall. Parker interprets by saying, Ye shall be sportive, ye shall realize the idea of youthfulness; you shall be vivacious, you shall not be old, cold, dead things; ye shall be as calves of the stall, full of life, leaping because of the very redundance of vitality. There is a hint here of spiritual enthusiasm. This is not an animal vivacity, it is a spiritual impulse and ambition; it is the new and deeper magnetism, it is the effect of being in touch with God.
But when one comes to believe, even this familiar language seems limited. Whose imagination can ascend with Prophet and Apostle to the heights of glory depicted for the day of the Lord, or sound the depths of its joy? All that one can do is to rejoice with the Prophet, and sing with the poet, the prayer:
Thou, glorious Sun of Righteousness,
On this day risen to set no more,
Shine on me now to heal, to bless,
With brighter beams than eer before.
Shine on, shine on, eternal Sun!
Pour richer floods of life and light,
Till that bright Sabbath be begun,
That glorious day which knows no night.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL NOTES.] Burden] (Massa) A heavy vision full of toil and weight. What is the burden of the Lord? was asked scoffingly from the prophets. As a punishment for the blasphemy of the people, God declares, I will burden you [cf. Lange: Jer. 23:33-40].
Mal. 1:2. Loved] A faction their history and the foundation for reproof. Hated] Not a proper and formed hatred (for God could not hate Esau before he sinned), but only a lesser love, which, in comparison of the great love for Jacob, seemed as if it were not love [Pusey]. Jacob and Esau are illustrations of Gods purpose in the election of grace. Their history typified and conditioned that of their posterity (cf. Rom. 9:11).
Mal. 1:3.] The condition of the country, desolate and inhabited by (dragons) jackals of the wilderness, a proof of this hatred.
Mal. 1:4. Edom] cannot recover herself. Her perpetual ruins illustrate love to Israel rather than to her. Border] still the resort of marauding tribes of the desert. Indignation] Curse (cf. Isa. 34:5).
Mal. 1:5. See] the ineffectual attempts of Edom, and then acknowledge the greatness of Jehovah in and beyond the land of Israel.
HOMILETICS
SPECIAL FAVOURS DEMAND SPECIAL RETURNS.Mal. 1:2-5
The sovereign benevolence of Jehovah and the ingratitude of the Hebrews in the time of the prophet are strikingly contrasted. To the petulant question, Wherein hast thou loved us? which is only the first of a series which are put in the course of the book, the answer is direct and conclusivein showing greater kindness to their progenitor Jacob than he had done to his brother Esau [Hend.].
I. Distinction above others an act of Divine love. From the first Israel were chosen and set apart, and to the last were they loved in chastisement and rebuke. Nothing was due to their own industry and virtues.
1. Their temporal blessings were greater that those of others. We have only to look around to see Divine goodness. Protected homes, restored health, and fruitful lands. The land of Israel was specially favoured, while Idumea was sterile, desolate, and the haunt of jackals. Israel had been restored, but Edomites were under the ban.
2. Their religious privileges were greater than those of others. Edom and heathen nations had not the temple and the oracles of God. He hath not dealt so with any nation as with the Jews (Psa. 147:10). Gods love is the source of every blessing. He makes one differ from another. The distinctions of men and the advantages of nations result from his sovereign goodness. Thus the love of God is
(1) proved from his word: I have loved thee; and
(2) confirmed by our life. In our past and present condition we are reminded of gratuitous love. The Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.
II. Distinction above others a reason for implicit submission. The people ask for proofs of love. God appeals to facts to silence scepticism.
1. Gods love may be questioned. Wherein hast thou loved us? If God afflicts we think him unkind; if he withholds what we desire we question his mercy. Pride and petulance have dimmed our vision. We have formed the habit of doubting until it has grown strong, and we constantly cry Wherein?
2. Gods love may be denied. Men cry, Give me the ocular proof; make me seet. If evidence of Gods providence is not seen they deny it. The Jews could only say, We are few and feeble, unable to defend our houses and gather pur harvests, the frequent prey of some and the perpetual scorn of others. This insolent challenge is a common, a prolific root of sin, a fountain of ingratitude and rebellion. The doctrine of election may be mysterious, but greater difficulties arise from its rejection. God says that he loves us, and gives abundant proof of it. What more do we wish? All misery is due to ourselves. We must be silent, for God is just. Why dost thou strive against him? (quarrel with and dispute his dealings, Isa. 45:9) for he giveth not account of (he answereth not) any of his matters (Job. 33:13).
III. Distinction above others an inducement to grateful service. The election of Israel was not of works, but of him that calleth. Descent from one and the same patriarch was not the reason of their choice. The prophet and the apostle declare it to be of free grace. This a reason
1. For grateful service. gods love lays us under obligation to love him in return. But amid striking proofs of it we are blind, ungrateful, and dissatisfied. Wherein hast thou loved us?
2. For constant service. Gods everlasting love was uniform in itself, manifold in its manifestations [Pusey]. If God never ceases to bless we should never cease to serve. I am constant as the northern star, of whose true, fixed, and resting quality there is no fellow in the firmament [Shakespeare].
Love me little, love me long [Marlowe].
LESSONS FROM THE RUIN OF EDOM.Mal. 1:3-5
Jacob and Esau were brothers, but God did not deal with them both alike. Their personal history was repeated in their posterity. The doom of one was pointed to as a lesson of providence and love to the other.
I. The ruin of Edom a monument of Gods anger. I hated Esau. In whatever sense we take the word hated, greater love was shown to Jews than to Edom. But God has reasons for his acts. The Edomites were the children of the sword, and he that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword. Hence they brought the anger of God upon themselves in a form of that Divine and wholesome law of retribution which we find in our own lives no less than in the written word, says one.
II. The ruin of Edom a warning to other people. What happened to them may happen to us. Your eyes shall see. Gods people may be assured of his love towards them and his providence over them when they see the enemy punished and frustrated in their designs. The world should learn that God will be magnified from the border of Israel.
III. The ruin of Edom a proof of Jehovahs supremacy over all nations. The judgments that fell upon Edom taught the Jews, and the world through the Jews, that God was not only the God of Israel, but the God of the whole earth. By contrasting the condition of Israel with that of Edom we learn that Jehovah is supreme over all nations, saying to one, Thou shalt live, and to another, Thou shalt perish; that his government is merciful to his people and retributive to his enemies.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Mal. 1:1. Malachis message.
1. The nature of the message. The burden.
2. The authority of the message. The word of the Lord.
3. The design of the message. To Israel.
4. The medium of the message. By Malachi.
Mal. 1:2. Learn
1. That Gods love is not dispensed according to any merit in us. I have loved thee.
2. That Gods love cannot always be seen in our outward condition. Wherein hast thou loved us?
3. That love may often be seen when we compare our condition with that of others. I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau.
4. That Gods love should always beget gratitude to God in return. I have loved you, God would say, with a special love, a more than ordinary love, with greater tokens of love than to others. So God brings to the penitent soul the thought of its ingratitude [Pusey].
5. That when there is no gratitude in return for his love God will punish. The sequel proves this. Lycurgus, when asked why he set down no punishment in his laws for ingratitude, replied, I have left it to the gods to punish.
Mal. 1:2-3. Jacob viewed chiefly in his national capacity as Israel, and taken by the apostle as a type of the elect (Rom. 9:13). Esau viewed as the Edomite nation show that the accepttance or rejection is not spiritual, that a principle of election runs through all history, and that God, as absolute sovereign, bestows religious privileges and Divine blessings.
Mal. 1:4. The worlds defiance of Gods decree. It breaks down, he builds up; it builds, he breaks down [Lange].
Mal. 1:5-6. Observe the repetition of the word border in the contrast between them. Edom is the border (gebl) of wickedness; but the Lord will show his power and love over the border (gebl) of Israel [Words.]. The Lord magnified, &c.
1. By his gracious acts to Israel.
2. By sending his word to the Gentiles.
3. By his judgments over all the earth (Rev. 15:4).
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1
Mal. 1:2-5. Loved you. Ingratitude is too base to return a kindness, and too proud to regard it; much like the tops of mountains, barren indeed but yet lofty; they produce nothing, they feed nobody, they clothe nobody, yet are high and stately, and look down upon all the world about them [Dr. South].
Mal. 1:3. Waste. Divine curses are not merely imprecations, impotent and fruitless desires; they carry their effects with them, and are attended with all the miseries denounced by God [Cruden].
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XLIV
DENUNCIATION OF UNFAITHFULNESS
SUPERSCRIPTION . . . Mal. 1:1
RV . . . The burden of the word of Jehovah to Israel by Malachi.
LXX . . . The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by the hand of his messenger. Lay it, I pray you, to heart.
COMMENTS
Malachi begins with the prophets usual claim to inspiration, the burden of the word of Jehovah. The message is to Israel.
The term Israel appears four times in Malachi. (Mal. 1:1; Mal. 1:5; Mal. 2:16, and Mal. 4:4) There can be little doubt that its use in this Context is designed to underscore the covenant relationship of the people to Jehovah. (See review of the use of Israel in Chapter IV, comments on Mic. 1:5)
The message will first convince, then comfort; first discover sin, then reprove it. It will reach its climax in the promise of Him Who is to take away sin.
Chapter XLIVQuestions
Denunciation of Unfaithfulness
1.
The prophet ______________ is considered by Jewish tradition as the seal of prophecy.
2.
The traditional Christian view is that Malachi is the bridge between the
_____________ and the _______________.
3.
Malachi probably wrote about _______________.B.C.
4.
Malachi means _______________.
5.
Malachis prophecy coincides with the _______________ period of Daniels seventy weeks.
6.
Malachis central concern is _______________.
7.
Discuss the corruption of the priesthood as addressed by Malachi and show its effect upon the people.
8.
Why does Malachi immediately precede the New Testament in our English versions of the Bible?
9.
Outline the book of Malachi.
10.
The next word from Jehovah to His people after Malachi would be spoken by _______________.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
1-5. These verses are introductory to the whole prophecy. God had shown His love to Israel; Israel ought to have made a proper return, but, on the contrary, Israel had abused Gods loving-kindness.
(1) The burden.See Notes on Isa. 13:1; Jer. 23:33-40; Zec. 9:1; Zec. 12:1.
Malachi.See Introduction.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Mal 1:1 contains the title, which is similar to that in Zec 12:1 (compare also the common translation of Zec 9:1, but see comment there).
Burden See on Nah 1:1.
Word of Jehovah See on Hos 1:1.
Israel Not in the narrow sense, the northern kingdom (Amo 1:1), but the entire postexilic community, whether descendants of the northern tribes or of Judah.
By Malachi Literally, by the hand of Malachi (compare Hag 1:1). See Introduction, p. 687.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Heading.
Mal 1:1
‘The burden of the word of YHWH to Israel by Malachi.’
The heading tells us what the contents of the book are. It contains ‘the burden of the word of YHWH to Israel by Malachi’. The word ‘burden’ can mean something heavy to bear. It was never easy to be a prophet. They had to speak of distressing things to come, and they had to say unpopular things about both the present. Especially unpopular were their criticisms, for people like to hear nice things about themselves, and do not like to be told that they are in the wrong. Nor do they like responsibilities being laid on them. Thus the prophets never had an easy time.
However, the word translated ‘burden’ can also mean ‘oracle’, a ‘lifting up of the voice’. But if it simply meant that here it would tend to make the noun ‘word’ redundant. This suggests that the idea of burden has to be retained, indicating that it is ‘the burden of the word of YHWH’, something which is not easy to bear. So the book contains the word of YHWH spoken to Israel which was a heavy burden on the prophet’s heart.
But who are we intended to see as indicated by the term Israel? Israel had originally been the name for the whole of the twelve tribes, but when the kingdom was divided it was used of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom. However, the prophets continued to use the term Israel to denote the whole of Israel within Palestine made up of whichever of the tribes were present, for they did not acknowledge the division. And once the various exiles had taken place it was very much used to indicate ‘all Israel’. Thus that is its major significance here. However, we may also see it as having a wider application in general to Israelites in exile who still looked to Jerusalem, wherever they were.
The word came ‘by Malachi’. As it stands the word in Hebrew malachi can mean ‘my messenger’, but a yod (translated ‘my’) could equally be added to a noun to make a proper name, so that this could simply be a proper name signifying ‘messenger’. The Septuagint translates it as ‘your messenger’. If this was an actual translation it would assume Malacho. But that may simply have arisen from the idiosyncrasy of the translators who read Malachi, but then read a significance into the name. Later tradition in the Talmud spoke of Malachi as a person,
But what was this word of YHWH to Israel? Malachi commences by declaring that it was a word of love.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mal 1:1 Title The opening verse of the book of Malachi serves as its title.
Mal 1:1 The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.
Mal 1:1
[6] Douglas Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, , in Word Biblical Commentary: 58 Volumes on CD-Rom, vol. 31, eds. Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker (Dallas: Word Inc., 2002), in Libronix Digital Library System, v. 2.1c [CD-ROM] (Bellingham, WA: Libronix Corp., 2000-2004), comments on “General Introduction,” and “The Canonical Order of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, and Jonah.”
Comments The Manner in which Divine Oracles were Delivered unto the Prophets – God spoke through the Old Testament prophets in various ways, as the author of the epistle of Hebrews says, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets” (Heb 1:1). The Lord spoke divine oracles ( ) through the Old Testament prophets in three general ways, as recorded in the book of Hosea, “I have also spoken by the prophets, and have multiplied visions; I have given symbols through the witness of the prophets.” (Hos 12:10) ( NKJV) In other words, the prophets spoke to Israel through the words they received, they described divine visions to the people, and they acted out as divine drama an oracle from the Lord.
(1) The Word of the Lord Came to the Prophets – God gave the prophets divine pronouncements to deliver to the people, as with Hos 1:1. The opening verses of a number of prophetic books say, “the word of the Lord came to the prophet” Thus, these prophets received a divine utterance from the Lord.
(2) The Prophets Received Divine Visions – God gave the prophets divine visions ( ), so they prophesied what they saw ( ) (to see). Thus, these two Hebrew words are found in Isa 1:1, Oba 1:1, Nah 1:1, and Hab 1:1. Ezekiel saw visions ( ) of God.
(3) God Told the Prophets to Deliver Visual Aids as Symbols of Divine Oracles – God asked the prophets to demonstrate divine oracles to the people through symbolic language. For example, Isaiah walked naked for three years as a symbol of Assyria’s dominion over Egypt and Ethiopia (Isa 20:1-6). Ezekiel demonstrated the siege of Jerusalem using clay tiles (Eze 4:1-3), then he laid on his left side for many days, then on his right side, to demonstrate that God will require Israel to bear its iniquities.
Mal 1:2 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob,
Mal 1:3 Mal 1:2-3
[7] F. F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1963), 46.
In the same sense, it is not so much the individuals that are referred to in Gen 25:23, when God said that “the elder shall serve the younger,” as it is the two nations that will descend from Jacob and Esau. The Scriptures reveal that Esau himself never served Jacob. During the long stretch of biblical history, Edom did in fact serve the nation of Israel a number of times.
Gen 25:23, “And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.”
F. F. Bruce goes on to explain that the Hebrew thought and speech is making an extreme contrast in these passages for the sake of emphasis. He explains that the Hebrew language (and Aramaic) lacks the abstract words that the Greek language later developed. He uses Luk 14:26 to illustrate this Hebrew way of saying that someone must love God far more than his earthly family.
Luk 14:26, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
This is exactly what the parallel passage in Mat 10:37 says when Jesus tells us that we must love Him more than our parents or children.
Mat 10:37, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
Thus, God was saying that He loved Jacob far more than his closest blood kin. This statement is meant to place emphasis upon the immeasurable love that God has for His people.
Mal 1:6 A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?
Mal 1:6
Isa 1:2-3, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.”
Because the Israelites, and in particular their spiritual leaders, the priests and Levites, did not honor God, they did not honour His covenant or His Words. The rest of the book of Malachi will describe how they profaned His Words. The root of all of these problems is that they did not honour Him.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
God’s Peculiar Love For Israel
v. 1. The burden of the word of the Lord v. 2. I have loved you, saith the Lord v. 3. and I hated Esau, v. 4. Whereas Edom saith, v. 5. And your eyes shall see,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Verse 1:1-2:9
Part I. REPROOF OF THE PRIESTS FOR NEGLECT OF DIVINE SERVICE.
Mal 1:1
1. Heading and author. The burden (Zec 9:1; Zec 12:1; see note on Nah 1:1). The word of the Lord is heavy and full of threats, but, as St. Jerome notes, it is also consolatory, because it is not “against” but to Israel. By this name the whole covenanted nation is designated, here, perhaps, with some idea of reminding the people of Jacob’s faith and patience, and stimulating them to imitate their great ancestor. By Malachi; literally, by the hand of Malachi (comp. Jer 37:2). That Malachi is the proper name of the prophet, and not a mere official designation, see the proof in the Introduction, II. The LXX. renders, , “by the hand of his angel,” or” messenger,” and some curious theories have been founded on this translation; e.g. that an angel was the real author of the book, or came and explained it to the people. A similar legend once obtained concerning Haggai, called” The Lord’s Messenger” (Hag 1:13). At the end of the verse the LXX. adds, “fix it in your hearts,” which Jerome supposes to have been imported hither from Hag 2:15.
Mal 1:2-5
2. The prophet declares God’s special love for Israel
Mal 1:2
I have loved you. The prophet, desiring to bring home to the people their ingratitude, lays down his thesis; then, in his characteristic manner, repeats the objection of the sceptics in an interrogatory form, and refutes it by plain argument. God had shown his love for Israel by electing them to be his people, and by his treatment of them during the whole course of their history. Wherein hast thou loved us! This was the inward feeling of the people at this time. They doubted God’s love and faithfulness. Events had not turned out as they expected. They had, indeed, returned from captivity, and the temple was rebuilt; but none of the splendid things announced by the prophets had come to pass. They were not great and victorious; Messiah had not appeared. Therefore they repined and murmured: they were ungrateful for past favours, and questioned God’s power and providence. Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? God refutes their unjust charge by referring them to a palpable fact, viz. the different fate of the descendants of the twin brothers, Esau and Jacob. How miserable the destiny of the Edomites! how comparatively fortunate the condition of the Israelites! Yet I loved Jacob.
Mal 1:3
And I hated Esau. St. Paul quotes these words (Rom 9:13) in order to illustrate his position, “that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth.” Even before his birth Jacob was the chosen one, and Esau, the elder, was to serve the younger. This mystery of Divine election has seemed to some to be stated so harshly that they have thought that the words of the text need to be softened, or to be modified by their explanation. Thus they give the glosses, “I have preferred Jacob to Esau;” “I have loved Esau less than Jacob;” or they have limited the terms “love” end “hatred” to the bestowing or withholding of temporal blessings; or they have affirmed that Esau was hated because God foresaw his unworthiness, and Jacob was beloved owing to his foreseen piety and faithfulness. The whole question is discussed by Augustine, ‘De Div. Quint. ad Simplic.,’ 1.18 (11.433). He ends by saying, “Deus odit impietatem: in aliis etiam punit per damnationem, in aliis adimit per justificationem.” But Malachi is not speaking of the predestination of the one brother and the reprobation of the other; he is contrasting the histories of the two peoples represented by them; as Jerome puts it, “In Jacob vos dilexi, in Esau Idumaeos odio habui.” Both nations sinned; both are punished; but Israel by God’s free mercy was forgiven and restored, while Edom was left in the misery which it had brought upon itself by its own iniquity. Thus is proved God’s love for the Israelites (Knabenbauer). That it is of the two nations that the prophet speaks, rather than of the two brothers, is seen by what follows. Laid his mountains waste. While the Israelites were repeopling and cultivating their land, and their cities were rising from their ruins, and the temple and the capital were rebuilt, Edom, which had suffered at the hand of the same enemies, had never recovered from the blow, and still lay a scene of desolation and ruin. It seems that Nebuchadnezzar attacked and conquered Edom some few years after he had taken Jerusalem. This event happened during one of his expeditions against Egypt, one of which took place in the thirty-seventh year of his reign, as we learn from a record lately deciphered (see ‘Transact. of Soc. of Bibl. Archaeology,’ 7.210, etc.). (For Edom and its history, see the Introduction to Obadiah.) Dragons; rather, jackals (Mic 1:8); Septuagint, , “for habitations of the desert;” Vulgate, dracones deserti, whence the Authorized Version.
Mal 1:4
Whereas; rather, if, or although; Vulgate, quod si. If Edom were to attempt to repair its desolation, the Lord would not permit ita striking contrast to the national restoration of Israel. We are impoverished; or, as the Revised Version, we are beaten; Septuagint, , “Idumea has been overthrown.” Vulgate, destructl sumus. The desolate places; Vulgate, quae destructa sunt, places once in habited and now deserted. Compare the boast of the Ephraimites (Isa 9:9, Isa 9:10). I win throw down. Edom never recovered its power; it became the prey of the Per starts, the Nabatheans, the Jews under the Maccabees, the Macedonians, the Romans; and finally the Mohammedan conquest effected its utter ruin. They (men) shall call them, The border of wickedness. Edom shall be called, “The territory of iniquity,” its miserable condition attesting the wicked ness of the inhabitants thus punished by Divine justice. Hath indignation; Septuagint, , “hath” been set in battle array;” St. Jerome, “My anger is proved by their enduring desolation; and in contrast to the evils experienced by your brother, ye shall experience the goodness of God towards you.”
Mal 1:5
Your eyes shall see. Jacob is addressed. When you see these proofs of God’s love for you, you shall leave off murmuring and be ready to praise God for his goodness and power. The Lord will be magnified; better, the Lord is great; Septuagint, , “The Lord was magnified.” God makes his greatness known. From (over) the border of Israel. This means either beyond the limits of Israel, i.e. in all the world, or upon Israel, i.e. by the protection which he vouchsafes to Israel.
Mal 1:6-14
3. Israel had shown no gratitude for all these proofs of God’s love, and the very priests had been the chief offenders by offering defective sacrifices, and profaning the temple worship.
Mal 1:6
A son honoureth his father. The prophet commences with a general principle which every one allows, and argues from that what was the attitude which they ought to assume towards God. A father. God was the Father of Israel by creation, election, preservation, watchful guardianship (see Exo 4:22; Deu 32:6; Isa 63:16; Isa 64:8, etc.). My fear. The fear, respect, reverence, due to me. O priests. He addresses his reproof to the priests, as the representatives of the people, and bound to lead them to obedience and holiness, and to be a pattern to the flock. Wherein have we despised thy Name? The priests have grown so callous, and have so obscured true religion by Pharisaical externalism, that they profess to be utterly unconscious how they have shown contempt of God. The Name of God is God himself and all that has to do with him.
Mal 1:7
Ye offer polluted bread (food) upon mine altar. The prophet answers the priests simply by detailing some of their practices. The “bread” (lechem) is not the shewbread, which was not offered on the altar, but the flesh of the offered victims (see Le Mal 3:11, Mal 3:16; 21:6; 22:25). This was “polluted” in that it was not offered in due accordance with the ceremonial Law, as is further explained in the next verse. Wherein have we polluted thee? They did not acknowledge the truth that (as St. Jerome says) “when the sacraments are violated, he himself, whose sacraments they are, is violated” (comp. Eze 13:19; Eze 20:9; Eze 39:7). The table of the Lord is contemptible. This was the thought of their heart, if they did not give open expression to it in words. The “table of the Lord” (Mal 1:12) is the altar, on which were laid the sacrifices, regarded as the food. of God, and to be eaten by the fire (Eze 41:22; Eze 44:16). They showed that they despised the altar by fancying that anything was good enough for offering thereon, as the next verse explains.
Mal 1:8
If ye offer the blind. The Law ordered that the victims should be perfect and without blemish (see Le 22:19-25). Is it not evil! It is more forcible to read this without the interrogation, “It is no evil!” and to regard it as the priests’ thought or word, here introduced by the prophet in bitter irony. Their conscience had grown so dull, and they had become so familiarized with constant dereliction of duty, that they saw no wrong in these violations of the Law, and never recalled the people to their duty in these matters. Offer it now unto thy governor. The word for “governor” is pechah, as in Hag 1:1 (where see note). It denotes a ruler set over a province by a Persian king. As Nehemiah had refused to be burdensome to the people (Neh 5:14-18), it is thought that Malachi must have written this when some other person was acting as governor. But Nehemiah’s generosity was exhibited in his earlier administration, and he may have thought it right to take the dues under a more prosperous state of affairs. The prophet may be putting the ease generallyWould you dare offer such things to your governor? At any rate, the question is not about provisions and dues supplied to the governor and liable to be exacted by him in his official capacity, but about voluntary offerings and presents, without which no inferior would presume to appear before his prince (see Introduction, II.). To offer to such a one what was mean and defective would be nothing less than an insult; and yet they thought this was good enough for God. Accept thy person. Regard thee with favour (Gen 19:21; Job 13:10; Job 42:8).
Mal 1:9
Beseech God; literally, the face of God. This is not a serious call to repentance, but an ironical appeal. Come now and ask the favour of God with your polluted sacrifices; intercede, as is your duty, for the people; will he accept you? will he be gracious to the people for your sakes? This hath been by your means. These words form a parenthesis, implying that it was from the priests that the evil custom of offering blemished animals proceeded, and they were answerable for the consequences; that their intercessions were vain was the result of their transgressions in these matters. Others interpret, “The thing depends on you,” i.e. whether God shows favour or not. Will he regard your persons? Will he show favour to any one because ye intercede for him? So it might be translated, Will he accept any because of you?
Mal 1:10
The prophet continues his severe reprobation of the priests. Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for naught, etc.? Thus rendered, the passage rebukes the mercenary spirit of the priests, who would not even shut the temple door nor kindle the altar fire unless they were paid for it; or else it means that, though all the officers of the temple were remunerated for their most trivial services, yet they were remiss in attending to their duties, and neglected the law of sacrifices. The Latin Version omits the negative in the last clause, Quis est in vobis qui claudat ostia, et incendat altare meum gratuito? The LXX; with some little variation in the reading, renders, , , “Wherefore also among you the doors shall be shut, and my altar shall not be kindled for nothing,” i.e. God threatens that the temple services shall wholly cease. But it is best to consider the passage as continuing the sarcastic strain of the preceding verse, and saying in effect that it would be better to have no pretence of worship at all than to have it thus profaned. Translate as in the Revised Version, Oh that there were one among you that would shut the doors, that ye might not kindle fire on mine altar in vain! The doors are those of the inner court of the temple, where the great altar stood; and the polluted sectaries is offered “in vain,” because it offends God rather than propitiates him. An offering (minchah). Here not sacrifice in general, as many commentators suppose, because it would be unnatural to take the word in one sense in this verse, and in a different sense in the following, where it is confessedly used in its restricted signification. The term is applied technically to the offering of fine flour combined with off and frankincense, burnt on the altar (Le Mal 2:1, etc.); though it is also occasionally used even of bloody sacrifices; e.g. of Abel’s. As liturgically employed, it denotes the unbloody offering. So in this verse we may note a kind of climax. God would not accept the victims sacrificed, no, nor even the meat offering, which was naturally pure and unpolluted,
Mal 1:11
My Name shall be great. The course of thought is this: God does not need the worship of the Jews and their impious priests; he needs not their maimed sacrifices; his majesty shall be recognized throughout the wide world, and pure worship shall be offered to him from every nation under heaven. How, then, shall he not punish those who, being his elect, ought to have been an example of holiness, and prepaid the way for his universal reception? The LXX. treats this circumstance as already occurring at this time, , “My Name hath been and is glorified.” This could only be said if it was allowed that the heathen in some sense, however blindly and imperfectly, did worship the true God. But the notion cannot be upheld for a moment; and there is a general consensus of commentators in referring the time to the Messianic future, when God’s power is acknowledged and worship offered to him, not in Jerusalem alone, but in every place. The participles in this verse may be rendered by presents or futures, but there can be little doubt that a prophecy is intended, and not a statement of a factwhich, indeed, could not be truthfully maintained. When such a future is in stere, is this a time for Jewish priests to dishonour Jehovah? Incense shall be offered unto my Name, and a pure offering (minchah). The universal worship is expressed in the terms of the Jewish ritual (see note on Zep 3:10). The Hebrew is more forcibly rendered, In every place incense is burned, oblation made unto my Name, and indeed a pure oblation. Incense is to our minds a type of prayer (Rev 5:8; Rev 8:3, etc.); the pure oblation is the symbol of the Christian sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; and the prophet, rising superior to Jewish prejudices, announces that this prayer and sacrifice shall no longer be confined to one place or one specially favoured country, but be universal, worldwide. The Fathers and mediaeval writers, and many modern commentators, see in this verse a prophecy of the Holy Eucharist, the “pure offering” commemorative of Christ’s sacrifice, which is found in every nation under heaven where the Name of Christ is adored.
Mal 1:12
But ye have profaned it; ye profane God’s Name. The prophet contrasts the negligence and profanity of the priests with the piety of the Gentile nations, which he foresees. The table of the Lord (see note on Mal 1:7). The fruit thereof, even his meat. The food and meat of the altar are the victims offered thereon. By their conduct the priests made both altar and offerings contemptible. Septuagint, , “Its meats that are laid thereon are set at naught;” Vulgate, Quod superponitur contemptibile est, cum igne qui illud devorat. This is either a free paraphrase, or for “meat” Jerome must have read a participle, “eating,” and taken “that which eats” the offering to be the fire which consumes it, as “lick up” (1Ki 18:38). Others explain the Vulgate to mean that the priests complain of the scantiness and inferiority of the victims, the flesh of which formed their support. But as this was owing to their own neglect, they were not likely to make it a subject of complaint
Mal 1:13
What a weariness is it! The reference is to the table of the Lord. Despising the altar, and performing their duties without heart or faith, the priests found the services an intolerable burden. Vulgate, ecce de labore, which seems to be an excuse of the people, urging that they offer such things as their toil and poverty allow. Septuagint, , which has much the same meaning. The present Hebrew text is represented by the Authorized Version. Ye have snuffed at it; i.e. at the altar. The phrase expresses contempt. “It” has been supposed to be a “scribes’ correction” for “me.” The Septuagint and Syriac give, “I snorted at them.” That which was torn; rather, that which was taken by violencethat which was stolen or unjustly taken. Septuagint, : Ecclesiasticus 34:18 (31:21), “He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten, his offering is ridiculous ()” Lame… sick (see Le 22:19-25). Thus ye brought an (bring the) offering (minchah). Subject to analogous defects is even your meat offering, the accessory to other sacrifices, and therefore it is unacceptable.
Mal 1:14
But (and) cursed be the deceiver. The curse is fulminated against all who are guilty of these violations of the Law. The prophet mentions two instances out of many. The first is of one who offers a female victim, on pretence that he has no male in his flock. This will be clearer if we translate, with Keil, “And cursed is he who deceives, whereas there is in his flock a male animal.” Septuagint, “Cursed is he who was able and bad in his flock a male.” And voweth a corrupt (blemished) thing. The second case is of one who in some emergency vows an offering, and then pays it by presenting a blemished animal (Le Mal 3:1, Mal 3:6). With a slightly altered punctuation, some editors give, “a faulty female.” For I am a great King. This is the reason that they are cursed who dishonour him. Dreadful. Held in awe and reverence. Septuagint, , notable.” He whom the Gentiles honour will not permit his own people to profane his Name.
HOMILETICS
Mal 1:1
Malachi and his burden.
I. MALACHI, THE LAST OF THE PROPHETS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. He may be compared to:
1. A late evening closing a long day of light and blessing, and which is itself:
2. A midsummer twilight in some northern latitude, bearing on its besom the new and still brighter day of the gospel.
3. A finger post pointing across an untrodden waste of time in the direction in which the ages should move onwards towards the advent of their expected King.
4. A faithful minister, the last of a noble succession, resigning his trust (the prophetic gift), but bidding his flock expect to “see greater things than these,” and expiring with the gospel on his lips (Mal 4:2-6).
II. THE PROPHET‘S BURDEN. Any word of the Lord is:
1. A burden of responsibility to the bearer (1Co 9:16, 1Co 9:17). Especially so are messages of judgment with which Malachi was charged. So Jeremiah felt (Jer 15:10-21; Jer 20:8-10), and Paul (Php 3:18), and our Lord Jesus Christ (Luk 19:41-44). It is thus a test of fidelity (Pro 30:6; Eze 3:17-21) and of courage (Mic 3:8).
2. Messages of judgment should be felt to be burdens by the sinner because they proceed from a God to whom judgment is “a strange work,” yet who hates sin more than suffering, and whose holiness is seconded by his omnipotence. Only by repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ can the burden be changed into a beatitude, the curse into a blessing.
Mal 1:2-5
The sovereign love of God.
Remembering that the scriptural sense of “hate” in this and corresponding passages is to love less in comparison, or to reject when there is a competition of claims, we nevertheless learn from this passage
I. THAT GOD‘S LOVE TO INDIVIDUALS AND TO NATIONS IS A SOVEREIGN LOVE. By this we mean that it is a love which bestows special favours, for reasons which cannot be discovered in those that enjoy them, but in the gracious purpose of God.
1. In the case of the two brothers personally we note the following facts: Esau was the elder, yet not the heir of the promise. He suffered at the hands of a brother in some respects less noble than himself. He thus lost his father’s chief blessing and had to take the remnants, and to be satisfied with a poorer inheritance, while Jacob received “the glory of all lands.”
2. The two nations, Israel and Edom, were separated like two rivers issuing from the same fountain, the one destined to be a highway of commerce and a source of fertility, the other to be lost in the sands of the desert. Israel, blessed with a priesthood, a succession of prophets, and a covenant “ordered in all things and sure,” in spite of many apostasies; Edom, allowed to drift into idolatry and crime till it became known as “the border of wickedness,” etc. (Mal 1:4). Such gifts and calling of God cannot be annulled any more than his sentences of judgment can be reversed (Mal 1:4). In those judgments and in those mercies men shall see the finger of God, and shall stand in awe of the glory of God (Mal 1:5). These truths applicable to God’s dealings with nations now.
3. The salvation of individuals is no less the result of sovereign love, inasmuch as the very beginnings of spiritual life are of God, and are “according to his own purpose and grace,” etc. (2Ti 1:9). Election is not “an order of merit,” but a cord of love. The experience of all Christians confirms the doctrine of God’s sovereignty in salvation, though it cannot answer the many questions suggested by God’s varied dealings with individuals, or explain the reasons of his eternal purposes. Note St. Paul’s “conclusion of the matter” (Rom 11:33-36).
II. THAT THIS UNMERITED LOVE OF GOD MAY BE IGNORED BY THE RECEIVERS. “Wherein hast thou loved us?” This may arise from:
1. Forgetting past mercies under the presence of present trials, like Israel (Psa 106:12-14).
2. Forgetting our present blessings as contrasted with the lot of others.
3. Having an imperfect sense of our absolute dependence on the unmerited mercy of God (Deu 7:7, Deu 7:8).
4. And therefore taking even our spiritual blessings very much as a matter of course, and indulging in self-complacency rather than cultivating grateful humility in view of “the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (cf. 1Co 4:7, 1Co 4:8).
Mal 1:6
The reverence due to God.
Earthly analogies to Divine relationships are instructive though imperfect. Neither the most absolute master nor the most affectionate father can adequately represent God. Yet God reminds us of the reverence due to himself from the fear and honour expected by them. The appeal should be most powerful to those who, like the priests here appealed to, are in any positions of authority. It should be a most tender plea to all parents. It falls in tones of deepest pathos on those who have received the adoption and the spirit of sons through Jesus Christ. But the appeal binds all to whom in any sense God stands in the sacred relations of “the Father of spirits” (Exo 4:22; Deu 32:6; Isa 63:16; Isa 64:8). We assume the case of a father who combines that wise authority and tender love which makes him a type of the heavenly Father. A son honoureth such a father
I. BY OBEDIENCE. This is the first lesson a child must learn. After the early conflicts with self-will, it becomes part of the child-nature. It may rise to self-denial or even heroic self-sacrifice. Illust.: Henry Havelock, as a boy, waiting for hours in a crowded street of London, in obedience to his father, who had forgotten him; or Casa Bianca’s son blown up in the French flag ship at the Battle of the Nile. God is greatly honoured when our obedience is habitual and cheerful, when we “worship” the “sweet will of God,” and can say, “I delight,” etc. (Psa 40:8; Psa 119:128).
II. BY LOVE. The instinctive love of an infant makes way for the intelligent affection, founded on esteem, which the youth feels towards a father who has trained him in habits of obedience. Disobedience begets dislike; submission strengthens love. The pruning and training of wise discipline is rewarded by the copious fruits of love. We most honour God when our love is not merely the love of gratitude even for redemption, but of complacent delight in the character of our Father. In that character there are no flaws such as a partial son may nevertheless see in his earthly father (Jas 1:17). Let him not have to say Joh 5:42.
III. BY REGARD TO HIS REPUTATION. A boy’s eye flashes with indignation if a stranger assails his father’s reputation. How do we regard the dishonour done to God by profanity, by reckless criticisms on his character and government, and on the work of Christ (“The Father wounded through the Son”)? Can we say, with Christ, “The reproaches,” etc. (Psa 69:9)? Let us beware, however, of the zeal of a Jehu (2Ki 10:16-31) or of the Pharisees (Mat 23:15). Let our lives he answers to our prayers, “Hallowed be thy Name.”
IV. BY UPHOLDING HIS AUTHORITY.
1. When it has to be exercised in discipline on ourselves (Heb 12:5-11).
2. When it is resisted by others. There is a rebellion in the great family of God which requires every true child to take an active part on the side of God. While grieved (Psa 119:158) and indignant (Psa 139:21), we shall yet be labourers together with God, that in the spirit of the sinless Son we may seek by all means to save some (1Pe 4:10, 1Pe 4:11).
Mal 1:7, Mal 1:8
Irreverence-its causes and signs.
Notice how in many places Malachi puts the thoughts of sinners into bold and bald words. He interprets their conduct in speech, that they may see the offensiveness of their thoughts and acts. Sins of the heart may sometimes be best exposed by translating them into unsubmissive or even impious prayers. They cannot endure the light when they are paraded in speech under the scrutiny of our fellow men. Still less can they tolerate the brightness that proceeds from the throne of grace, where God seeth in secret, that he may answer him “that setteth up his idols in his heart” “according to the multitude of his idols” (Eze 14:3, Eze 14:4). In this section the irreverence of the priests and people is exposed y the prophet calling things by their right names. Note
I. SOME OF THE CAUSES OF IRREVERENCE.
1. Inadequate views of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of men. We forget the names and titles of the God with whom we have to do”Jehovah,” “Lord of hosts,” “Master,” “Father,” “a great King,” “glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders,” etc. We forget our own utter sinfulness and unworthiness as “dust and ashes,” “the imagination of whose heart is evil from our youth,” to have any intercourse with the Thrice-holy One (cf. Job 40:3-5). If it is hard to appreciate this, we may be helped by the contrast between what we see in the characters of Christ and of ourselves. Illust.: Peter (Luk 5:8).
2. Familiarity with sacred things. It may “breed contempt.” The altar and its offerings were regarded as commonplace or even despicable objects. The worship of God, the table of the Lord, the most sacred acts and objects may be observed and resorted to without the slightest expectation of gaining good. They might be means of grace, but familiarity makes them contemptible.
3. The indolence which shrinks from the effort needed to stir up ourselves to take hold of God (Isa 64:7). Worship must be a spiritual service; it may be a “conflict” an (Col 2:1). Indolence may beget irreverence, and will, in its turn, be a sign of it.
II. SOME OF THE SIGNS OF IRREVERENCE. We may copy the evil example of the Jews in bringing blind, lame, sick, or polluted offerings.
1. Formal and half-hearted services. “Blind is the sacrifice of the soul which is not illumined by the light of Christ. Lame is his sacrifice of prayer who comes with a double mind to entreat the Lord” (Jerome; Mat 15:8).
2. Superstitious services; e.g. blind obedience to a man claiming to be a priest, which may save the trouble of searching for God with all the heart. Unintelligent worship, perhaps in an unknown tongue, as though a lesson learned by rote would suffice for the Divine Teacher.
3. Offering to God what we should not dare to offer to an earthly superior (verse 8). As though we would say, “God is not very particular.” Yet he requires the very best service we can render. Such conduct is virtual dishonesty, for the intention to sacrifice to God at all implies the sacrificing of our best. Illust.: David (2Sa 24:24; cf. Mat 22:37). Note how the revelation of God in Christ shows still more impressively his claims on our highest services. “The Lamb that was slain” is worthy to receive everything and the best of everything we can offer to him (Rev 5:12).
4. Still grosser forms of irreverence are seen in the Corinthians feasting at the Eucharist, and thus despising the Church of the living God (1Co 11:22), and making the table of the Lord contemptible; or in men celebrating a sacred rite as a passport to some secular office; or in getting rid of a base coin at a collection, like “the deceiver” in verse 14.
Learn:
1. The many subtle forms of a deep-seated sin of the heart (Jer 17:9).
2. The need of radical remedies such as Divine power alone can employ (Luk 6:43 45; Psa 19:12-14).
Mal 1:11
God’s honour secured in spite of his people’s sins.
The heartlessness and negligence of the priest leads God to say that the fires of the altar might as well be extinguished, and the temple shut up as it had been in the days of Ahaz; for no offerings would any longer be accepted at their hands, and “Ichabod!” “No glory!” was written on the altar. The godly remnant of the Jews naturally begin to say, “What a dishonour that would be to the God of Israel!” and to ask, like Joshua (Jos 7:9), “What wilt thou do unto thy great Name?” And even the formalists, who had not entirely cast off God, but wished to keep on speaking terms with him, would shrink from such a public slight being offered to the God of their nation. To all such fears God gives an answer in the declaration and prediction of verse 11, “My Name shall be magnified; my honour shall be secured, in spite of my people’s sins:”
(1) among new and more numerous worshippers;
(2) by purer and more spiritual sacrifices.
I. AMONG NEW AND MORE NUMEROUS WORSHIPPERS. It was an inveterate superstition of the Jews that the honour of God was in some way bound up with sacred places or persons. He had taught them in the past that his glory was not attached to the ark, as they thought when they took it into battle (1Sa 4:1-22.), or to one line of priests (1Sa 2:27-36), or to the tabernacle at Shiloh (Psa 78:59-64), or to the temple (Jer 7:1-16). He now teaches them that his glory is independent both of the revived priesthood, the restored temple, and the nation brought back from captivity. The temple may be again destroyed; the priesthood may be abolished; the people disinherited. God has a larger temple than the sanctuary on Mount Moriah, or even than the land of promise itself. His temple extends “as far as the east is from the west.” His worshippers shall be as numerous as the tribes and the tongues of the heathen world. No longer shall it be especially true that “In Judah is God known; his Name is great in Israel;” “For from the rising of the sun,” etc. Comparing this prediction of the kingdom of Christ on earth with others, we are reminded of a few truths respecting the way in which God’s honour would be secured among the nations of the earth. His judgments would arouse them (Isa 59:18, Isa 59:19). His free love would seek those who knew him not (Isa 65:1). The atoning sacrifice on the cross would attract their sin-burdened consciences (Joh 12:32), and the beneficence of the reign of Christ would allure all classes to accept his dominion (Psa 72:8-14, especially Psa 72:12, “For,” etc.). Thus the Name of God would be glorified in his Son. Apply this truth:
1. To those who refuse to give to God the glory due unto his Name. So did the Jews in the days of Christ. But God’s honour could be secured in other ways (cf. Mat 21:41-43; Luk 19:37-40). Note in the former and latter parts of Psa 22:1-31. the contrast between Psa 22:6-8 and Psa 22:27-31. “His own received him not,” but “the Gentiles glorified the word of the Lord” (Act 13:48; cf. Isa 49:3-9; Mat 8:11, Mat 8:12).
2. To those who are tempted to shrink from honouring God because of the risk to themselves or the sacrifice required at their hands. Illust.: Est 4:10-14. The loss will be only our own (Mat 10:39). God will find other servants in our place to render the honour he asks at our hands, and to receive that which he bestows in return (1Sa 2:30).
3. To God’s faithful servants who are needlessly anxious about his glory in “a day of trouble and of rebuke and of blasphemy;” e.g. Moses (Num 14:11-21), Joshua (Jos 7:9). But God is more jealous for his own honour than we can be (Deu 32:26, Deu 32:27), and is wiser than we can be in answering the prayer he has taught us, “Hallowed be thy Name.”
II. BY PURER AND MORE SPIRITUAL SACRIFICES.
1. By the revelation of God in Christ as “the Saviour of all men,” God’s Name was truly magnified (Psa 96:1-13. and 98.). That revelation included a sacrifice, the sacrifice of a sinless soul to suffering in order to do the will of God (Heb 10:7-10), and thus to offer a propitiation for the sins of the whole world. Thus the prayer was answered (Joh 12:28) and the prediction fulfilled (Rom 15:8, Rom 15:9).
2. By the spiritual sacrifices the acceptable services, like fragrant incense, presented by Gentile hearts, e.g. the penitence of the woman of Samaria; the pertinacious prayers of the Syro-phoenician; the marvellous faith of the centurion; the alms and prayers of Cornelius; the unrecorded acts of faith and service of unknown worshippers in the heathen world;these are accepted by God, while the tainted sacrifices of the Jewish priests are refused. This a warning to all formalists.
3. By pure offerings from all hearts that “in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours” (cf. Joh 4:21-24). Our hearts were once impure, but have been cleansed by the blood and the Spirit of Jesus Christ. And now we are eager, impatient to express our sense of the greatness and goodness of God by acceptable sacrifices, our “bodies” (Rom 12:1), our gifts (Php 4:18), our praises, our good deeds, and any means by which we can “communicate” to others, and thus glorify our Saviour-God (Heb 13:15, Heb 13:16).
Notice, in conclusion, what an encouragement this truth may be to those who long to give unto God the glory due unto his Name, but are dissatisfied with their own efforts. God’s honour will be secured in spits of our failures. These may stimulate us to seek that greater purity by which our offerings may themselves become purer. It will not provoke us to envy, but rejoice our hearts that others are able to render to God more useful service than we do. And if, in the midst of our efforts to offer such pure offerings and fragrant incense as our poor hearts can present, we are called away from this service, we may rejoice to know that God’s honour will not suffer because our services are withdrawn. Illust.: In one Roman Catholic convent there is a chapel of “perpetual adoration,” where, every hour, night and day, some service is being offered at the altar. So will be the true worship of God throughout the worlduniversal and perpetual.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Mal 1:1
Burdensome prophecies.
“The burden of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.” Much of the work of the Old Testament prophets involved a serious strain on feeling, and may appropriately be figured as a “burden” which they were called to bear. A very large proportion of it consists of denunciations, declarations of swiftly coming and overwhelming Divine judgments. Those prophets were, in fact, raised up to meet a condition of society and national life of which God disapproved, and by which God was dishonoured. It should never be forgotten that the prophets belong to the Israelite my, and that was not God’s ideal of government for his people. It brought and perils the significance of which the prophets were to declare. Malachi’s is the last prophet voice of the Old Testament times. After him a great prophetic silence fell on the land. No direct utterance came from God for some three hundred years, until John the Baptist appeared. Nothing is certainly known concerning this Prophet Malachi. He is, indeed, only a name, and our interest lies entirely in his message. His name means, “The Messenger of Jehovah,” and it calls us to attend to the message rather than to the speaker. We do know something of the times in which he lived, and we can understand what would be the burden of a Jehovah prophet at such a time. After Nehemiah had been working for some twelve years at the moral reformation of the people of Jersualem and Judea, he was recalled to Persia; and immediately on his departure the old evils which he had stoutly resisted came back like a food. In spite of the presence of Ezra in Jerusalem, it was seen that a reformation enforced by the civil power, rather than as the fruit of individual conviction, had no permanent vitality. When Nehemiah’s back was turned, “the tithes due to the temple, the Levites, and the priests were not delivered, and the greatest distress was thus caused to all those who depended on them for maintenance. The choristers, the guards of the gates, and the ordinary Levites alike, were compelled to go back to their homes, and cultivate their fields for a living. Public worship was thus interrupted, and the temple, forsaken by its ministers, was neglected by the people. Nor was the refusal to pay tithes the only sign of an altered spirit. The sabbath was profaned, both in town and country, wine presses were busy in its sacred hours, and the roads and fields were dotted with the workers taking sheaves to the barn on their heavily laden asses. Jerusalem itself was disturbed by a sabbath fair, to which loads of wine, grapes, figs, and much else were carried in during sacred hours. After all the professed zeal to put an end to mixed marriages, things were rapidly drifting to almost a worse condition than of old. The very priests had rapidly lost their high tone. Their irreverence, indifference, and worldliness shocked the thoughtful. Everything that Ezra and Nehemiah had effected was well nigh undone.” The Prophet Malachi had the “burden” laid upon him of recalling both priests and people to their duties. And this he did partly by vigorous denunciations of surrounding evils, and partly by anticipations of the times of Messiah. The Coming One would surely prove to be a stern Rebuker of national sin.
I. THE PROPHET‘S MESSAGE WAS A BURDEN TO HIMSELF. Denunciations of wrong doing and wrong doers lose their true force when those who utter them enjoy their work. Then they put into them a bitter tone, which makes them ungod-like messages. Stern things have still to be spoken for God, but they must be spoken with pathos in the tone, and tears ready to start. No man can deliver a message of judgment aright, unless he feels it to be a burden.
II. THE PROPHET‘S MESSAGE SHOULD BE A BURDEN TO THOSE ADDRESSED. A burden of holy concern. It should set them upon grave self-searching. It should burden them with anxiety about their sins, and with earnest efforts to put sin away. If it was not taken as a burden in that sense, it would become a burden as bringing upon them full, unrelieved, Divine judgments.
III. THE PROPHET‘S MESSAGE MAY BE THOUGHT OF AS A BURDEN TO GOD. “Judgment is his strange work;” “In all their affliction he was afflicted;” “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” We are permitted to think that it troubles God to punish his people. He is burdened by the messages which our sin compels him to send.R.T.
Mal 1:2, Mal 1:3
The Lord’s love for his people.
The Lord had chosen Israel as his peculiar people, out of pure love and kindness, without any antecedent merit on their side. This love is strikingly exhibited by contrasting the Divine dealings with the two nations, Edom and Israel. Both came into Divine judgment for sin, and love triumphed in the restoration of Israel; but because of Edom’s treatment of Israel, it was left, to its desolations. The word “hate” is employed, but South properly explains that “hating” is sometimes used comparatively for a less degree of love (Gen 29:31; Luk 14:26). The English word “hate” has somewhat changed its meaning. Now it means, “have a personal aversion to,” “regard with ill will.” But when our Bible was translated, it had a simpler and kinder meaning, “love less,” “show less favour to.” It is important to note that the reference is not to God’s personal feelings to individuals, but to his providential dealings with nations. Still, it stands out prominently that God’s ways with Israel had been the indication of selecting love for her.
I. GOD‘S LOVE FOR ISRAEL WAS A DISTINGUISHING LOVE. Of Israel, as of Christ’s apostles, it could be said, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” The race of Abraham is a selected race. It was separated in order to preserve, and to witness for, the great primary religious truths which are essential to the world’s well being, but are imperilled by the free moral experiment of humanity. It was a sign of Divine love that Israel received such a trust.
II. GOD‘S LOVE FOR ISRAEL WAS A PATIENT LOVE. And the patience was very severely tried by the wilfulness and waywardness of the loved ones. This can be illustrated from every stage of the history. The patience is seen in this, that God kept on endeavouring to correct By chastisement. Under no provocation did he give them up in despair, and let judgment prove finally overwhelming. Compare the case of Edom, which, as a nation, is lost beyond recovery. That patience of the Divine love is the holiest joy to us still.
III. GOD‘S LOW FOE ISRAEL WAS A TRIUMPHANT LOVE. This is what seems chiefly in Malachi’s mind. He wants the people to feel how the love had triumphed in their recovery from captivity, and their restoration as a nation. And these proofs of the Lord’s love should have acted as persuasions to the Lord’s service.R.T.
Mal 1:4, Mal 1:5
Divine judgments by disappointments.
The Lord’s dealings with Edom are here introduced as contrasting with the Lord’s dealings with Israel. And one chief point of contrast is thisIsrael’s expectations will be realized; but Edom’s expectations will be disappointed. “Thus saith the Lord of hosts. They shall build, but I will throw down.” There was an exceedingly bitter feeling between Israel and Edom, dating from the time when Edom insultingly refused to allow the passage of Israel through her territory, and so compelled God’s people to take the weary and perilous way up the Arabah. Again and again we have hints of the unfriendly feeling between the kindred and neighbour nations; and that it was continued up to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar is indicated by the exclamation of the poet, in Psa 137:7, “Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.” That Jehovah, as God and King of Israel, took its part against Edom is clearly intimated in the prophecy of Obadiah. The point of the passage before us is that on the efforts of Edom to recover itself as a nation no permanency would rest; whereas if Israel would but be faithful to its obligations, it as a kingdom should be established forever.
I. FAILURE IN LIFE‘S ENTERPRISES IS A SIGN OF DIVINE DEALING WITH US. However we may say that such failure attends
(1) particular dispositions; or
(2) imperfect, training and culture, it remains true that a deeper explanation is possible.
The promise to the good is, “Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” The judgment on the evil may be, “Whatsoever he doeth shall fail.” There is no experience of life more trying than the disappointment of failing again and again. There is no misery like the hopelessness of feeling as if we could not succeed, and it is no use to try any more. The man is lost who feels that.
II. FAILURE IN LIFE‘S ENTERPRISES MAY BE DIVINE DISCIPLINE, BUT IT MAY BE DIVINE JUDGMENT. Chastisement, to convince that we have done the thing wrongly. Judgment, as in the case of Edom, of some sin committed in early life, the spirit of which we have kept up through the long years. If we fail in life, we should searchingly inquire why God lets us fail.R.T.
Mal 1:6
Human claims impressing Divine claims.
The figure of fatherhood is used in Scripture to suggest God’s peculiar relation to Israel; and we are therefore invited to use the family sentiments and responsibilities in the endeavour to realize our obligations to God. Our Lord, in his teachings, made a similar appeal to family feelings: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” And the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews argues in a similar way, “Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?” It is true that arguments based on human relationships must take due account of human infirmities; but there is an ideal human relationship in every case, which men in their hearts recognize, and the obligations connected with it may always be safely applied to our relations with God. But there is a special point in Malachi’s pleading with the priests of his day. In common with Jehovah’s people, they came under the children’s claims and responsibilities; but, as priests, they were children honoured with special trusts. They were favoured children, and were bound to be model children. The obligation of the servant to the master is similar to that of the son to the father, but in the case of the child there is the help of personal affection. The two figures may be used to illustrate the point of this passage.
I. A MASTER‘S CLAIM ILLUSTRATES THE DIVINE CLAIM. “If I be a Master, where is my fear? saith the Lord.” This is taking the lowest ground. There is no necessary affection in this relationship, There is simply obligation and duty. A servant is bound to serve. Apply to the priests, who were precisely the servants of Jehovah’s house, or temple. He had a right to claim service that would honour him, that would show a cherished sense of reverence and fear, and would make others think highly of him. But just that service the priests of the day were failing to render. Still, if no higher relation be realized, God claims our service as his servants.
II. A FATHER‘S CLAIM ILLUSTRATES THE DIVINE CLAIM. This is higher ground to take, because it is a relation involving personal affection, and the refusal of the claim is therefore the more unworthy. Work out that if the father figure as presented in the Old Testament was a great persuasion of the Divine claims, much more must the Father figure be as revealed in the teaching and Sonship of Jesus Christ.R.T.
Mal 1:7
Polluted bread; or, priestly sins.
What was consumed upon the altar was regarded as God’s portion, and may, in a figure, be called “the bread of God.” “The offerings of the Lord made by fire, and the bread of God, they do offer: therefore they shall be holy” (Le 21:6). By “polluted bread” we are to understand maimed and blemished sacrifices. The Divine reproach is that the priests show how little value they have for the worship of God, since they do not care in how slight and contemptuous a manner it is performed. The Prophet Malachi deals very largely with the unfaithfulness, the unpriestliness, of the priests of his day. It was at once a sign of a sad condition of morals and religion when the priests failed of their duty; and the way to recover the nation to righteousness, when the priests were recalled to the sense of their obligations.
I. SOCIETY REVEALED IN THE UNFAITHFULNESS OF THE PRIESTS. These may be taken as representing the clergy of the Christian generations. It has always been true that society is reflected in the moral standard of the clergy. This is embodied in the saying, “Like priest, like people;” and it is a wider and more searching truth than is usually apprehended. The clergy are the moral barometers by which the atmosphere of an age is discovered. The priests of Malachi’s time declare the moral and religious degeneracy of the people. “The saddest sign of all was the degeneracy of the priesthood which Malachi, though perhaps himself a priest, was specially commissioned to denounce. The lack of all real faith and moral soundness in the very order which ought to have kept alive among the people the essential elements of the spiritual life, was eating like a cancer into the heart of the national sincerity” (Farrar). It may be shown that priestly indifference and unfaithfulness are products and results of neglected personal religious life. So long as priestly duties are instinct with spiritual feeling they will be worthily performed. When personal godliness fails, they become perfunctory, and then if in seeming they are kept up, in reality they deteriorate. It is in maintaining the personal religious life that priests lead the nations.
II. SOCIETY IS RECOVERED BY THE RECOVERY OF THE PRIESTS. Therefore Malachi appeals to them. It may be that the priests are the last to yield to the society evils; but they must always be the first recovered. They must become forces on the side of Cad in the restoration of moral health to a nation. Revivals are always hopeless things unless their first effect is the spiritual revival of the clergy.R.T.
Mal 1:8
The law of acceptable sacrifice.
It must be such as would be acceptable if offered to any earthly official. This, indeed, is but taking low ground, but that the prophet should take this position, and use this argument, is in itself a revelation of the sad condition into which the priesthood of the day had fallen. He could not take high grounds, and make his appeal directly to the holiness of the claims of the infinitely Holy One. “It argues a great contempt of Almighty God when men are less careful in maintaining the decencies of his worship than they are in giving proper respects to their superiors.” It should be borne in mind that the Levitical system very rigorously demanded that only sound and clean animals should he presented in sacrifice. It is always necessary to check the meanness of men, which tempts them to put God off with that which they themselves do not greatly value (see Le 22:22, etc.). The sin of offering the imperfect to God can be tested in two very simple ways.
I. OFFER AN IMPERFECT GIFT TO YOUR FRIEND. For a birthday time find something you have done with; something you do not care for; something out of taste in your own house, which you are glad to get rid of; something damaged, or soiled, or broken. You send it, saying in your heart, “It is good enough for him.” That gift dishonours the friend, and morally degrades you as the giver. If that friend has any spirit, he despises such gifts, and sends the coldest of acknowledgments of their receipt. Is God in Christ our Friend? What shall be the love gifts which alone can be acceptable to him?
II. OFFER AN IMPERFECT GIFT TO YOUR GOVERNOR. If a man wants to show his respect, or to indicate his gratitude for some favour received, he is always most particular in the selection of his present. He takes care that there is no flaw in it; he selects the best possible; he is most anxious about its being conveyed without injury. If the governor has any spirit, he will not look at or receive anything hut the very best. Is God our supreme Governor? Then how can we fail to offer the very best possible to him?
III. OFFER AN IMPERFECT GIFT TO YOUR GOD. Has he not more claim than either friend or governor to the perfect offering? How should we respond to
(1) his authority;
(2) his holiness;
(3) his redemption?
Though out of our sight, he searchingly tests all our gifts, offerings, and sacrifices. Open out how we may be offering the imperfect in
(1) our acts of worship;
(2) our acts of benevolence;
(3) our acts of ministry and service.R.T.
Mal 1:9
Regarding the person.
“Will he regard your persons?” The idea of the verse is somewhat difficult to trace; but it appears to be this: “You are expecting that God will accept you just because you are priests, on account of your official standing alone. You think that it does not matter to him what you are morally, so long as you go through the routine of his service according to the standards;” It is intimated plainly enough that their intercessions on behalf of the people must be in vain so long as they are acting unworthily.
I. THE SENSE IN WHICH GOD DOES REGARD THE PERSON.
1. He deals with each individual, never loses the one in the many; each person stands out distinctly before him as if there were no other. This truth needs to be dwelt on, because men readily hide themselves from their own view, and think to hide themselves from God’s view, in the class to which they belong. The sins of the priests may not deeply humble any particular priest.
2. He deals with a man’s moral condition. That belongs exclusively to the man. It is his personality. It is the matter of supreme concern to God.
II. THE SENSE IN WHICH GOD DOES NOT REGARD THE PERSON. He is no “Respecter of persons.” This enlarges the idea, and we may see:
1. That God takes no account of bodily peculiarities. “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart.”
2. God takes no account of social rank. He pays no deference to the high-born and rich; he shows no indifference to the low-born and poor. His supreme interest is in men, not in the accidents of men. This is not meant to imply any failure in our estimating the value of social status and influence; it only emphasizes that these are not the matters of Divine consideration. They do not belong to the essence of manhood.
3. God takes no account of official position. No man stands in the special favour of God because he is a king, and no man has any special ground for pleading with God in the fact that he is a priest or clergyman. A man’s power of intercession with God is dependent on his personal relations with God, but it is assumed that every priest and every minister is what he ought to bein accepted personal relations with God. No matter what our office may be, if there is not at the heart of it a right state of mind and heart, the acceptance of the ministry of that office cannot be assured.R.T.
Mal 1:10
Self-serving religion
“One of the works on which Nehemiah looked back with most satisfaction was that he had secured to the Levites the payment of a sufficient remuneration for their work. It was a right thing in itself. It asserted what we have learnt to call the principle of an ‘established’ Church, and of a fair division of its income. But that spirit might easily pass, and had actually passed, into the temper which is always clamorous for rights and privileges, which will work only when those rights and privileges are secured. The spirit of the hireling takes the place of that of the worshipper. And so, amongst the foremost sins which the prophet is called on to condemn we find this, noted with special reference to the functions of those Levites over whose interests Nehemiah had been so watchful. ‘Who is there even among you,’ he asks, ‘that would shut the doors for naught?’ And the hireling spirit, once fostered, showed itself, as it always does, in neglect, evasion, dishonesty” (Plumptre).
I. THE WORKMAN IS WORTHY OF HIS HIRE. This sentence embodies a good working principle, which has its proper application in religious as well as in secular spheres. They who minister in spiritual things may reasonably claim to be ministered unto in carnal things. Clergymen share all common bodily and family wants; and we have no sympathy with those who talk as if some wrong were done when spiritual men are concerned for their material interests. Priests and Levites deserved their pay.
II. THE WORKMAN IS WORTHY ONLY WHEN HE DOES NOT WORK FOR HIS HIRE. This is only true in a higher sense of the Levite; it is really true of every workman. A man is on a low plane when he works just for his wage. He is but a time server, a self-server. The best work never is done by such men; and their work is never the best blessing to them. A man must work for the love of his work if he is to do it nobly. A religious man must work for God if his work is to be acceptable. To work
Mal 1:11
The universal worship that is to be.
These words are usually taken as a prophetic announcement of the future rejection of Israel and calling of the Gentiles; but it is difficult to trace the connection of thought, if this be regarded as the prophet’s meaning. The LXX. rightly uses the present, not the future, tense throughout this verse. “My Name is great,” etc. This gives an actual preset comparison of the fear of God’s Name among Gentiles and among Jews, to the manifest disadvantage of the Jew. God found a devoutness, earnestness, and sincerity outside his own people, which wholly put to shame their indifference, formality, and time serving. This suggestion is in the line of Malachi’s teaching, whereas a description of future religious conditions seems to introduce a new subject. Dean Plumptre says, “It was given to the last of the prophets to proclaim, with an entirely new distinctness, not only as Isaiah had done, the accession of Gentile proselytes to the worship and faith of Israel, but the acceptance of their worship wherever it might be offered.” The Gentile religion in the mind of the prophet was probably that of Zoroaster, the purest form that Gentile religion has ever taken.
I. THE BASIS OF THE UNIVERSAL WORSHIP. The prophet must not be regarded as giving a complete account of the universal worship. He deals with it only in view of his immediate object, and to point his appeal to the unfaithful and time-serving priests. He brings out three points.
1. One characteristic of the universal worship is reverence for the Divine Name. “My Name is great among the Gentiles,” No religion can ever fit to the needs of men which does not at least seem to honour the Divine Name. This is our first test of every religion.
2. Another is the demand for prayer. “Incense is offered.” Every true religion provides communion with God, and gives man hope in prayer. “When we have learned by experience the unutterable value of prayer, then shall theism become a religion fit for humanity.”
3. Another is sincerity shown in purity of offerings. Our Lord expressed the universal worship in a sentence, when he said,” The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”
II. THE REPROACH OF THE UNIVERSAL WORSHIP. It reproaches all who fail to meet these primal conditions, whatever their historical standing might be. It reproached the Jewish priests of Malachi’s time, for they were dishonouring the Name, putting routine for prayer, and making unworthy and impure offerings which revealed their insincerity.R.T.
Mal 1:13
Religion a weariness.
“Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it!” It is clearly a bad sign when the people find the worship of God to be a weariness; but it is a much worse sign when the ministers of religion both feel the worship to be a weariness, and show that they feel it to be such.
I. IN THE NATURE OF THINGS RELIGIOUS WORSHIP SHOULD NOT BE A WEARINESS.
1. Take it as the proper and fitting expression of the creature’s dependence on his Creator. It ought to be full of the joy of thankfulness.
2. Take it as the natural impulse of the sinner’s love to his Saviour. Man fallen should feel a joy in worship even beyond that of man unfallen. The song of the redeemed is an altogether nobler song than the innocent can ever sing. And religious worship, kept within the lines of Divine claims, never need be a weariness. It is religion with the multiplied added demands of men that is in danger of proving a weariness. No reasonable man could say that Mosaism was a weariness, so far as it was a Divine institution. But every man could say that Rabbinism was a weariness; for it laded men with burdens too grievous to be borne. Spiritual religion is always simplifying worship. As spirituality fails, exacting demands are increased, and religion tends to become a weariness.
II. THROUGH THE MOODS OF MEN RELIGIOUS WORSHIP BECOMES A WEARINESS. What the priests of earlier times had done gladly and joyfully, the priests of Malachi’s time dragged through. The joy of Levites in their work is expressed in the Korahite psalms (Psalm42:84, etc.), which are full of longings for restoration to the temple service. There was no difference in the worship. The difference was in the moods of the men. Their spiritual life was low. They had no personal joy in God, so they could have no joy in the routine of God’s worship. The sadness of the restored Judaism of the exiles was that, to so large an extent, it was the restoration of the Jewish formalities, without the restoration of that spiritual life which would have vitalized the formalities. And still the weariness men feel at the length of Christian services, etc; is the revelation of their wrong mood; of their lost personal joy in God their Saviour.R.T.
Mal 1:14
The great and dreadful Name.
The idea in the word “dreadful” would be better conveyed by “awe-ful,” if that were a word in familiar use. “Dreadful” we reserve for something that is unusually calamitous and destructive. Awe of God; reverence of his august majesty; fear which leads to the symbolic removal of the shoes;these things are essential to right and acceptable worship, and these things are absolutely befitting to man the creature, and much more to man the sinner. A man may be tested by the measure of his reverent awe of the Divine Name (comp. Jos 7:9). “With a startling reiteration, after every specific denunciation of the sins of priests and people, they are represented as asking, as if in utter unconsciousness of their sin,” ‘Wherein have we polluted thee? Wherein have we despised thy Name?’ They have fallen into the last stage of selfish formalism when conscience ceases to do its work as an accusing witness, into the hypocrisy which does not even know itself to be hypocritical; the hypocrisy, in other words, of the scribes and Pharisees.”
I. REVERENCE FOR THE DIVINE NAME IS A SIGN OF SPIRITUAL LIFE. It was necessary that God should demand reverence for his Divine Name in one of his ten great commandments, “Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain.” But that law is never needed by any man who has and cherishes right thoughts of God; he simply cannot take his Name in vain. All worship is truly reverent according to the spiritual life that is at the heart of it. Therefore we train children in reverence for the Divine Name, because it is the basis of spiritual religion.
II. FAILING REVERENCE FOR THE DIVINE NAME IS A SIGN OF FALLING SPIRITUAL LIFE. It is one of the first, and one of the surest, signs. A light tone of speech, in reference to the infinitely Holy One, at once tells of lost spiritual health. Leech the sense of awe, and innumerable evils can creep in. Reverence for the great Name keeps the gate of the soul safe shut against intruders; and it is our continual inspiration to pare and holy living.R.T.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
Mal 1:1-5
The sovereignty of God in relation to man’s secular condition of life.
“The burden of the word of the Lord,” etc. Malachiwhich means “Messenger” the last of the Hebrew prophets, is a man whose personal history is wrapped in utter obscurity. He is supposed to have lived after Haggai and Zechariah, and to be contemporary with Nehemiah. It is likely that he occupied a relationship to Nehemiah somewhat analogous to that which Haggai and Zechariah sustained to Zerubbabel. The general opinion is that he prophesied about the year B.C. 430. This was that brilliant period in Greece in which flourished some of its greatest menCimon, son of Miltiades, distinguished as a commander; Pericles, the greatest of Athenian statesmen, under whom Athens attained a splendour that made her the wonder and admiration of all Greece; Phidias, the celebrated sculptor, and a host of distinguished artists; Simonides and Pindar, eminent lyric poets; AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, distinguished dramatists; and Herodotus, who has received a title really due to Moses, “the Father of History.” From this passage the following truths may be legitimately deduced.
I. THAT SOME MEN ON THIS EARTH SEEM TO BE MORE FAVOURED BY PROVIDENCE THAN OTHERS, AND YET THEY ARE OFTEN UNCONSCIOUS OF IT. This is the communication or “burden” of the Divine message which Malachi had to deliver to Israel: “I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us?” Israel here stands for all the tribes, all the descendants of Jacob. The Israelitish nation was more favoured than any nation on the face of the earth. In relation to their privileges Paul says of the Israelites, “to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service of God, and the promises: whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came’ (Rom 9:4, Rom 9:5). As individuals, some men are more favoured than others. As Jacob was more favoured than Esau, so some men in all generations are more blessed than othersblessed with more vigorous frames, more intellectual resources, more emotional wealth, etc. There is amongst men immense variety in the degree of natural endowments. Read the parable of the talents. But it is man nationally that is here referred to. “I have loved you” that is, “I have regarded you more than other nations.” Is not our England more favoured than most if not all of the other nations of the earth? She is, in some respects, as far exalted above all existing states, as Israel of old was above all the heathen nations that surrounded it. But individually, as was said above, all men are not treated alike. Some are born of healthier parents than others, live in more salubrious climes than others, are endowed with higher faculties than others, brought up under more wholesome laws and higher educational influences than others. The existence of these distinctions is too obvious to require either argument or illustration. But whilst this is such a patent fact, the favoured ones are too often unconscious of the distinction. “Wherein hast thou loved us?” Israel did not realize its exalted privileges. How often is this the case! The men most favoured of Providence are often most unconscious of the favours, and they say, “Wherein hast thou loved us?” As a rule, perhaps the moat favoured of Providence are the greatest complainers. What ingratitude is here!
II. THAT THIS DIFFERENCE IN THE PRIVILEGES OF MEN IS TO BE ASCRIBED TO THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. “I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau.” Some read it, “I favoured Jacob, but rejected Esau.” Why was Jacob more favoured than Esau? Not because he had a nobler moral character. In some respects he appears more despicable than Esau. It was simply because God chose to distinguish him. The reason of distinction was in the mind of God, and nowhere else. “He worketh all things according to the counsel of his will.” His sovereignty does not imply either of two things.
1. Partiality on his part. The fact that the Jewish people, the descendants of Jacob, in their history endured, perhaps, calamities as great as those that befell the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, proved that it was no partiality on God’s part. He is no Respecter of persons. Nor does it imply:
2. Irresponsibility on man‘s part. “They who have least,” says Godwin, “and bear most, may become better and happier than they who have most and suffer least.” The permanent value of all things depends on the use which is made of them: the first often becoming last, and the last first. But no argument can be drawn from differences in men’s condition as to which will be the most morally advantageous or disadvantageous according to their conduct. Whilst the differences of one kind depend solely on the Divine will, the differences of the other kind are not irrespective of human choice.
III. THOSE WHOM THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD DOES NOT FAVOUR ARE LEFT IN A SECULARLY UNENVIABLE CONDITION.
1. The words teach us that they will have possessions destroyed. “I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons [jackals] of the wilderness.” These men, the men of Edom, struggled hard to build up their kingdom and to give it wealth and power, but the product of all their labours was utterly destroyed. Their great things, their “mountains,” their wealthy things, their “heritage,” the scenes of their power, gave place to the “dragons of the wilderness.” Where is Edom now? If Heaven has determined that the fortune you have built up after years of earnest and indefatigable labour shall be swept away, it will depart as a vision of the night.
2. That their efforts were frustrated. “If Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever.” They struggle to restore their position, labour hard to build the desolate places, but in every effort they are thwarted. It is in vain to strive against destiny. Mark that all that is here said concerns only the secular prosperity of men. Divine sovereignty is always in favour of spiritual prosperity, progress in intelligence, purity, and happiness. In all these matters men cannot labour in vain.
3. Their enemies prosper. “And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel.” Edom hated Israel from the beginning, fought hard against it for centuries, struggled continually to destroy it, but all in vain. The time came when it found itself in ruins and its enemy in prosperity. “The argument of these verses is this,” says Dr. Dods, “if you would see the difference between hatred and love, look at the different condition and prospects of Edom and Israel. The desolation with which their territory is visited is irremediable: they have no glorious future beyond: whereas the wretched condition of which you complain is but the bleakness of seed time that precedes the richest harvest.”
CONCLUSION. Are we not here in this England of ours among the peoples whom Heaven has specially favoured? Are not the words specially applicable to us, “I have loved you, saith the Lord”? But what is our practical response? Does not our daily life speak out the ingratitude and unbelief of Israel, “Wherein hast thou loved us?” We do not see it; we do not feel it; “Wherein?” What ought we to think of our civilization, our liberties, our fruitful laud and salubrious air? above all, what of our Christ? “Herein is love.”D.T.
Mal 1:6-9
The profession and the practice of religion.
“A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a Father, where is mine honour? and if I be a Master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my Name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy Name?” etc. The subject of these words is the profession and the practice of religion; and they suggest two thoughts.
I. THE PROFESSION AND THE PRACTICE SHOULD ALWAYS BE IN ACCORD. “A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master.” This is stated as a fact. The son here, of course, must be supposed to be worthy of the name son. There are some children who are destitute of natural affection. What Aristotle of old said will be endorsed by all thoughtful men. “A son must always be his father’s debtor, because he can never repay him for those greatest of all benefits, birth and upbringing, and in these the fathers resemble God.” This being so, and you Israel being “my son, my firstborn, a relationship which you profess, where is mine honour? If the language is, as some suppose, specially addressed to the priests, the appeal gets new emphasis. The idea isYou profess to regard me as your Father and your Master, and you should, therefore, in your life treat me with honour, reverential fear, and loyal devotion. “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?” Any discrepancy between our profession and our practice is morally unnatural. Our conduct should accord with our creed, our deeds with our doctrines.
II. THE PROFESSION AND THE PRACTICE ARE OFTENTIMES AT VARIANCE. The priests to whom these words were addressed practically contradicted their profession. They called him Father and Master, and yet see how they treated him in their sacrifices in the temple. Look at them in their offerings. They showed:
1. A lawless spirit. “Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar.” This is directly contrary to the Law as given in Deuteronomy: “If there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the Lord thy God.” “The sin with which the priests are charged is that of polluting God’s altar by offering beasts not ceremonially clean, unfit for sacrifice. Any beast was passed as good enough for sacrifice, the lame or blind, that had become useless for work, sick or torn, the beast that was dying on its feet, and could not be used for meat, or that which had been stolen, and so marked that it would not sellanything, in short, that could serve no other purpose, was good enough for God. His courts had the appearance of a knacker’s yard.”
2. A niggardly spirit. Not only were they polluted, which is contrary to ceremonial law, but they were worthless: blind, lame, wretched skeletons were the beasts offered, worth nothing in the tidal or the market, mere refuse. “A cheap religion,” says one, “costing little, is rejected by God, worth nothing: it costs more than it is worth, for it is worth nothing, and so proves really dear.” God despiseth not the widow’s mite, but he disdains the miser’s gold.
3. A captious spirit. They say, “Wherein have we despised thy Name?” “Wherein have we polluted thee?” So blind aunt so insensible were they to moral propriety that they insulted the Almighty even in their formal efforts to serve him.
4. A thoughtless spirit. “Offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts? And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he regard your persons? saith the Lord of hosts.” This sentence is ironical: Ye dare not go before your governor with such presents; but come now, I pray you, enter God’s presence, and use your stock phrase of supplication (Num 6:25), that he “would be gracious unto us.” Will he regard your persons? How many who profess God to be their Father and their Master act out, even in their religious services, this lawless, niggardly, captious, thoughtless spirit! Herein there is the discrepancy between profession and practice. But, alas! how common is it!
With lip we call him Master,
In life oppose his Word,
We ev’ry day deny him,
And yet we call him Lord!
No more is our religion
Like his in soul or deed
Than painted grain on canvas
Is like the living seed.
In the balance we are weigh’d
And wanting we are found,
In all that’s true and Christly
The universe around.
CONCLUSION. A fact narrated to me by the late Revelation Dr. Leifchild some years ago affords a striking illustration of the discrepancy between profession and practice in religion. He told me that there was an old lady in his Church, very wealthy, and very loud in her professions, and apparently very enthusiastic in her devotions, but whose contributions for religious purposes were of the most niggardly kind. One Sunday, in singing a hymn with which they closed the service of the Lord’s Supper, she being near to the table, be observed her as the deacons were going round, according to their custom, collecting subscriptions for the poor. It so happened that the verse they were singing at the time the deacon came to her with the plate was
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small:
Love so amazing, so Divine,
Demands my heart, my life, my all.”
No one in the whole congregation seemed more hearty in shouting out those words with his voice than she. Meanwhile the deacon held the plate right under her eye, but she let it pass without enriching it by even a copper.D.T.
Mal 1:10-14
Wrong worship.
“Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for naught?” etc. The subject of these words is wrong worship, and they suggest the following remarks.
I. THAT WRONG WORSHIP IS WORSE THAN NO WORSHIP AT ALL. “Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for naught? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for naught. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.” Keil gives a version mere in accordance with the original, “Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that ye might not light mine altar to no purpose! I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of hosts, and sacrificial offering does not please me from your hand.” “As if,” says Dr. Dods, “God were to say it were far better that the temple were shut than that such profane and fruitless worship were carried on in it (Isa 1:12). Better that you and your offensive beasts be together shut out of the temple, and that no smoke ascend from the altar, since all such offerings as you present are offered in vain. The Hebrew word translated ‘for naught,’ is the etymological equivalent of ‘gratis;’ but the meaning here is not ‘without reward,’ but the closely allied, secondary meaning ‘without result;’ it is not the mercenary but the fruitless character of the services which is pointed at.” There is a deal of wrong worship in the world, not only in heathen regions but in Christendom, not only in Popery hut in Protestantism, not only in the Church but in Dissent. Some of the hymns used are not only gross but blasphemous, and some prayers, too, are repugnant alike to reason and conscience. No worship is a thousand times better than wrong worship. Wrong worship insults the Infinite Father, and degrades the human soul.
II. THAT WRONG WORSHIP WILL ONE DAY BE PRACTICALLY REPUDIATED. “From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my Name shall be great among the Gentiles.” A modern expositor expresses the idea thus: “Since ye Jewish priests and people ‘despise my Name,’ I shall find others who will magnify it (Mat 8:11). Do not think I shall have no worshippers because I have not you, for from the east to the west my Name shall be great among the Gentiles (Isa 59:19; Isa 66:19, Isa 66:20), these very peoples whom ye look down on as abominable. ‘And a pure offering,’ not the blind, the lame, and the sick, such as ye offer.” “In every place” implies the catholicity of the Christian Church (Joh 4:21-23; 1Ti 2:8). The incense is figurative of prayer (Psa 141:2; Rev 8:3). Sacrifice is used metaphorically of the offering of a “broken and contrite heart.”
1. This period, though far in the future, is certain to dawn on the world. God hath promised it, and it is “impossible for him to lie.” “And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted into thee” (Isa 60:3-5).
2. This period will exclude all false worship. It will he in “every place.” No room for the knee in the temple of the false worshipper. Neither in this mountain nor in that mountain shall ye worship the Father. “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
3. In this period all human souls will be blended in love and devotion. No more divisions. “Thy Name shall be great among the heathen.” He will be the great centre around which all souls will revolve, from which all will draw their heat, their light, their harmony.
III. THAT WRONG WORSHIP IS SOMETIMES RENDERED EVEN BY THE RELIGIOUS TEACHERS OF MANKIND. “But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, the Table of the Lord is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible.” From these words we learn that these priests made worship appear:
1. Contemptible. Perhaps these priests did not literally say the Lords table was contemptible, but in their acts they declared it. Is the word “contemptible” here intended to express the feeling of the priests themselves? Some have considered it as referring to the revenue which the priests drew from their services at the altar. The beasts which were brought for offering were so lean, diseased, and wretched, that the flesh which fell to their share for food was so poor that they could not eat it, it filled them with disgust, it was contemptible. As if they had said, “The reward which we have for our services at the altar is truly contemptible.” But this view can scarcely be adopted, inasmuch as they themselves accepted those worthless animals for sacrifice. It rather means that they had made worship appear contemptible to others, that their services had brought worship into contempt. How often do the religious leaders of mankind, by the crudity of their thoughts, the narrowness of their creeds, the worldliness of their spirits, bring religion into popular contempt!
2. Burdensome. “Behold, what a weariness is it!” etc. This is not, alas! an uncommon occurrence. Religious leaders, perhaps the majority of them, have in all ages, by their hoary platitudes, their vain repetitions, their long, dull prayers, their monotonous tones, their prosy twaddlings, made their hearers often exclaim, “Behold, what a weariness is it!” In truth, religious service is a weariness to all who have not their hearts in it. Dr. Pusey well remarks, “The service of God is its own reward. If not, it becomes a greater toil, with less reward from this earth than the things of this earth. Our only choice is between love and weariness.”
IV. THAT WRONG WORSHIP EVERMORE INCURS THE JUST DISPLEASURE OF HEAVEN. “But cursed be the deceiver,” etc. He is here called the deceiver, who has the means of presenting a valuable sacrifice, and yet presents a worthless one. He “hath in his flock a male,” something that is valuable. It is not the man who openly denies God, and who makes no pretence of serving him, that is here cursed, but the man who professes to serve him, and yet is destitute of the true spirit of devotion. He who offers to him the mere dregs of his time, his strength, his means, virtually presents that “polluted bread” upon the altar which is abhorrent to the Almighty.
CONCLUSION. Let all eschew vain worship, a worship that may be either the worship of a wrong god, some idol, or the worship of the right God in a wrong way. Let those of us who presume to be the religious leaders of our race take care that we do not bring public worship into contempt; and by our lack of spiritual vivacity and the exciting inspiration of true devotion, cause the people to exclaim, “Behold, what a weariness is it!”D.T.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Mal 1:1. The burden The charge, or message.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
SECTION I
Mal 1:1-5
Gods peculiar Love to Israel above Edom
1, 2The burden1 of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. I have loved2 you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacobs brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob, 3And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons3 [jackals] of the wilderness. 4Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished4 [ruined], but we will return [again] and build the desolate places; thus saith the Lord of Hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the Lord hath indignation for eMalachi Mal 1:5 And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The Lord will be magnified5 [great is Jehovah] from6 the border of Israel.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Mal 1:1.The burden of the word of the Lord. Some of the recent German Commentators, following Vitringa, understand by burden () nothing more than a divine speech, prophecy, or utterance, so that it would mean, the speech of Babylon, Damascus, Egypt, Moab, instead of the upon these countries. Jerome remarks: The word massa is never placed in the title, save when the vision is heavy and full of burden and toil. In this interpretation he has been followed by Hengstenberg, who has fully discussed the subject, and by Khler and Keil. Henderson has translated it sentence. The connection in the first verse with word shows that it means something more, or it would have been superfluous. Eleven times in Isaiah (Isa 13:1; Isa 14:28; Isa 15:1; Isa 17:1; Isa 19:1; Isa 21:1; Isa 21:11; Isa 21:13; Isa 23:1), in Eze 12:10; Hab 1:1; Zec 9:1; Zec 12:1, it is followed by a prophecy of a threatening nature. In Jer 23:33-36, the meaning burden, heavy prophecy is presupposed. The people, whenever they met the prophets, asked scoffingly, if they had received any new massa, or burden. What is the burden of the Lord? not believing that the predicated evil would come. As a punishment for their blasphemy God declares (Malachi 1:39) I will burden you. See Lange on Jer 23:33-40; Alexander on Isa 13:1.
To Israel, not concerning Israel, but to, as shows. By Israel is meant here not the kingdom of Israel as distinct from that of Judah but the small colony composed of all the tribes who had returned to Juda after the Captivity, and thus became the central point of the divine promises and threatenings. Those who did not return lost the name of Israel, while those who did were called Israel by way of eminence, as those to whom the promises were made. Nehemiah and Ezra use the word Israel in the same way.
By Malachi, through Malachi. The Hebrew is, by the hand of Malachi. Khler, Ewald, and Delitzsch have discussed the question, whether the prophecy, as it now is, was delivered orally to the people, and have concluded that we have only the substance of the more copious oral addresses of the prophet, at different times, brought together into one single prophecy. The Septuagint, as we have already remarked in the Introduction, has translated it, , by the hand of his angel.
Mal 1:2. I have loved you, saith Jehovah. The whole prophecy represents the relations of Jehovah to his people, first, as their Father and Lord, secondly, as their only God, and final Judge.
The Prophet introduces Jehovah as declaring his love to them, as the foundation of the rebukes, threatenings, exhortations, and promises, which follow. This love of Jehovah to them laid them under obligation to love Him in return, and to keep his commandments. It is because He loved the people that He rebuked and chastened them.
In reply to the people, who ask for proofs of Jehovahs love, he condescends to appeal to facts in their history, and in his dealings with them that clearly prove this love. Was not Esau a brother of Jacobs? saith Jehovah, yet I loved Jacob, and hated Esau. The question is put in this way, and the names of Jacob and Esau mentioned, rather than those of Israel and Edom, to call attention to the fact, that, though they were brothers, and sustained the same relation to Jehovah, so that it might have been expected, that He would have dealt with both alike, yet He had not done so, neither in their own persons nor in their posterity, so that judging from the results we might regard the one as loved and the other as hated.
That the word hate is not used here in its strongest sense, is clear from several passages of Scripture, as where Leah says that she was hated by Jacob (Gen 29:33), and in Deu 21:15, where the case is put of a mans having two wives, one beloved and the other hated, and in Luk 16:13, where it is said of a servant with two masters, that he will hate the one and love the other, and Luk 14:26, compared with Mat 10:37, where the hating ones father and mother is interpreted by loving less. St. Paul, in Rom 9:11, refers to Jacob and Esau as illustrations of the purpose of God, according to election. Their history typified and conditioned that of their posterity.
Mal 1:3. And his inheritance for the jackals of the desert. We are not informed when and by whom this utter desolation of Edom took place. Jahn and Hitzig ascribe it to the Persians, so also Khler; Keil and others to the Chaldans, fulfilling thus the prophecies of Amos, Obadiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.
The word translated in the A. V. dragons should be rather translated, jackals, with the Jewish Commentators, and Ewald, Khler, Umbreit, Reinke, Stier, Pressel. Our version follows Jerome, Luther, Calvin, Bochart, Cocceius, J. H. Michaelis, who translate it serpents, or dragons. The Septuagint translates it, , desert dwellings, in which they are followed by De Wette ( Whnungen), Gesenius, Maurer, Rosenmller, Rdiger, Frst, Henderson, and Noyes.
The word in this form is found only here. We regard it with Khler, Keil, and others, as the feminine plural of . The masculine plural is found, Psa 44:20; Psa 63:10; Isa 13:22; Isa 34:3; Isa 35:7; Isa 43:20; Jer 9:11; Jer 10:22; Jer 49:33; Jer 51:37; Lam 4:3 (where it is strangely translated sea monsters); and is translated in our version dragons. In Isa 13:22, Mic 1:8, they are represented as crying and wailing, so they could not have been dragons, or serpents.
Mal 1:4. Whereas Edom saith, or rather, although Edom should say, we are ruined, but we will again rebuild the ruins, Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, or Jehovah of Sabaoth. Hengstenberg has labored to show, in opposition to Gesenius, that Sabaoth is in, apposition with Jehovah, and to be separated from it by a comma, as a special appellation of God. It is translated by the Septuagint, (Almighty), twenty four times in Malachi, and passes over into the New Testament in 2Co 6:18, The Lord Almighty; the Almighty, in Rev 1:8; Lord God Almighty, Rev 4:8, and frequently.
While Israel was rebuilding its ruins, all the attempts of Edom to repair its desolations will prove abortive.
The border of wickedness. By the word border is meant here the land, with its inhabitants. When Edom fails to recover its former prosperity all men must acknowledge that it is a perpetual monument of Gods wrath.
Mal 1:5. Great is Jehovah over the land of Israel. Hitzig, Maurer, Ewald, Umbreit, Reinke, Noyes, Pressel, understand this clause to mean, that from the doom of Edom Israel will be forced to confess that Jehovah is not only great in Israel, but beyond its borders. Henderson, following A ben Ezra, connects, from the border of Israel with the ye of the preceding clause, ye from the border of Israel. But, as beyond is an unprecedented meaning of , as Israel had no doubt that Jehovah ruled beyond the borders of Israel, we had better understand it to mean, that Israel, by contrasting its condition with that of Edom, will be more deeply convinced that Jehovahs government of his people Israel was a gracious one. As the future precedes the subject it had better be translated, says Khler, as an optative, May Jehovah be praised! but it is more congruous to the context to translate it, Great is Jehovah over the borders of Israel! as in Psa 35:27, where it is to be translated, Great is Jehovah! See Alexander and Delitzsch on the 35th Psalm, also on Psa 40:17, where the same words occur.
DOCTRINAL, HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
W. Pressel: We cannot more correctly and fully express the meaning of these prophetic words, than the Apostle Paul has done in two passages in Rom 9:7; Rom 9:11 : Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children; and, Not of works, but of him that calleth: for the Apostle as well as the Prophet recognizes in the relation of Esau and Jacob, and of the descendants of both, a striking example, that descent from one and the same patriarch is not the ground of one and the same election on the part of God, but that it is his free grace, which uses one as an instrument for the kingdom of God, and the other not, and according to which the one does not frustrate the saving purpose of God, through his want of faithfulness, and the other, in spite of all his forts, does not obtain salvation for himself. And yet, in the words of the prophet, as well as of the Apostle, the close connection of guilt on the part of the individual, with the rejection on the part of God, is also intimated. As much as in the Old Covenant the circle of revelation was limited, and necessarily so, to the people of Israel, so rich is this revelation, however, especially by the prophets in hints that the decree and glory of Jehovah should extend beyond the limits of Israel, if even at first only in the execution of his judgments, which were necessary to prepare the way among the heathen for the visitation of grace.
HOMILETICAL HINTS
Mal 1:2. As there lies in the address of Jehovah the key to the understanding of the history of our life, so there lies in the reply of Israel the key to the understanding of our hearts. The history of our life appears, according to it, as a history of love, wherein the bitter as well as the sweet have only our good for their end, and as a decree of love, according to which nothing is accidental, but all ordained from eternity. Our heart appears in it in its blindness, since though the proofs of Gods love are very plain yet we fail to understand them, and in its ingratitude, and distrust the source of this blindness; or, the history of our life confirms to us what the Lord here testifies, and our perverse and desponding heart at least thinks what Israel here objects.
On Mal 1:3. May it be deeply impressed upon my heart what a happiness it is to be a Christian! for how does the heathen world appear to us, when we look at the blessings of Christianity! The heathen are by nature our brethren, as Edom was the brother of Israel, and yet what a waste and kingdom of Satan is the heathen world! In what light does Christianity appear to us, when we look at the curse of heathenism! What do we not enjoy in the knowledge of the love of God to us in Jesus Christ, and in communion with Him, and in all the blessings in heart and house, in the social and domestic circle, which flow to us therefrom, and yet how little have we deserved it, and how little is this blessing from step to step our work!
Mal 1:4. The worlds defiance of Gods decree: It breaks down, He builds up; it builds, He breaks down.
On the whole section Mal 1:1-6. The gracious election of God is the golden thread, which runs through not only the history of Israel, but through the whole history of the kingdom of God upon earth; but it is yet neither an order of merit for us, it rather humbles and disciplines, and spurs us on; it is only a cord of love by which the Lord draws us, while it brings destruction to those like the children of Edom. Love and hatred in the heart of God! What does the New Testament say to this prophetic expression? What does the history of the Church of Christ say to it? What does the witness of the Holy Ghost in our hearts say to it?
Mal 1:5. Then and now! Then, the word of promise sounded, Great is the Lord beyond the limits of Israel ! and the promise found its fulfillment in the history of the mission to the Gentiles. Now, the word of promise sounds, Great is the Lord among Israel! and the promise finds likewise its fulfillment in the history of the mission to the Jews.
E. Pocock, Professor of Hebrew in Oxford and Canon of Christ Church: I loved Jacob, etc. The Apostle St Paul, in Rom 9:11, improveth this argument from thence, that this love to the one and hatred to the other was declared, when those children were not yet born, so that it could not be said that one had deserved better than the other, and therefore his love to one above the other must needs appear to be of free grace and choice, electing one, and rejecting the other; and the distinction was both in their temporal and spiritual state. But the literal explication of the words requires no more than the particular effect of his love to Jacobs posterity and hatred to Esaus, here instanced in the utter desolation of Esaus country, and the restitution of Israels, the punishment proving to the one utter destruction, to the other a fatherly chastisement.
[Bishop Wordsworth, representing another school in the Church of England, remarks on Mal 1:2-3 : The doctrine, taught by St. Paul in Rom 9:13, which has been much misrepresented and distorted by some Calvinistic teachers, may be illustrated by the divine words here. The love of God towards Jacob, as St. Cyril remarks, was not without foresight of Jacobs faithfulness and piety as compared with Esau. The hatred of God toward Esau, a profane person, who despised his birthright, was certainly no arbitrary nor capricious passion. And if we extend these words to Edom, we find it bringing Gods judgments on itself by its unmerciful and revengeful spirit towards Israel. See Psa 137:7; Isa 63:1; Oba 1:8.P. S.]
Footnotes:
[1]Mal 1:1. , found only together in Zec 9:1; Zec 12:1, followed by ,,, to determine its relation to the object.
[2]Mal 1:1.The LXX. have inserted, before I have loved: lay to heart, or, consider, as in Hag 1:7; Hag 2:15.
[3]Mal 1:3., a fem. pl. for (so Ewald, Reinke) from , Mic 1:8; Isa 13:22.
[4]Mal 1:4., pual of , to be destroyed, not from , as our version makes it.
[5]Mal 1:5.Great be Jehovah! praised as great and glorious. See Psa 35:27; Psa 40:17, where the same phrase occurs.
[6]Mal 1:6., over, above, Neh 3:28; Ecc 5:7, not beyond the border, the land of Israel.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The Lord is expostulating with Israel in this Chapter, on their ingratitude; and pointing out in his providences and grace, his distinguishing favor to Jacob, and his judgment on Esau.
Mal 1:1
The title of this prophecy as a burden, is not meant to express a matter grievous in its weight, but blessed in its importance. It is the Lord’s burden, and brings with it the Lord’s blessing. Burdensome indeed to sinners, but refreshing to saints.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The Burden of Malachi
Mal 1:1-6
Who was Malachi? Other prophets give the name of their father, and give some kind of local reference; but Malachi comes upon us absolutely without introduction, and so destitute of nominal claim that we are not sure that “Malachi” was his name at all. Who were his parents? Nobody knows. When was he born? No one can tell. When did he write? Nobody can find out. Yet here is the writing. The word “Malachi” means, The messenger of the Lord. He was a kind of John the Baptist. He was sure that something was coming upon the earth. He did not know what it was; it was something glorious, something such as had never been seen before by eye of man. It is interesting to watch the struggles of the prophets; they want to say what they can never express. There is a spirit within them which testifies that upon the earth there is coming great darkness, great agony, and afterward great joy such as no summer ever brought upon the glowing horizon. Sometimes a broken column is more pathetic than a completed pillar; it means so much. Sometimes the rhetorician is mightiest when his word quite breaks off, and he himself is stunned by an uncalculated amazement. What the prophets must have felt on this wise! They were always going to say what was in their hearts, but at the last the expressive word failed them. It will always be so in Christian service; we should always be going to do our best, and never be able to satisfy ourselves that nothing further can be done.
There have been ingenious men who have contended that all the prophets were not simple men as we are, but angels, for the time being at least, or incarnations, and that their names are significant of such embodiment and representativeness. “Hosea” = saviour. Why should any man bear that name as an hereditary right or casual custom, as who shall say, This boy shall be called Hosea? Names may thus be fantastically scattered abroad now, but the time was when names were offices, functions, characters, and indicators of destiny. Who knows but that the saviour-angel may have been incarnated in Hosea, and that his name may have been a writing from within rather than a cognomen chosen haphazard by some member of the family? “Joel”: was there ever such a name on earth as “Joel”? Meaning no less than, The Lord God: sacredness had no higher sublimity in the imagination of the Jews. Was the boy called “Joel” as he might have been called by any common name in the history of our country? or was there an unconscious inspiration in the very designation of the child? There may be a danger of being fanciful in such interpretations, but there is an infinitely more awful danger of being blasphemous in our painstaking in the matter of excluding God from all our family life and all the details of our personal history. Beware of those people who are always telling you that this is fanciful, and that is unusual, and the other is eccentric; they will torture you with their monotony and propriety and folly. There should in our interpretation of life be a feeling that there is more in life than we have yet discovered. We should be quite willing to believe that when deaf and dumb Zacharias takes the slate, and writes a name upon it, he is but an amanuensis of God. Why not attribute much more to heaven than at present we ascribe to the throne of God? Why give God the oaks and the cedars, and keep back from him the grassblades and the little flowers that find in them green sanctuary? These prophets may have been angels; they may have been the word of the Lord incarnate. There are other critics who are bold enough to operate critically in this direction. The word of the Lord came to not a syllable, not a writing, but the Logos, the Essential Speech, the all-creating Word the fiat came to them, and dwelt in them, and they all heralded and forecast the final and consummate incarnation. There are those of course who say “The word of the Lord” means a verbal message, something to say; on the other hand, there are critics who contend that “The word of the Lord” is personality, not speech; and that such personality embodies itself in human life and human character, and avails itself of human ministry to get at the outlying wondering world.
Whether this be so or not, here is the writing, the speech that was made to Malachi in the name of the Lord. And that speech is called a “burden.” The word of the Lord is always a load upon the soul. There be some who have no Lord in the heart, no Lord that needs carrying otherwhere than on the glib lips. The true prophet has always been a solemn man; he has always been bowed down, his attitude has been an unconscious attestation of his office. He did not know what he meant by that prone look when he seemed always to be looking at the place of graves rather than at the cradles of the stars. But the “burden” was pressing him, the weight gave him to feel his own weakness and littleness, and in his breathing there was a constant sigh, as the breathing of one who saw the world’s life as the world itself never saw it. Thus the prophets were distinguished from all other men. The prophets are now seeking perhaps to be too much like other teachers. They have lost their native tongue; they are babbling in a foreign language which they imperfectly understand: when they get back to God’s own speech to the heart, and tell the world what God has told them, tone for tone, word for word, the world will say, A new poet hath arisen; the old mantle has been recovered, and is now on the shoulders of a man worthy to bear it. Do not vulgarise your ministry; do not comedise God’s gospel. “Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar”; give men to feel that the word has about it an edging and fringing, delicate, yet urgent as fire.
“The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel” What! to Israel? We have been accustomed to read so much “against Israel.” Can there be so much meaning in a change of prepositions? Can the one preposition be a naked sword all edge, and the other a sign of reconciliation, approach, and tenderness? It is even so. We should be careful how we lay too much stress upon little words, especially merely auxiliary words; yet sometimes it is the little word that carries all the meaning. An “if” may keep a man out of heaven. This word is a word of approach; it is God coming to Israel. The prophet has not to announce a great wind rising in the north, and coming down stormily upon the canvas tents of those who seek to shield themselves under such rags against the lightning of God; on the other hand, it is the Father coming towards, and coming more than half-way, and coming with sweet words and musical gospels to end the controversy, and establish the kingdom of peace.
This is proved by the words which immediately follow “I have loved you, saith the Lord.” But is not the grammar itself suggestive? Is not this something dead and gone? is not this a perfect tense, more than perfect or pluperfect? Is is not history, hoary, all but forgotten, an old, old love? So it it in English; it was not so as Malachi wrote it, his words are equal to, I have loved you, and do love. Had the words been, “I do love,” that would have been weak, because the love might have been born but yesternight; had the words been, “I have loved you,” that would have been pensive, sorrowful, and heartbreaking, because it is like reminding the soul of a song dead and lost: but seeing that it is “I have loved you, and do love,” strength cannot be mightier, for all the past is there and all the urgent present, time and eternity are hand in hand. This is always so in God’s relation to his people. His love is eternal, and it is immediate; it is from everlasting, and yet it always seems to be new-born. Where is there any old dew? Show us some dew a year old. It is the dew of the morning, and yet that same dew has been hanging about the altar of God’s love ever since God lived. His lovingkindness is from everlasting, thy compassions are new every morning. This is the union of age and immediacy which we must realise in our personal experience. God’s love comes in as our dearest friend, and yet it always comes in as a perfect surprise.
“Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us?” Here is ingratitude. Here, however, is our own experience. This is the law of the family. You have been supporting some one a long time, and because you do not attend to the very last appeal, all you did in the years that are gone is simply forgotten, and the inquiry is, Wherein have you been so kind? Treacherous is the memory when it has charge of recollections of good and favour and help rendered under circumstances which ought to have made the offering of such assistance an imperishable remembrance. Have we not had familiarity and experience in this matter? All you have done for your friends, let me assure you, is forgotten. They never speak well of you, except it may be in some general sense. Favours are soon forgotten. Yet whoso forgets a favour is no true man; he is a bad man, whatever his doctrinal professions may be. We should keep all our friends’ kindnesses as so many evergreens, every kind action kept in the heart like a precious plant and not allowed to die. But God’s favours are forgotten principally because they are so numerous. The very circumstance that ought to have made their memory indelible is a circumstance which causes the record to be soon obliterated. We become familiar with God’s blessings, and we seem to have established some right in their succession. We expect the sun to rise; we complain to one another if there be anything like disappointment attending the circumstances of his rising; we say, Do you call this April? Why, in April we ought not to have such fog and darkness: where is the sun? What right have you to the sun? Why not rather say, God be praised, here is the sun: God might have kept back the light from a world that has forfeited every claim upon his complacency, yet here is the shining sun. Keep your gratitude green. Never let your thankfulness fall into decay. You might thus by keeping a perfect remembrance of favours received multiply those favours tenfold; the assistance that was rendered to you in childhood should be with you as a stimulating memory to old age.
Then the Lord undertakes to answer these people, and says, “I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau.” We always wonder that this should be so, whereas in reality nothing of the kind occurred in our sense of the terms. You must understand the genius of a language before you can understand its particular terms or idioms or ways of putting things. In the olden time, in order to show that you loved somebody, you had so to say to prove that you hated somebody else; things were only learnt by contrast. God never hated any beast of the field. He would dethrone himself if he held in contempt the meanest worm upon the face of the earth. Do not apply your crooked and perverse etymology to God’s words when he is struggling to say that he loves you. To love less was then thought to mean that on the other hand the love was infinitely great. “He that hateth not his father cannot be my disciple.” No man can explain that etymologically; no dictionary holds all the meaning of that word; yet every soul that has entered into the passion of that love knows it. Is the father then hated? Nay, he is loved with tenfold greater love; but as compared with the sacrificial passion which the soul feels when it is kindled with the love of God, all other love falls as if in the rank and category of hatred, if not contempt. Believe not those who seek to teach that God has any partiality for one man above another. Is there no partiality then in God? Certainly there is partiality in God. Wherein is that partiality shown? In the matter of character. The Lord hates wickedness, disobedience, rebellion, every form of impiety, and sometimes the wickedness is personalised, as if God entertained personal animosity. God’s partiality is on behalf of goodness, truth, uprightness: “What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Then goodness is elected, predestinated, from eternity to heaven; and from eternity hell is reserved for wickedness.
In this case, however, there is a second and conclusive argument, illustrative of this same point in reference to character. Edom himself speaks, and therefore states the case in his own person. “Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places.” There you have Edom, which is the other name for Esau. What will he do? He will defy God. He says in effect, God has thrown down the wall, but we will go back and put up stone by stone, and we will complete it. The Lord hath sent a blight upon the terraces of the mountains where grew the fruits of Edom, and Edom says, We will go and rebuild those terraces, and turn the rains of heaven and the sunlight of the morning to our own uses, and we will have flowers and trees and fruits. Will the Lord commit this infamy without protest or punishment? Nay, verily: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down.” There you will have the explanation of character. Edom or Esau is rebellious; the Lord will not countenance the rebellion. Edom defies God, and God asserts his own right; Edom says he will build, and God says, Then so be it: build, and in the morning there shall not be left one stone upon another. He who fights God fights himself, and loses himself.
A great doctrine is laid down in Mal 1:6 : “A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master.” That is the great doctrine. God founds an argument upon it; he says, Take it in either light: “If then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear?” There are two theories of God: the one is called the Fatherhood of God, and the other is called the Rulership of God. To some minds God is all Father, to other minds God is all Ruler or Sovereign: according as one or the other view is taken we have one or the other system of theology. The Lord says he will take either, and by either he will be judged and he will judge others. Thus, “a son honoureth his father,” that is, he instinctively honoureth his father; whatever his father may be or may not be, there is something in the son which says, You should recognise that man with peculiar honour, and render to him filial homage, because, be he what he may to other people, to you he is father. The Lord says, So be it, I will take your own natural doctrine of parenthood: now if I be a father, where is your filial honour? On the other hand, other persons say the world is governed by sovereignty; here we are under a gubernatorial economy, we are under the hand of a despot; there is a voice which affirms destiny and doom. The Lord says, Very well, if that be your theory of the universe where is my fear? I will take either theory you please to propound, and I will ask you a question upon each. Now, if I am your father, where is my honour? If I am your tyrant, where is my fear? The Lord meets us on our own ground. We cannot escape God by inventing a new theory. Whatever our theory may be God says, Be it so: now where are we? If our theory be that this world made itself, the Lord says, If it made itself, how did it do it? Explain the process; or explain the still more difficult process that you, an intelligent man, can believe such utter unintelligibleness. If we say, This world is enough for us, the Lord says, Then what are you making of it? Let me examine your books, let me read your record, let me keep company with you for a whole year, that I may see what you are making of the only chance you will ever have in the universe. If we say the whole world is under the government of a good providence, then the Lord will say, Then where is your faith? Why this anxiety, why these wrinkles on the forehead, why these hot tears in the eye? Why that shaking in the chair as if you were in the presence of some deadly fear? Where is rest, where is confidence, where the sweet assurance that, come weal, come woe, God will appear for my deliverance, and set my feet in a large and inviolable place? If we say, Christ died for us and rose again, and we are Christ’s, the Lord at once says, What are you giving to Christ or keeping from him? How do you fulfil your vow? Do you stand up to the square demand of your own oath? How then might the Lord charge us with fickleness, inconsistency, and a duality of life which means, with the head we acknowledge that Christ observes, but there is a devil tugging at our left hand, so that we serve him, the enemy, in some degree, and to tell the truth we like it This is the tragedy of life. If a man shall arise at the last, and tell the Lord that he knew that he was an austere man, and therefore he had carefully kept the talent and rendered it back just as he got it, the Lord will say, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest… thou oughtest therefore. God pins us down with our own excuses. He takes them from us, and thrusts them through our head and nails us to the earth with the very metal which we supplied. Sinners are suicides. It is not God that kills them, they kill themselves.
Prayer
Almighty God, we rejoice that thou art light. Of light, thou art the fountain and the centre. God said, Let there be light; and there was light, himself shone upon the brooding darkness. Shine in our hearts; be the morning of our lives; be the summer of our souls. Jesus Christ thy Son is the Light of the world. As long as he is in the world he is the Light of the world; he abideth with us for ever, therefore are we living in the day of light and in the presence of light: may we answer light by light, and thus may thy creation be full of glory. They that are of the darkness love the things that are evil; may we be children of the morning and not of the night, rejoicing in all things pure, beautiful, true, and lovely. If thou wilt answer this prayer for us at the Cross, we shall know that the blood of Jesus Christ thy Son cleanseth from all sin; we shall know that we have God in us as the light abounds in our whole thought and purpose. Chase away the last shadow; break up the evil empire of night; and bring in the sovereignty of divine effulgence. We bless thee for a religion that is full of light; we thank thee that we are called to fellowship one with another in the full light of day. Thy Church always meets at midday; it is the child of the noon; there is in it no love of darkness, no trace of mystery or secrecy that is corrupt: the Lord help us to realise our call into light, and may we be found in loving obedience serving the altar of the Cross. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
A Gallery of Pictures
Malachi 1-4
We have some pictures in the prophecy that are very vivid, and some of them very humiliating. For example, we have a picture of the utterest selfishness in Mal 1:10 :
“Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought.”
Yet they sang how good a thing it was to be but a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord. Men do not come to this kind of selfishness all at once. For some degrees of wickedness we must patiently and skilfully graduate. We do not attain the highest quality of iniquity at a bound; we cannot, speaking generally, extemporise the supremest kind of devilishness. We begin carefully, we proceed slowly, we take pains with the details of our action, and not until we have become inured to certain practices and usages do we take the final step that lands us in the very refinement and subtlety of evildoing. Nothing is so soon lost as spiritual apprehension, the power of taking hold upon the invisible, the eternal, the spiritual. There is so much against it We unhappily have eyes that can only see what we describe as the material, and in our folly we describe it as the real. That is the very lowest kind of philosophy. There is a metaphysic that denies the existence of everything we see; I would rather belong to that school of negation than to the school which affirms that there is nothing but what we can see with the eyes of the body. We are always tempted away from the higher lines. Who would shut his eyes and talk to nothing, and call it prayer? Who would have so many of his own aspirations dropping back upon his heart like dead birds, and still believe in an answering, benignant, loving God? Who would refuse the great bribe? There it is, visibly, tangibly, immediately; you can lay your hand upon it, and secure it, and if there is any need by-and-by to pray yourselves back again from the felony, and still retain its produce, then see the man of God and take his ghostly counsel. The distinction of Christianity is its spirituality. Christianity lives amongst the spirits. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.” When we make Christianity a mere argument or a mere philosophy, we lose its whole genius and meaning. Christianity comes to kill the visible by putting it into its right perspective, and investing it with its right value, which is nothing beyond a mere convenience. Christianity comes to lift up the soul to God, and to fix the heart upon things unseen and eternal. Christianity comes to make a man blind to everything but God, and therefore to see everything aright because to see it in its relation to God. How far are we to blame for degrading Christianity from its proper level, and making it stand amongst so-called other religions to take its chance with the general mob? We can be attacked with some success, not to say with desperate savageness, if we fight the battle on wrong lines; but not when we stand upon Christ’s lines, of direct living fellowship with God, doing everything for Christ’s sake, glorifying God in our body, which is so-called matter, our soul, which plays a part in the psychical philosophies, and our spirit, the touch that makes us one with God. If we pray ourselves into higher prayers, ever-ascending until speech must be displaced by music, then we are upon a way where we shall find no lion, neither shall any ravenous beast go up thereon, it shall not be found there. And as for dying, we shall not die “he was not, for God took him,” shall be the rhythmic ending of a noble, beautiful, spiritual life. Losing this spiritual apprehension, what do we come to? to men-service; we come to be men-pleasers, time-servers, investors, hirelings. When the true spirituality reigns in us we shall have no fear of man, we shall see the richest patron of all going out of the sanctuary, not because he is wounded in the back, but because he is wounded in the heart by the Spirit of God, on account of his unrighteousness, unfaithfulness, vanity, and worldliness; the Church will be the richer for his absence. Never let the spirituality of the Church go down, for then you open the door to every kind of invader; you make devastating encroachment possible; but laying hold of God, you shall be safe even from the insidious assaults and invasions of selfishness.
We have also a picture of the true priest:
“The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts” ( Mal 2:6-7 ).
What was said of Levi should be said of every man in the varied ministry of the Church; he ought to be as beautiful as this. Yet not only beautiful, but massive, strong, pure, dominating; not asking permission to live and to preach, but granting permission to millionaires to chink their gold. It is quite true that here we have an ideal picture. It satisfies the imagination to have a word like “ideal” in its vocabulary. But may we not so use the word “ideal” as to find in it a temptation to a continual lowering of the spiritual stature, and a continual cooling of the spiritual temperature? Certainly these words are ideal; this is God making another Adam, this time out of marble, breathing into him the breath of life, and making him majestic and noble: this is God’s conception of the true priest. Yet we call it ideal, and then go away to our commonplace. The minister of Christ cannot rise to perfection. If any man were to assume himself to be perfect he would justly discredit himself by that very assumption. What is it that is required of the true priest, preacher, minister, or pastor? It is required of him first that he be found faithful to his light, to his immediate inspiration; he is not to live for tomorrow, he is to live for this present day, with all its clamour and all its importunate necessity. But should not a man study consistency? Yes No. Is it possible for an answer to be both in the affirmative and in the negative? Certainly. Wherein is to be the consistency of the preacher? In his spiritual sincerity. There he must never fail. As to his words and views, do we not live in an atmosphere? Are we not environed? Do not ten thousand ministries continually play upon every line and fibre of our nature? There may be inconsistency in words, phrases, terms, and statements, and yet there may be consistency of the finest quality and fibre in the moral purpose, the spiritual intent, the unchangeable loyalty to the Cross of God the Son. A preacher’s perfectness should be found in the continuance of his aspiration, and the continuance of all practical endeavour to overtake his own prayers. Do not mock a man because his life is not equal to his prayer; when a man has no higher prayer to offer than he can live he may pass on into some other world in the Father’s universe. Meanwhile, no man can pray sincerely, profoundly, continually, and want to be like Christ without growing, not always upwards; there is a growth in refinement, in susceptibility, in moral tenderness, in sympathy of the soul for others, as well as a growth in knowledge, and stature in intellectual majesty. It is well to have an ideal before us. One of two things must happen in the case of the priest. “… Did turn many away from iniquity.” That is a beautiful work for you, my preaching brother, to have done. You may never have been heard of beyond your own sphere, and yet within that sphere you may have been working miracles which have astounded the angels. You have kept or turned many away from iniquity. I have a brother who had great influence over one of his leading men, and that brother, though his name was never heard of beyond his own circle of ministerial exertion, laid himself out to save that man. That man’s temptation was drink. The minister followed him, turned swiftly upon him at the public-house door, and said, No, not here! It was not much of a sermon to preach from a public point of view, but the poor tempted soul quailed under the interdict, and went home. Why, to have been the means of giving him one night’s release from the devil was to have done a work worthy of the Cross! You cannot tell what your negative work amounts to how many you have kept from going wrong, doing wrong, or speaking unwisely, untruly, or impurely; you do not know what your example has done. Be cheered, be encouraged; you do not always live in the miracle of Pentecost; sometimes you live in the quietness that can only do a negative work, but blessed be God, when he comes to judge our work there will be nothing negative about it He who has turned away a man from iniquity shall be accounted as one who has turned a soul to righteousness; he is a great judge, and he gives great heavens to those who serve him.
There is another line of thought
“Ye have caused many to stumble” ( Mal 2:8 ).
How acute, how penetrating, how ruthless is the criticism of God! Here again we may not have been wanton in our irreligion, we may not have been irreligious at all in the ordinary sense of the term, but for lack of zeal, for lack of honesty, for lack of character, we may have caused the citizens of Gath to mock, and the daughters of Philistia to sneer at the Lord. “Caused many to stumble”: how could they help it? They looked to the priests, pastors, guides, and teachers of the community for example, and they saw nothing but warning. They said, The speech of these men will be pure, gentle, courteous, gracious; they will especially speak of one another in terms of appreciation and brotherly regard. Hark! Why, this is talk we might have heard at the tavern; this is criticism we might have heard at hell’s gate; this is censoriousness that would shame an infidel. What if they have gone away to mock the God whose name his own professors had forgotten? “Caused many to stumble” by little-mindedness, by narrowness of soul, by lack of sympathy, by idolatry instead of worship, by pointing at a church-roof and calling it God’s own sky. Here we should daily pray that we give offence to no man needlessly; here we should do many things that the Gospel be not hindered; here we may work miracles in the name and power of the Cross.
Another picture is that of a terrible judgment:
“And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts” ( Mal 3:5 ).
O God, send some man to testify against us, and we can contradict him; send the oldest and purest of thy prophets to charge us, and we can recriminate, and remind him of his human nature, and tell him to take care of himself lest he fall, rather than waste his criticism upon us who have fallen. Send Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel; send all the minstrels of Israel, let them mass themselves into a cloud of witnesses, and we can laugh them to scorn, and tell them not to mock our fallibility by an assumption of infallibility of their own; but thou wilt not do this, thou dost come thyself. Who can answer thunder? Who can reason with lightning? Who can avert the oncoming of eternity? “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” He will be not only a witness, but a “swift witness”; he will break upon us suddenly, he will come upon us from unexpected points; where we say, All is safe here, there shall the fire leap up, and there through a hedge, where we thought to make a resting-place, shall a serpent break through to bite us. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.” Yea, I call mine a man’s hand, but to thee it is the hand of a little child; take hold of it, for the way is slippery, the crags are here and there very sharp, and the steep is infinite, and the enemy is already breathing upon my neck. O God, save me, or I perish! In that modesty we have strength; in that reliance upon God we have a pavilion that the thunder cannot shake, that the lightning cannot penetrate. I would hide me in the house of my Saviour’s heart.
Then we have a picture of a perfect restoration:
“And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts” ( Mal 3:11-12 ).
One nation cannot be good without another nation feeling it. When England is noble the whole world is aware of the transformation; when America has responded to the appeal of righteousness the whole globe feels as if a Sabbath were dawning upon the shores of time; when any nation does a noble deed it is as if all the world had prayed. Let us remember the might, the immeasurable might, of spiritual influence. Convert England, and you convert the world; convert London, and you convert England, speaking after the manner of men. Leave God to look after the results which you call material. Is there a devourer? God will rebuke him for our sakes. Does the vine cast her fruit before her time? Angels shall keep that fruit on the stem until it be purple with hospitality, yea, with the very love of God’s heart; and as for the fields, their hedges will become fruit trees, and all the fences shall bloom and blossom because the Lord’s blessing has fallen upon the earth. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” God will take care of the vine if we take care of the altar.
Then, lastly, we have a picture of a sun-lighted world:
“But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings” ( Mal 4:2 ).
The last verse of the Old Testament is terrible; it reads” “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers” that is good, but the last words “lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” The Rabbi would never end with that; the Rabbi said, “No, I will go back and read the last verse but one.” The Rabbi could not end with a curse. There are several books in the Bible that end with doleful words: “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” The Rabbi could not defile the synagogue with making “evil” the climacteric word, so he read the verse before. Isaiah ends: “And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.” And the Rabbi said, We cannot end with that, we must end with the verse before. And the Lamentation, “But thou hast utterly rejected us: thou art very wroth against us.” And the Rabbi said, Read the verse before that; we cannot end with storm and darkness, and tempests of imprecation. Oh let us close with some word of comfort! So must it ever be with the true messenger of God. He will have to deliver his tremendous message; but blessed be the Cross of Christ, every sermon may end with music and light and joy. There is no text in the Bible that lies half a mile from Calvary. I do not care what the text is, there is a road from it right into Golgotha. Malachi has for his last word curse; but we may have for our last word blessing, we may have for our closing word peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” “Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God for he will abundantly pardon.” If we added to that we should be attempting to paint the lily and gild refined gold. There is but one word that can be added to it, and that is not our own: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XXXI
THE BOOK OF MALACHI PART I
Mal 1:1-3:9
We now take up the prophecy of Malachi. We have seen that there were three prophets in the period after the exile, whom we called the prophets of the restoration. These were Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. We now take up the last of those three, the prophet whose writings closed the canon of the Old Testament. Between the books of Zechariah and Malachi there is an interval of about sixty years, and of what was done during these sixty years we have some light. We can draw inferences from the condition of things previous to, and the conditions we find portrayed in Malachi’s book.
We are pretty sure of some things. We know that the Temple was finished and dedicated four years after the preaching of Haggai, under the inspiration of his preaching and that of Zechariah, his greater successor. We know that the Temple worship was instituted, and the ritual and the ceremonial had been performed and they had built the walls of the city. Herein fall the events of the book of Esther, Ezra’s reformation and Nehemiah’s organization. These facts are about all that we have regarding that period.
There are some things also we can determine by way of inference. It is important to know the condition of Israel at the time of the prophecy of Malachi. We must always know the historical situation, the economic, civic, social and religious conditions of the people in order to fully understand the message which God brings to them through his prophet.
We take up now the political condition. Israel was only a very small vassal, dependent upon the great Persian Empire. Zerubbabel evidently had been appointed governor soon after they arrived in the land, but apparently he had no successor in the royal line, for in the period of Malachi the Persians had appointed their own governors. They are under a Persian governor and are one of the least known and least interfered with of all the little nations of the world. The great tide of the world’s history has flowed north; Xerxes had made his great campaign against Greece; was three or four times defeated, and the great tide of barbarism from the Persian Empire was rolled back by that wonderful little nation, Greece, and thus Europe was saved from an eastern Asiatic and barbarous civilization.
The consequences, or the effect, of that upon all ancient history we can hardly calculate. Had Xerxes succeeded in conquering Greece, southern Europe and perhaps northern Europe would have been overrun with Persian religion and civilization. As it was, that invasion was driven back, and a century or so later Alexander the Great spread the civilization of Greece over the Persian Empire; the tide was turned eastward instead of westward, and the world has been the better ever since.
All this passed and did not touch Israel. They had no place whatever in one of the greatest movements of the ages. They had enemies round about them, who never forgot them, and who never failed in a chance to thwart their purposes, or to harass them in their efforts to build up their nation again. They apparently had no hope, and there seemed to be no reason for the hope of the fulfilment of the prophetic visions of Amos, Hosea, Micah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. These all seemed to be failures, and there was no indication on the horizon of history that they would be fulfilled. Thus their political situation tended toward a despondent condition of mind among the rulers and probably among all the people.
The following were the economic conditions: They had had a succession of bad harvests and of hard times. This we find in the book of Malachi itself. A great many of them had suffered from poverty. They had been compelled to pay their taxes to the Persian Empire regularly, and in order to do that, many of them, as we find in Nehemiah, were forced to mortgage their property, and some of them had to sell their children into slavery. Part of the population, the dregs, had been left by Nebuchadnezzar when he destroyed the city and carried away the best of the people, and when the other people were removed they took possession and cultivated all the best of the land for themselves. The Samaritan people, that mixed race of the north, had also come in and cultivated their land, and a great many of them had become wealthy and were in a prosperous condition. Doubtless, many of them came down into Judah and there held important positions. Thus there grew up a large number of families of considerable wealth and social influence. But the best of the people who had returned from the captivity were poor.
Now let us look at the social condition. The city itself had never been rebuilt. The ruins were there to be seen every day in the year. These people were mainly poor, and in order that they might become rich and influential they married into the rich families and got rich wives. In order to marry these heathen or semi-heathen women who belonged to the rich influential families, they divorced their own wives. This was done altogether too promiscuously in Judah. There grew up a select class and as a result there was enmity between the poor and the rich.
These political, economic, and social conditions produced a peculiar religious condition. The colony had returned with all the glorious promises of the great prophets filling their horizon, and they looked confidently to the time when they should be a great nation, and all the nations of the world should look to them for the law of Jehovah. Naturally they were filled with a considerable amount of spiritual pride, because of the exalted position in which they believed themselves to be placed. The Persian kings were generous; did not interfere with their religion. These people had nothing of the fires of persecution to purify them, nothing to arouse that which was best within them. They were beginning to settle down upon their lees, and to grow dull and stupid in their religious life.
Because of these conditions, and the seeming failure of the prophecies of the great prophets, their pride was set on edge, and a peculiar condition developed in Israel, such as we have never met before, viz: a contempt for their revealed religion and ceremonials, contempt for even God and his Temple, the ritual and the sacrifices. They began to think that there was no use to believe in God. They began to doubt the very existence of the love of God, and to have little or no reverence for the honor and holiness of God. The priests treated all their ceremonial and ritual with contempt. The nation seemed to be on the verge of renouncing God and their religion entirely.
As a result they sacrificed only with the poorest gifts they could find; they picked out the lame and the maimed and the blind and the halt for their sacrifices. They offered the poorest of their bread upon the altar and treated God as if he were not worthy of their worship. By marriage they mixed with the heathen or the semi-heathen surrounding them, and thus were in danger of amalgamating their race with the low and degraded race of that country, thus losing their distinct nationality as a people. Some of them went further than that, and actually began to doubt and question the justice of God in his rule over the world. They were coming to the point of saying that God dealt more kindly and justly with the wicked than he did with the righteous, and was treating the wicked better in all their sin, than he was the Israelites in all their righteousness. They refused to bring in the tithe to support the priesthood. Some of them had actually come to the conclusion that there was no profit in serving God, and they might as well renounce it all.
In this brief survey of the condition we observe that Malachi met a great many of the problems which we have to meet today. The book of Malachi is rich in homiletical material. A great many of the problems which we must face are there. In this period the Pharisees and the Sadducees began to spring up. In the authorized, Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions the book is divided into four chapters, as we have it in the American Standard; the Hebrew combines the third and fourth chapters into one, but none of the chapter divisions exactly fit the contents and subject matter of the book as we have it in our Bible.
According to the title of the book, the prophet’s name is Malachi, which means “my messenger,” exactly what the Hebrew word means, as found in Mal 3:1 : “Behold, I send my messenger [Malachi].” A great many maintain that this book is anonymous, and that Malachi is not the name of the man, but that the name is adopted from this expression here, and given to the author because his real name was unknown. The Targum, the translation of the Hebrew text into Aramaic, adds this little note and says, “My messenger is Ezra the scribe,” thus ascribing this prophecy to Ezra, but this is not the prophecy of Ezra, although it does breathe a great deal of his spirit. It is not necessary to say that Malachi is strictly the official name and not the real name. There is no reason why Malachi should not be the name given to the man, his personal name, as well as his official name. Malachi was the name of the prophet who actually lived and wrote in the postexilic period.
There is no date given. It can only be inferred. We know that it occurred some time after the rebuilding and dedication of the Temple, but the question arises, Was it before Ezra returned from Babylonia in 458 B.C. or after? Was it before Ezra’s visit in 458 and Nehemiah’s visit in 444, or was it between Nehemiah’s visits in 444 and 432, or was it after Nehemiah’s second visit? It is more probable that these things would be said in connection with Nehemiah’s second visit, for he compelled the Jews to bring their tithes in, to divorce all their foreign wives, and to adhere to the Temple ceremonials. It fits the conditions of Nehemiah’s second visit. Malachi was preaching against the very conditions which Nehemiah dealt with. There is no Question that it occurred during the reign of Artaxerxes, the same ruler who sat upon the throne when Nehemiah came. Edom had been conquered and almost totally destroyed by this time. So this prophecy parallels very closely the latter part of Nehemiah.
The book is a dialogue in form, prosaic in style, with simple, smooth, and concise diction. It is a fine piece of eloquence, the outline of which is very simple, as follows:
Introduction: The name of the author (Mal 1:1 )
I. Fundamental Affirmation (Mal 1:2-5 )
II. Formal Accusations (Mal 1:6-2:17 )
III. Final Annunciations (Mal 3:1-4:6 )
Malachi adopts a peculiar method of prophesying, a pedagogical method. We will observe it more closely as we go on with our exposition. His method was to make a great statement of some fundamental, theological truth which was being questioned in that age. Then having made that statement be throws out the question that is raised up by those people who are in that peculiar religious condition described above, in which they question these theological truths. He voices their skepticism and doubts. Then he gives his answer, and drives it home with illustration, with exhortation, and even with threats.
This is a pedagogical method for either teaching or preaching, and an effective method, an excellent way to arouse the careless and indifferent. It compels attention; it compels the people to action. This method of Malachi is the beginning of a certain scholastic method that prevailed in the synagogue for centuries after. As we have in the book of Zephaniah the beginning of the great apocalyptic literature which is amplified in Daniel, Zechariah, and the book of Revelation, and as in Habakkuk we have the beginning of the speculative method in Israel, when they were speculating upon God’s providence and God’s rulership, so in Malachi we have introduced the scholastic method which has survived more or less ever since in Hebrew and Christian literature.
Now we come to the exposition of the prophecy. We take up in this chapter three of the prophet’s messages. There are eight in all. The remaining five will follow in the next chapter. Malachi’s fundamental affirmation is that God’s love was shown in Israel’s election, and Edom’s rejection (Mal 1:2-5 ). Here we have exemplified that pedagogical method. He first makes his great fundamental, theological statement: “I have loved you, saith Jehovah,” one of the most fundamental and far-reaching truths that was ever uttered. With that as the fundamental truth in theology we hold to everything else. Malachi then projects their questioning: “Ye say, wherein hast thou loved us?” This question represents their very dangerous, skeptical attitude. This attitude, as expressed by “wherein,” is manifested at seven points in this book, viz: Mal 1:2 ; Mal 1:6-7 ; Mal 3:7-8 ; Mal 3:13 . But Malachi goes on and proves that God loved Israel. His proof is based on the history of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, in contrast with the history of Jacob, or Israel. His love is proved by the difference in his conduct toward Jacob, and his treatment of Esau. In other words, God’s love for Jacob is proved by Jacob’s history, in contrast with the history of his brother.
These nations were as near akin as they could possibly be, but the very opposites in disposition and destiny. We have some of the characteristics of Edom in Obadiah. Now the difference between God’s treatment of Jacob and Esau is as he says in the latter part of Mal 1:2 , “Yet I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation, and gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness.” He does not mean that he actually hated Esau, but that Esau occupied a very small place, or a very subordinate place in his estimation, for God cannot hate any nation, but he puts them in a very low place in his estimation in comparison with others.
God’s love for Israel is proved in her preservation, while his lack of love for Edom is proved in the fact that Edom is made a desolation, which occurred at the hands of the Nabataean Arabs during the period of the exile, somewhere about the middle of the century preceding this prophecy. Then he goes on to verify that history of Esau, “Whereas Edom, after he had been so utterly crushed, said, We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places.” “They shall build, saith Jehovah, but I will throw down, and they shall call them the border of wickedness, and the people against whom Jehovah hath indignation forever. And your eyes shall see [this judgment upon Esau], and ye shall say, The Lord be magnified beyond the border of Israel.” Paul refers to Jacob and Esau in Rom 11:13 to illustrate the doctrine of election. They do not show honor and reverence for God as do the heathen (Mal 1:6-14 ). Again Malachi starts with his fundamental, theological premise. He says, “A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master.” He is basing his remark on the Fifth Commandment which says, “Honour thy father and thy mother.” God did not say, “Love thy father and thy mother,” but “Honour thy father and thy mother.” What Malachi has in mind here is the holiness, the majesty, the authority of God, which demands honor and reverence on the part of his people.
Then God speaks, “If then I am a father, where is mine honour?” I have commanded you to honor father and mother, which implies that in the very highest and noblest sense you honor God also. But they had begun to despise and heap contempt upon the holiness, the majesty, and the authority of God Almighty. “If I am a master, where is my fear?” The first thing demanded of a servant is that he fear his master, and of the child, that he honor and reverence the parent, and the first and fundamental thing demanded of subjects is that they reverence and fear Almighty God. But these people were despising the holiness of God; the priests looked upon the services with contempt.
Now having projected this great fundamental truth, he states the objections of the people. He charges the priests with despising his name and saying, “Wherein have we despised thy name?” Such is their position, and that position, on the part of those priests, indicates a woeful, wilful ignorance or a scornful skepticism. To be unconscious of the fact that they were despising God’s name shows that their moral consciousness, as well as their religious perceptions, must have been dormant, or utterly perverted.
Now having stated their position, he attacks it. This is what they do: “Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar,” and that proved that they despised the name, majesty, and holiness of God. “And ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of Jehovah is contemptible.” Then he goes on to specify in what ways they made the table of Jehovah contemptible; that when they offered the blind, and the lame, and the sick, they thought it was all right. They would not dare offer such a gift to the governor, but they did to Almighty God. They knew the governor would not accept it of them, but they dared to offer it to God.
Malachi goes on with his admonition: “And now, I pray you, entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious unto us: this hath been your means: will he accept any of your persons?” He will not..
Then the prophet breaks forth and says, “Oh, that the doors of the temple could be shut! I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand,” expressing the same attitude toward their sacrifices as did Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, not that he objected to the ceremonial or to the ritual, but he objected to the spirit in which they offered them, as also those prophets did.
Now we have a remarkable prophecy in which he shows the Gentiles will offer up incense and sacrifices all over the world: “For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the Gentiles, saith Jehovah of hosts.” This passage finds its fulfilment in the transfer of the covenant privileges from the Jews to the Gentiles which came to pass when the Jews rejected the Messiah. The argument is that the Jews with their great mission to all the world were failing and therefore, they must be punished for their failure with such opportunities.
He goes on stigmatizing those priests. They profane the Temple of Jehovah, they pollute it and they say, “Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it . . . and ye have brought that which was taken by violence, and the lame, etc.” Then he pronounced a curse upon the deceiver who had in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a blemished thing; for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is terrible among the Gentiles.”
Next he charges the priests with unfaithfulness and wickedness. Here we have some splendid homiletical material for the preacher. In Mal 2:1 he continues thus: “And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, then will I send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart.” The third verse gives a description of the awful curse that shall come upon them.
Then he goes back to the history of Levi to get his ideal for the priest, when the tribes were set apart in the great covenant on Mount Sinai: “My covenant was with him of life and peace; I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many away from iniquity.”
Then he gives his reasons for the statement: “For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge.” The role of the priest was to teach and from the very beginning of God’s institution of his religion, he required a whole tribe to be set apart as teachers and administrators of the law. God recognized the fact that human nature must have teachers provided for their instruction. “They should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.” But by way of contrast to what Levi did at one time and what he does now, look at Mal 2:8-9 , “But ye are departed out of the way; you have caused many to stumble in the law.” They had wilfully perverted it or misinterpreted or misapplied it. “Ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith Jehovah of hosts. Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have had respect of persons in the law.” And God Almighty will make every priest and every preacher of his people contemptible and base in the eyes of the people, if they do with his gospel as the priests did with his Law.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the historical setting of this book?
2. What is the political condition of the people at this time?
3. What is the economic condition?
4. What is the social condition?
5. What is the religious condition?
6. What two Jewish parties began to spring up about this time?
7. What are the chapter divisions in the different versions, what in the Hebrew and how do these arrangements fit the subject matter?
8. What of the author and his name?
9. What is the date of the book and what were the difficulties in connection with it?
10. What is the general character of the book?
11. Give the outline of the book.
12. What is Malachi’s method?
13. What was Malachi’s fundamental affirmation and what was their reply?
14. What was the attitude of the people as indicated by the sevenfold “wherein” and where do they occur in the book?
15. What was God’s reply to their question, what was the meaning and what is the New Testament use of this statement?
16. What was Malachi’s first accusation, against whom was it made, what commandment referred to in this accusation, and what their reply?
17. What were his charges against the priests?
18. What were the threats against the priests for this failure in duty and what was Malachi’s ideal for the priests?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Mal 1:1 The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.
Ver. 1. The burden ] That is, the burdenous prophecy (as Tremellius renders it): a burden, as, 1. Enjoined and imposed upon the prophet to utter, to cry aloud and not spare, to lift up his voice as a trumpet, &c., straining every vein in his heart to do it; declaiming lustily against sin and sinners, and proclaiming hell-fire for them in case they amend not. This is a business of some burden, onus ipsis etiam Angelis tremendum. This was typified in the staffrings that were made to continue upon the ark; the Kohathites’ shoulders felt wherefore. If God had not helped those Levites they could never have borne the ark, 1Ch 15:26 . St Paul was very sensible of the ministerial burden rolling upon him daily, 2Co 11:28 . And Latimer leaped when lighted of his bishopric. 2. As burdening the people with their sins, and breathing out threatenings for the same; for sin (how lightly soever accounted of) hales hell at the heels of it, and procures Divine vengeance, which is a burden unsupportable. It brake the angels’ backs, and made the Son of God groan piteously then when he “bare our sins in his body on the tree,” 1Pe 2:24 . His soul was heavy therewith even to death; and had he not had the better shoulders, had not God laid help on one that was mighty (even the mighty strong God, as he is styled, Isa 6:6 ), he had fainted and failed under his burden. David complains that his sins were gone over his head, and, like a sore burden, were too heavy for him to bear, Psa 38:4 . That which comforted him was, that no sooner he had said Peccavi, I have sinned, but the prophet Nathan said, Transtulit Deus peccatum tuum, 2Sa 12:13 , God hath translated thy sin upon Christ, hath caused thy sin to pass over to him, and (as it were) by a writ of removal, hath cast thy burden upon his shoulders. And this incomparable mercy David afterwards celebrateth, Psa 32:4-5 “For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me”; the guilt of sin and sense of wrath quelled him and killed him almost; for his natural moisture was turned into drought of summer; he was turned into a very skeleton, or a bag of bones, a bottle of smoke, woefully wanzed he was, and wasted. But for remedy, “I acknowledged my sin unto thee,” I fled by faith to the true scape goat, Christ Jesus, on whom was laid as a burden the iniquity of us all, Isa 53:6 Rom 5:8 , and thou presently forgavest the iniquity of my sin, that is, the guilt of it, that till then lay like a load upon my conscience, and, as an obligation, bound me over to condign punishment. Cain, for want of this comfort, ran roaring up and down, my sin, that is, my punishment “is greater than I can bear,” Gen 4:13 . And a far better man than Cain (even holy Job, with whom God was but in jest, as it were) cries out that his calamity was “heavier than the sand of the sea,” Job 6:3 , and that “yet his stroke was heavier than his groaning,” Job 23:2 . Those that have ever felt the masery of a laden conscience can tell what an evil and bitter thing sin is, Jer 2:19 . Those that now run away with it, and make as light of it as Samson did of the gate of Gaza, shall one day groan out, woe and alas, when God shall set himself to load them with tortures in hell who do now load him with their sins, and weary him out with their iniquities, Isa 43:24 . For prevention, oh that they would be persuaded to believe the prophets, that their souls might prosper; to be sensible of sin’s burden, that Christ might ease them; to take upon them his burden, which is onus sine onere, and would be no more burden to them than the wings are to the bird, whereby he is borne aloft; that they would imitate porters, who being called and offered money to bear a burden, will poise it and weigh it in their hands first, which when they see they are not able to stand under, no gain will entice them to undertake it. Do we provoke the Lord to anger? are we stronger than he? Is it not a fearful thing to fall into the punishing hands of the living God? Heb 10:31 . Is the wrath of a king as the roaring of a lion, as the messengers of death? surely they that tremble not in hearing shall be crushed in pieces in feeling, as that martyr (Bradford) said, and let all those scoffers that make children’s play of God’s dreadful menaces, (as St Peter’s word , 2Pe 3:3 , importeth), that, leviathan-like, esteem God’s iron as straw, Job 41:27 ; that read his prophetic burdens as they do the old stories of foreign wars, or as they behold the wounds and blood in picture or piece of arras, a which never makes them smart or fear; let all these, I say, read and ruminate that flaming place, Jer 23:33 ; Jer 23:37 , and let them know, that if they belong to God he will cripple their iron sinews by the sense of their many and massy or bony sins, Amo 5:12 . As if otherwise, he will fall upon them with his full weight, and grind them to powder, Mat 21:24 . Cavete; cavebitis autem si pavebitis. Beware, you shall beware if you are terrified.
To Israel
By Malachi
By Malachi
a A rich tapestry fabric, in which figures and scenes are woven in colours. D
b Improper use of words; application of a term to a thing which it does not properly denote; abuse or perversion of a trope or metaphor. D
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mal 1:1
1The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi.
Mal 1:1 The oracle The word means utterance or oracle (BDB III, cf. 2Ki 9:25; 2Ch 24:27; Isa 13:1; Isa 15:1; Isa 17:1; Isa 19:1; Isa 21:1; Isa 21:11; Isa 22:1; Isa 23:1; Isa 30:6; Nah 1:1; Hab 1:1; Mal 1:1). It can also mean burden or donkey’s load (BDB 672 II). The basic concept is that which is lifted (BDB 672 I). Therefore, it cold represent
1. the voice lifted to speak
2. the emotional release of giving God’s message
3. the difficult message to give to God’s people
the LORD There are several titles for God listed in this chapter: (1) the LORD equals YHWH, which is the covenant name for God, Mal 1:1; (2) Father, Mal 1:6; (3) Adonai, which means master or lord, Mal 1:6; (4) the LORD of Hosts, which means commander of the army of heaven, Mal 1:4; Mal 1:6; Mal 1:8-11; Mal 1:13-14, etc. This term is used 24 times in 55 verses. It is the characteristic title for God in the post-Exilic period. It is possibly related to the Persian title for Ahura Mazda. (5) the King, Mal 1:14 (cf. 1Sa 8:7). See Special Topic: NAMES FOR DEITY .
to Israel This refers to the children of Jacob who was renamed Israel (cf. Gen 32:28; Gen 35:10). The meaning of the name is uncertain. See Special Topic: Israel (the name) . This title was previously used for the northern ten tribes, but after the Babylonian Exile it again became the title for the united nation.
Malachi See Introduction.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
burden. See note on Isa 13:1; and compare Zec 9:1; Zec 12:1, &c.
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
to. Not “concerning”.
by = by the hand of.
Malachi. Hebrew = My messenger, relating to the five messengers in this book: see App-10. Malachi himself (Mal 1:1); (2) the true Priest (Mal 2:7); (3) John the Baptist (Mal 3:1 -); (4) the Messiah Himself (Mal 3:1-3); (5) Elijah (Mal 4:5). This last prophecy introduces the great fulfilment of Jehovah’s prophecy by Moses, the first prophet to Israel, in Deu 18:15-19. Compare Act 3:18-26; Act 7:37.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Now let’s turn to Malachi, the final word of God in the Old Testament period. God’s final message before the coming of Jesus Christ.
Who Malachi was, where he came from, we know nothing. Some believe that the name of Malachi was just an assumed name, not the true name of the writer. But there is no real evidence to back up that belief. But the name Malachi… remember this morning I told you there were meanings in the names. That they just didn’t name a child any name out of the dictionary, but they looked for the meaning of a name, and they named the child for the meaning of the name. Malachi means “my messenger.” So Malachi was God’s messenger, the last messenger of the Old Testament period. He doesn’t give any background concerning himself as some of the other minor prophets do, telling you where they came from and who their fathers were. It just is,
The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi ( Mal 1:1 ).
So that’s your introduction to the book. Declaring the author and to whom the book is sent. Malachi, but the author, really, it’s the word of the Lord. The messenger, Malachi, and the people addressed, Israel.
What is God’s first word of the final word?
I have loved you ( Mal 1:2 ),
What a glorious thing for God to say to a person, “I have loved you.” Now that isn’t a past tense. That is past and present, “I continue to love you. I have loved you.” God’s love never ceases. “I have loved you,”
saith the LORD ( Mal 1:2 ).
But Israel in their cold spiritual condition responds,
Wherein have you loved us? ( Mal 1:2 )
Rather than responding in warmth to God, there is the challenge of that love. Now many people today still are guilty of challenging God’s love. So many times a statement is begun with the words, “If God loves me then why…” Oftentimes the circumstances of my life, which seem to be very difficult or adverse, cause me, at times, to challenge God’s love.
Now you find that today in Israel there is a tremendous challenge to this statement by the people. If you would go over there today and proclaim to the people in Israel, “God loves the people of Israel,” ninety percent of them would say, “If God loves the Jew then how come six million of them were killed by Hitler?” I’ve had them say to me, “We don’t need that kind of love.” But God declares, “I have loved you, saith the Lord.”
We think of love as some weak kind of thing that just is totally indulgent. But the Bible tells us that if you as a parent totally indulge your child, if you do not correct your child, you really aren’t demonstrating love for that child, but you hate your child. The failure for you as a parent to discipline your child is not a sign of love, but a disregard, of hatred. God, because He loves us, disciplines us. “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.” But we’re so used to thinking of love in the sickly sweet Hollywood sentimentality of the full moon and the beach in Hawaii and the guitars in the background and the waves gently coming up on the sand, you know. This whole kind of scene. That we don’t understand the nature of true love and of real love. That’s Hollywood. True love is strong, strong enough to rebuke when rebuke is necessary, strong enough to chasten when chastening is for the best good. Oftentimes chastening is necessary for our best good.
A child left to himself will bring reproach to his parents, according to the scripture. Because we love our children, we chasten them. Because we’re concerned in their well-being and in their safety. We just, when they run out in the street, we just don’t take a very haphazard attitude towards it, and say, “Oh, look he’s playing in the street. Isn’t that cute?” But we discipline the child. We tell them the dangers of playing in the street. We run out and we grab hold of them, and we get them out of the street, and we warn them of the dangers. If they continue and persist to go in the street, then we spank them to keep them out of the street. Because we know the danger that exists if they walk off the curb and into the street, and because we love them and are concerned in their well-being, we take that necessary step in the strength of discipline and we stop them.
So God in His love for us has that strength of love that brings discipline when we are doing those self-destructive acts. Now oftentimes it is during the discipline that we challenge the love of God. “If God loves me, then why is this happening to me?” It’s happening to you because He does love you, and He’s averting some tragedy down the road. You should be thankful. “Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth.”
So there was the challenge, “Wherein does God love us?” God answers that challenge by pointing out the fact that He chose Jacob over Esau. Now they were twin brothers, and Esau was the elder. According to tradition, the blessings should have gone to Esau. The birthright should’ve gone to Esau. Though they were twins, because he was born first, the right of the birthright was his, and the blessing was his. But God reversed things. God gave to Jacob the birthright and the blessing and the promise. Being descendants of Jacob rather than Esau was the proof of God’s love for Israel.
Now both the descendants of Esau and Jacob were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and carried away as captives to Babylon. However, the prophecy here is that Esau will go there endeavoring will not be rebuilt, or Edom will not be rebuilt, the descendants of Esau. Though they are trying, their area is going to be wasted and desolate, and they’re not gonna make it. They’re not gonna recover. Whereas God is going to recover Jacob and Israel in the land.
Were they not brothers? the LORD said: and yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau ( Mal 1:2-3 ),
Now a lot of times people get hung up on this idea of God saying He hated somebody. Actually, it is a term that means love in a lesser degree. “I loved Jacob, but I loved Esau in a lesser degree.” The word “hates Esau” is a rather difficult translation.
but I laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever ( Mal 1:3-4 ).
So the Edomites were to be destroyed. God was going to cast them down, though they tried to repatriate and recover, they were unable to do so. The Edomites were lost from history. Herod was the last of the Edomites, the king Herod. Then from there, their ethnic identity is lost in history.
The Lord said,
Your eyes see, and ye shall say, The LORD will be magnified from the border of Israel ( Mal 1:5 ).
From the border of Edom, the border of wickedness, it’ll be desolation. But God will be magnified from the border of Israel.
Now the Lord brings out here an interesting thing. He says,
A son honors his father, and a servant his master: if then I am your father, where is my honor? and if I be a master, where is my reverence? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And you say, Wherein have we despised his name? ( Mal 1:5-6 )
So God says, “Look, a father receives honor from his son. In fact, under the law it says, ‘Honor your father and your mother.’ And the master receives reverence and respect from his slaves.” God is saying, “Look, if I’m your Father, then where is the honor that you should be giving Me? If I am your Master, then why aren’t you respecting or reverencing Me?”
Then the Lord speaks out about the priesthood. He said,
O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Where have we despised your name? [God said] In that you have offered polluted bread upon my altar; and you say, Where have we polluted thee? [God said] In that you say, The table of the LORD is contemptible. And ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? offer it to your governor; and see how he thinks about it ( Mal 1:6-8 ).
God said, “You wouldn’t offer that kind of lame sick stuff to your governor, and yet, you offer it to Me.” It’s amazing how many times God gets the castoffs. You know, “I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t want to send it to the dump. I’ll just give it to the church.” The castoffs.
We had the ugliest rocking chair in our church parsonage in Tucson. It was double ugly. So we were talking with some of the members of the church about how we planned to get some new furniture in the parsonage, and we were gonna get rid of the rocking chair. “Oh no, no. You can’t get rid of the rocking chair.” We said, “Why not?” He said, “Well, that’s our rocking chair; we gave it to the church.” We said, “But we won’t have room for it when our new furniture arrives. We’ll bring it back to your house.” “Oh no, we don’t want it.” But it had some sentimental value to them. But they really didn’t want it themselves, so the church becomes a storage place. And we’ve got to have that dumb, ugly rocking chair in our living room, because they don’t know what to do with it. Giving God the castoffs.
God speaks of His disdain for it, “Offering Me polluted offerings, offering Me the lambs that are sick, the lambs that are lame, the lambs that are blind, maim.” “Can’t do anything else with it, give it to God; use it for sacrifice.” When God in the law said that they were to offer the firstfruits. When they offered a lamb, that was to be without spot or blemish. They were to offer, really, unto God the sacrifices that were the best that they had.
I read of a man who had an old upright piano in his home, and he loved playing the piano. So he went out and bought himself a beautiful Steinway, a baby grand. He didn’t know what to do with the old upright piano, and so he decided, “Well, I’ll give it to the church.” He called the pastor, and said, “I have a piano I want to donate to the church.” The guy said, “Fine.” You know, and the Lord began to speak to him. He said, “You’re gonna give that old rickety worn out upright to Me and you’re keeping for yourself that Steinway?” God really began to nail this guy. So when the van came to pick up the piano, guess which one went on the van? The Steinway, and he kept his old upright. He just couldn’t give to God the castoff. Yet, how many times we pollute our gifts by giving to God the castoffs. When God requires the first and the best of our lives.
God said, “Will the governor be pleased? Will he accept the person for that sick lame sacrifice he’s trying to offer? Of course not.”
Now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us: this has been by your means: will he regard your persons? saith the LORD of hosts ( Mal 1:9 ).
“If the governor won’t regard you for that sacrifice, do you think that I should regard you and be pleased?”
Then the Lord said,
Who is there among you that would shut the doors [for nothing] for nought? neither do you kindle a fire on my altar for nought ( Mal 1:10 ).
Now there are some who have interpreted this as a professional priesthood. In other words, they don’t just give their service to God, but they want pay for their service to God. However, that is not evidently what the Hebrew implies. God is saying actually, “I would just as soon that someone would close the doors of the temple so that you wouldn’t offer Me any more of these sacrifices that are nothing. Don’t bother coming. If that’s all you have to offer, forget it. I just wish that someone would close the doors of the temple so they wouldn’t be offering Me anymore of this junk. I can do without it.” Is the idea behind the Hebrew text.
I have no pleasure [God said] in you ( Mal 1:10 ),
He said, “These things don’t please Me. I don’t have any pleasure in your junk.”
neither will I accept the offering from you ( Mal 1:10 ).
Now, it should be of great concern to each of us when we consider the benefits of being a child of God, when we consider all that God has done for us. It should be a primary concern to us even as it was to the psalmist in Psa 116:1-19 , when he said, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all of His benefits unto me?” When I think of all of the blessings and the benefits that God has bestowed on my life, the question, “What can I give to God?” Well, what can I give to God that He needs? He doesn’t need anything that I have. You know what the psalmist finally came up with? He said, “I will just take His cup of salvation, and call upon His name.” I don’t know what to give to God. I’ll just receive that which He wants to give to me. I’ll take the cup of salvation, and I’ll just call upon His name. Because you see, I really don’t have anything of value that I can give to God that He really needs.
I read of a mission out in New Mexico where they were ministering to the Indians out there on the reservation. This one old Indian came into the meeting, and he was really touched. His heart was touched by God. So when they passed the offering plate, when they came to him, he told the usher, “Put it down lower.” The usher put it down with a quizzical look, and he said, “Lower yet.” He put it down lower yet, and he said, “Lower yet!” And finally he put the offering plate on the floor. The old Indian stepped in it, he said, “It’s all I have!” Giving himself. But you know, as far as God is concerned, that’s all He wants. What better gift can you give to God than just giving yourself to Him? Giving God your life. Take the cup of salvation; call upon the name of the Lord.
Now the Lord speaks concerning the Gentiles. The priesthood has been more or less corrupted.
For from the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the LORD of hosts ( Mal 1:11 ).
So that promise which is yet future in the Kingdom Age, when Jesus shall reign, where ere the sun doth her successive journeys run. When every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. When Psa 2:1-12 is fulfilled and the Father has said to His Son, “Ask of Me, and I will give you the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy dwelling place.” When that glorious day has come, “From the rising of the sun, even to the going down thereof, the name of the Lord shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered unto My name, a pure offering.”
Now we are told in the book of Revelation, chapter 5, that when Jesus takes the scroll out of the right hand of Him who is sitting upon the throne, that the twenty-four elders come forth with little golden bowls filled with incense that they offer before the throne of God. The Bible tells us that the incense is the prayer of the saints.
Now the offering of incense is a symbolic act. The sweet savor, the sweet savory smell going up is a symbolic act. We were talking Thursday night of the danger of taking the symbol and replacing the symbol, or using the symbol to replace the reality. How this is so commonly done in religious realm, where you take a ritual that began as a symbol and soon you place a greater emphasis upon the ritual than you do the reality. And you forget the reality, and it’s all, your trust is just in the ritual itself. The offering of incense was a ritual symbolic act, for the prayers were to represent… or the incense was to represent the prayers of God’s people that ascends up to God as a sweet smelling savor before the Lord. How God enjoys the prayers of His people. So in the book of Revelation, the incense, these little golden vials full of incense, odors, which are the prayers, it says, of the saints. So that offering of incense, the pure offering is actually the prayers that are offered up to God from around the world from the hearts of His people in every language.
Now God says concerning the Gentiles, “They will be offering up of these sacrifices; My name shall be great.”
But [He said] you have profaned it ( Mal 1:12 ),
That is, you’ve profaned the name of God, the name of the Lord.
in that you say, The table of the LORD is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible ( Mal 1:12 ).
Now, they had begun to take a very bad attitude towards their service to God, and their worship of God. It had become a labor. It had become a burden to them. It is tragic when people are serving God out of a sense of obligation or pressure, or giving to God out of the sense of pressure. It, to me, is tragic that churches use pressure tactics to get people to make their pledges for the year. They use that old psychology of sending two or three important people from the church to your home to sit down and to discuss with you what will be your pledge for the church for this next year. Of course, you don’t want to look like a skinflint, and these people are important people, and you want to look good to them. And so while they’re there, you are more or less coerced into making a pledge that is really more than you intended to give, but you just want to look good in the eyes of the people. But then each month as you get your little dun from the church saying your pledge is due, you get angry and you write out that check, and your name has a little cross on the “t”, you know, that indicates that, “I don’t like this, but I made the promise.” You’re actually resenting what you give to God, and that’s terrible. You’d be better off by far not to give to God at all than to actually resent.
God doesn’t want you to resent anything. That’s why Paul the apostle in the New Testament said, “Let every man as he has purposed in his own heart set aside that portion that he wants to give to God” ( 2Co 9:7 ). For your giving should never be out of constraint. It should never be through pressure, for God loves a cheerful, and the word in the Greek is hilarious giver. Now whatever you can give to God hilariously, give. What you can’t give to God hilariously, keep. Don’t pollute. God says, “You polluted the whole thing.” Why? Because of the attitude of your heart when you’re giving to God, your attitude of that is contemptible. “Oh, I’ve got to do that again.” None of my giving to God should ever create within me a contempt. If it is, then I shouldn’t be doing it. God loves a cheerful, hilarious giver.
You said, O what a weariness it is! ( Mal 1:13 )
“Oh, do we have to go to church again tonight? Oh no! There’s a neat program coming on T.V. and I’ve got to watch it. If I’m not there, they’re going to be calling me. I don’t want them to call me. I can’t stand it.” “Weariness to Me!” Oh, what a sad, sad state of spiritual affairs when the things of God become worrisome. Tragic.
My wife always gets after me, because even on vacation I can’t stop ministering. Going to Hawaii next month for a vacation, but we’ll be ministering in Honolulu for Bill Stonebreaker while we’re there. But I love it. You know, it’s not wearisome to me. She would like to be with me more. In fact, she told me tonight to pray about spending more time with her. I’m praying about it. The ministers’ wives are many times the unspoken heroes of this whole warfare. We talk about the sacrifices a minister has to make, but the wife also makes many sacrifices. I thank God for the sacrifices that Kay has made, and the reflection of those sacrifices in the lives of our children. Because I was gone so much, a great part of the burden of giving to the children that security, in word and love and all within the home, fell upon her. She made it a point to never allow the children to come home to an empty house. Always to be there whenever they came home from school, and we thank God for the blessed fruit that we have now from those sacrifices that she made while we were engaged in the work of the Lord.
But if serving God ever becomes weariness to you, then it’s time to get out, time to do something else. Surely you should not be inflicting yourself upon others, if you yourself have become weary doing the work of the Lord. You say, “Oh, what weariness it is!”
and you’ve snuffed at it, and you’ve brought that which was torn, that which was lame, that which was sick; thus you brought an offering: and should I accept it? saith the LORD. But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and vows, and sacrifices unto the Lord a corrupt thing ( Mal 1:13-14 ):
God pronounces a curse upon that man that would make a promise to God and then substitute on it, and give God, sacrifice something that which is corrupted.
for I am a great King, saith the LORD of hosts, and my name is awesome among the heathen ( Mal 1:14 ).
“
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Mal 1:1
Malachi begins with the prophets usual claim to inspiration, the burden of the word of Jehovah. The message is to Israel.
The term Israel appears four times in Malachi. (Mal 1:1; Mal 1:5; Mal 2:16, and Mal 4:4) There can be little doubt that its use in this Context is designed to underscore the covenant relationship of the people to Jehovah. (See comments on Mic 1:5)
The message will first convince, then comfort; first discover sin, then reprove it. It will reach its climax in the promise of Him Who is to take away sin.
Zerr: Mal 1:1. Burden means an important message or saying, and the Lord had something of that character to say to the people of Israel. Malachi was the last of the Old Testament prophets and wrote about four centuries before Christ. This would place him not long after the work of re construction following the return from the captivity. The people of Israel never worshiped idols after the return, but they often were careless about their duty to God and became selfish in their desires.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
After the introductory word, which really constitutes the title page of the prophecy, the message begins almost abruptly with the tender and sensitive word of Jehovah to His people, “I have loved you.” This is the real burden of the prophecy; everything is to be viewed in the light thereof.
Then the prophet, in an equally brief sentence, indicated the attitude of the people toward Jehovah. “Wherein hast Thou loved us?” The only possible explanation of such a question is that the people, conscious of the difference between their national position and their past greatness, and of the apparent failure of fuL6lment of the prophetic promises, questioned the love of Jehovah. This skeptical question the prophet answered by reminding them of Jehovah’s love for Jacob and His hatred of Esau; of His destruction of Edom, and His deliverance of Israel.
Having thus made his fundamental statement, the prophet proceeded to utter his formal accusations. These fall into three groups, those against the priests, those against the people, and those against the nation in general.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Sincerity of Worship Sought
Mal 1:1-14
The love referred to in these opening Mal 1:1-5, was exemplified in the divine choice, that through Israel the whole world might be blessed. Hate does not mean positive dislike but a forfeiture of the supreme place of privilege and ministry. Esaus sensuous nature preferred the mess of pottage to the birthright, and this was characteristic of his people. In Mal 1:6-14 the prophet turns to the priests. They despised Gods name and without scruple offered on his altar the lame, the blind, and the sick. They did not hesitate to speak of the routine of Levitical service as a weariness. Notice the pathetic appeal of Mal 1:10, r.v., Oh that there were one to shut the doors of my house, that ye might not offer vain sacrifices! In contrast to this indifference, the truly marvelous outlook in Mal 1:11 is very significant. Far away from Jewish altars, Gods name was revered in Gentile lands, and sacrifices were offered which He accepted. The words remind us of Act 10:34-35.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Notes on the Prophecy of Malachi
Chapter 1
The Failed Remnant
We know nothing whatever of the writer of this book. His name, Malachi, meaning My messenger, occurs in verse 1; but we read of him nowhere else in Scripture, and we get no particulars concerning him here. He was the last of the prophetic band, and his book appropriately closes the Old Testament canon. Till the advent of John the Baptist, of whose coming he prophesied, no other messenger was directly sent to Judah from God.
The conditions he describes fit in well with what is recorded of the state of the returned remnant in the latter period of Nehemiahs governorship. So it is quite likely that he lived and ministered the word of Jehovah either during that time, or a little later.
The divisions are not very pronounced. In this first chapter, and going on to the 9th verse of the next, the prophet gives a message to the priests, while the balance of the book is addressed to the people, but includes more than the remnant, and really amounts to an indictment of all Judah. Chapters 3 and 4 tell of the coming of the day of the Lord, to be preceded by the one who, like Malachi himself, will in a distinctive sense bear the title of My messenger.
A striking feature of the prophecy is the eightfold controversy of Jehovah with His people. Notice chapter 1, verses 2, 6 and 7; chapter 2, verses 14 and 17; chapter 3, verses 7, 8, and 13. Again and again they are solemnly charged with gravest departure in heart from the Lord whom they outwardly professed to serve, and each time with brazen effrontery, they dare to contradict Gods testimony to their state, ask for proofs, and manifest an utterly calloused conscience.
All this has a voice of exceeding seriousness for us, particularly if in any measure we seek to take the ground they did. Almost at the end of a dispensation, there had been an outward return to God and to His word; but there was not a corresponding subjective state. They became occupied rather with place and position than with vital godliness. As a result, we have the gross Phariseeism of our Lords day, which was simply the outgrowth of the conditions described by Malachi.
Sad as Judahs state had become, it is of love, not of judgment, that the opening chapters treat. I have loved you, saith the Lord. What could be more tender, more calculated to touch the hearts of His people, if indeed they had any heart left, and were not altogether hardened and unconcerned! Unchanging was that mighty love of His, whatever the perversity of their ways. Yet, with supreme contempt, they impudently retort, Wherein hast Thou loved us? They looked for temporal prosperity and worldly glory as the proof of His love. Bereft of both, they called His affection in question, utterly ignoring the prolonged course of carelessness and infidelity to Himself, for which He had chastened them. Patiently He deigns to reply to their caviling query: Was not Esau Jacobs brother? saith the Lord; yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau. And He goes on to picture the desolations of Edom, and to declare that they shall never be retrieved, for the seed of Esau are the people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever. On the other hand, though Israels blessing seem to tarry, it shall surely come at last, so that all nations shall confess, The Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel (vers. 1-5).
It is His dealings with Jacob and Esau after long centuries had shown what they really were that are referred to. The phrase, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated, is quoted triumphantly by the apostle in Rom 9:13 to prove the wisdom of Gods choice made before the children were born, when He said, The elder shall serve the younger. Carefully observe, there is no hyper-Calvinistic question here of reprobation for hell and predestination for heaven. It is Jehovahs inalienable right to dispose of His creatures as He will, that the apostle is contending for; and He manifests with holy joy that He wills to show mercy to those who deserved only wrath. Jacob and Esau are cited as illustrations. Before either was born, God chose Jacob to be superior to Esau, nationally. The elder was to serve the younger, and thus own the superiority of Gods choice. Then, when the whole Old Testament history had come to a close, He sums up all, and says, I have loved Jacob, and hated Esau. The grace which took the poor heel-catcher up at first, was shown to his seed to the very end.
But what return had He received from Israel for all this? It is clear duty for a son to honor his father, and a servant his master; but what honor had He received as a Father, or what reverence as a Master? Even the very priests in the newly-restored temple despised His name. But when the charge is brought, they superciliously inquire, Wherein have we despised Thy name? (ver. 6).
Solemnly He brings their sins before them, declaring that polluted bread was offered on His altar, thus failing to own His holiness, and ignoring His claims. Again they are ready to answer back, ere the reply to their former question is complete, asking, Wherein have we polluted Thee? On His part there is amazing patience and grace; on theirs, almost incomprehensible insensibility and levity. They practically said, The table of Jehovah is contemptible; for they offered the blind, the lame and the sick to Him in sacrifice, and kept the best for themselves. Would they dare to so act toward their governor, or any other earthly ruler? Yet He, the great King, they could treat in a manner so unbecoming. But He pleads with them to repent, and cry to Him for that grace they were ignoring, yet needed so much. Covetousness was the root-sin that was leading them daily farther astray. The priests would not so much as shut the temple doors save for wages, nor kindle the altar-fire except for gain. True love for Himself was lacking, and their holy office had been prostituted to a mere worldly profession, and used as a means of enrichment. Because of this, He could have no pleasure in them, nor accept an offering at their hands (vers. 9, 10).
It seems almost unnecessary to attempt to draw attention to the similar state prevailing in so many places at the present time. Is it not patent to even the least spiritual that worldliness and covetousness are the characteristic features in the professing Church, and godliness and true devotion the exceptions?
Even where there has been a measure of revival and return to what is written in the word of God, the same evil principles have crept in insidiously, and are doing their deadly work in many quarters. Nothing but a spirit of prayerfulness, coupled with careful watchfulness, will keep any from being carried away by the unholy current.
But it is blessed to know that, whatever the present failure, God shall yet be fully glorified; so we read, From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, My name shall be great among the nations; and in every place incense shall be offered unto My name, and a pure offering: for My name shall be great among the nations, saith the Lord of hosts (ver. 11). It is hardly the present work of grace among the Gentiles that is here contemplated, but rather that wonderful era of blessing which is still in the future-the times of restitution of all things spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the ages began. Then shall Jehovahs name be honored and His word obeyed throughout the whole earth, when all nations shall bask in the sunshine of His favor.
In the next verse the prophet reverts to the serious charge made above. Judah profaned the table of the Lord, characterizing it as a thing polluted, and its meat contemptible. They declared it a weariness to attend upon its service, and made light of what should have been both sacred and precious. Their wretched thoughts were manifested by the unsuitable offerings they brought, which He would not accept, but, instead, invoked a curse upon the deceiver who brought Him that which was corrupt, while keeping the better for himself. Was it thus they would treat the King of kings, whose name was to be reverenced among the heathen? (vers. 13, 14). They who had known so much of His power and grace had proven altogether unworthy of His love. But the nations who had been passed by during the time of Israels special favor were yet to bow at His feet and own His greatness and glory.
They who have never learned the distinctive character of the Spirits work in this dispensation invariably apply such passages to the present outgoing of the gospel to the Gentiles; but while they may indeed, and do, prove that the call of the nations now is not out of harmony with the scriptures of the prophets, all these promises will have their complete and literal fulfilment in the Millennium. We wait in faith for brighter and more glorious hopes to be consummated.
Let shame be upon us if our state be in any wise like that depicted in the solemn chapter we have thus briefly gone over!
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Mal 1:2-3
I. There is no impiety in this inquiry. Granted that God may prefer whom He will; that it is for Him, if it please Him and as it please Him, to put one man before another; yet, if in so doing He allows the reason to appear, there is nothing wrong; nay, rather it is our duty to mark that reason, for it helps to confirm us in our conviction that the Judge of the world will always do right. Now, in the case of Jacob, that reason is not far to seek. There was one quality in him which Esau had not, that must, we believe, have recommended him to God’s favour, and that was religion. Jacob, with all his faults, was a religious man. Esau, with much in him that attracts us, was not a religious man.
II. To Esau the present was everything. So that he had abundance of this world’s goods, plenty of corn and wine, he was content to forego the hope of the future. We see this stamped on all he did and on all that is written of him in the Bible. He was open-hearted and open-handed, and these are qualities we all admire and ought to admire. But the one thing most needed was wanting in him. He had no religion-no love, no fear of God, no reverence for things holy; he gave no sign by anything that he did that he believed in a life to come. With Jacob it was quite otherwise. With him the future, and not the present, had the most weight. God was continually in his thoughts: he depended on God, and loved to ask counsel of God; and did not feel that he was sufficient of himself, but that his sufficiency was of God. And this piety will account for the preference accorded to him in Scripture over Esau.
R. D. B. Rawnsley, Sermons in Country Churches, p. 64.
The character of Jacob is not presented to us as a noble, still less as a perfect, character. It is represented as a character which in spite of many stains and apparently habitual weakness God in His wisdom saw fit to bless and to adapt for His own purposes.
I. What, then, was the difference between the brothers? It amounts in substance to this: Jacob, with all his faults was a religious man. He did believe in God. He did believe that his life was to be a life of obedience to God. He did believe that the God of his fathers had called him, even him, to be His servant and His witness. Even his ungenerous and dishonest efforts to obtain the birthright prove that he at least attached a meaning and a value to these privileges. He believed in something and some Person beyond and above himself.
II. Thus, then, we have two men brought before us for our instruction. The one has much that is attractive, much that commands our sympathies, if not our respect; and yet he has nothing in him on which the Spirit of God can fasten so as to make him a blessing to the world. On the other hand, we have a man subtle and self-seeking, capable of offences which seem most removed from the noble character, and yet he communes with God. He rests upon God. He asks God’s guidance. He believes in God’s calling and God’s providence; probably he confesses to God with shame and sorrow the sins by which he seems to the outward eye to have thriven. Surely you do not deliberately doubt as to which of these brothers was in the main right, and which was in the main wrong. Learn from the text that you must come to fear and think of God. You cannot, you dare not, live a life of mere animal enjoyment, however innocent it may seem to you to be. You dare not subject yourself to that solemn sentence: “I hated Esau; I could not make of him a chosen vessel for speeding the coming of My kingdom.”
H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, 2nd series, p. 12.
References: Mal 1:3.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 526. Mal 1:6.-W. Braden, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 152. Mal 1:8.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 263. Mal 1:11.-H. D. Rawnsley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxii., p. 358; J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. x., p. 89. Mal 1:13.-J. Norton, Golden Truths, p. 455. Mal 1:13.-R. W. Evans, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii., p. 315. Mal 2:1.-J. Hiles Hitchens, Christian World Pulpit, vol. v., p. 363.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
Analysis and Annotations
1. Jehovahs Love for His People
CHAPTER 1:1-5
The message of Malachi begins with the sublime statement, I have loved you, saith Jehovah. It is the message to Israel. This love is written large on every page of their history. A former prophet gave the message from the Lord, You only have I known of all the families of the earth Amo 3:2. And long before that Moses had told them, Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day Deu 10:15. And the man of God in his final utterance burst out in praise, Yea, He loved the people Deu 33:3. And this generation, brought back through His mercy from Babylon, the generation that had listened to the marvelous words of Haggai and Zechariah, could brazenly answer back, Wherein hast Thou loved us? How deep they had sunk! Greater still is the insensibility of nominal Christendom which rejects, yea, despises, the great love wherewith He has loved us in the gift of His Son.
Then the Lord in infinite patience answered them, Was not Esau Jacobs brother? saith Jehovah: yet I loved Jacob, and hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. This takes us back to Genesis, but in vain do we look for this statement in that first book of the Bible. Though it is quoted also in Rom 9:1-33, it is nowhere to be found in connection with the story of the birth of the twins. The late scholar, William Kelly, has expressed the whole matter so well that we can do nothing better than to quote his excellent comment. It is only in Malachi that He says Esau have I hated. I could conceive nothing more dreadful than to say so in Genesis. Never does Scripture represent God as saying before the child was born and had manifested his iniquity and proud malice, Esau have I hated. There is where the mind of man is so erroneous. It is not meant, however, that Gods choice was determined by the character of the individual. This would make man the ruler rather than God. Not so; Gods choice flows out of His own wisdom and nature. It suits and is worthy of Himself; but the reprobation of any man and of every unbeliever is never a question of the sovereignty of God. It is the choice of God to do good where and how He pleases; it is never the purpose of His will to hate any man. There is no such doctrine in the Bible. I hold, therefore, that, while election is most clearly taught in the Scriptures, the consequences that men draw from election, namely, the reprobation of the non-elect, is a mere reproduction of fatalism, common to some heathen and to all Mohammedans, the unfounded deduction of mans reasoning in divine things. With these good words we agree perfectly. The hatred against Esau is mentioned in this last book, because it was well-deserved, after all the opposition and defiance of God the descendants of Esau, Edom, had manifested. But the love wherewith Jacob was loved was undeserved. His love for His people had been fully manifested, as well as His displeasure against Edom by laying his mountains and heritage waste, and all their attempts at reconstruction failed. God was against him on account of Edoms wicked ways.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
SERMON #2. THE BURDEN OF THE WORD OF THE LORD
Text:Mal 1:1
Subject:The Burden of Preaching
Date:Sunday Evening March 22, 2009
Introduction:
I am here to speak to you as Gods ambassador, as a man representing God, as one standing before you in Christs stead! I am here to talk to you about eternal matters! And what I have to say will be of eternal consequence!
Turn with me to Mal 1:1. My subject is THE BURDEN OF THE WORD OF THE LORD. Malachi, being inspired of God the Holy spirit, begins his prophecy by calling it THE BURDEN OF THE WORD OF THE LORD.
(Mal 1:1) The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.
The word burden is not used here to suggest that Gods Word is a grievous weight. It is a heavy, heavy burden; but it is not a grievous weight. It is a blessed burden, a burden of great importance and of great consequence, but a blessed burden. The Lords burden, Hawker wrote, brings with it the Lords blessing.
Still, Gods prophets of old referred to the message God gave them to deliver, as Malachi does in our text, as The burden of the Lord, or The burden of the Word of the Lord (Jer 23:33; Jeremiah 34, 36, 38; Zec 9:1; Zec 12:1). Those faithful men were not triflers. They did not run from place to place to entertain sinners on their way to hell. Gods prophets of old were men who carried a burden, as men sent of God.
As it was then, so it is now. Those men who speak as Gods ambassadors to eternity bound sinners, who dare stand and speak to immortal souls in Christs stead, have a burden to bear: The burden of the Word of the Lord. I am sometimes shocked by the levity with which men who profess to be the servants of God speak of their work. They joke about preaching, joke about their sermons, and joke about their work. Little wonder that this generation looks upon religion as a joke!
Gods prophets get their message directly from God himself, by prayer and study; and that message is weighty, so weighty that it is called The burden of the Word of the Lord. And any preacher who does not find his ministry a burden now will find it a burden hereafter, a burden that will sink him lower than the lowest hell!
Gods servants are men who take their responsibilities seriously. They do not engage themselves with society, but with study. While others play, they pray. While others seek to please men, they seek to persuade men. They are men with a message, a message that must be delivered. They are not sent into the world to tickle mens ears. Theirs is an errand of life or death to souls immortal. They have a something to say which so presses upon them, that they must say it. Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel! The Word of the Lord is as fire in their bones, consuming them. As the servants of God they must speak the things which they have seen and heard.
They have a burden to carry that is worth carrying. Their message is truth, solid truth, precious truth, divine truth, eternal truth! It is not froth and foam, phrases and poetry, cute stories and clever sayings, but the weight of matters that concern heaven and hell, time and eternity. They are men who speak with urgency and earnestness. They have to. They speak for God! They dare not speak lightly.
Gods servant, the gospel preacher is a man who bears the weight of eternal realities heaped upon him. He moves with decisiveness and speaks with firmness, as one who carries The burden of the Word of the Lord.
Do not misunderstand me. Gods servants carry the burden the Lord has put upon them willingly and cheerfully. I would not be without it or give it up for all the world. Sometimes, a preacher is tempted, when things are not going right in his eyes, to think about turning away from his work; but it is a thought not to be tolerated. Yes, we bear a burden, but we are honored to bear it.
William Carey, speaking of one of his sons, said, Poor Felix is shriveled from a missionary to an ambassador. He was at one time a missionary, a gospel preacher. When he became a government employee, an ambassador representing the British crown, his father thought it no promotion, but said, Felix has shriveled into an ambassador.
May God the Holy Spirit give me grace to preach and give you grace to hear, as I try to speak to you about The burden of the Word of the Lord. Why is the Word of the Lord a burden to his servant?
GODS WORD
First, it is a burden because it is the Word of the Lord. It is Gods Word! If what we preach is only of man, we may preach as we like, and there is no burden about it; but if this Book is divinely inspired, if Jehovah is the only God, if Jesus Christ is God incarnate, if there is no salvation except through his precious blood, then there is a great solemnity about that which the servant of God is called to preach. That makes this business of preaching a weighty matter upon the shoulders of a mere man. Modern religion is childs play. Current theology is a trifle as light as air; but the truth of God is more weighty than gold!
Gospel preachers realize that they are responsible to faithfully declare Gods Word. I am responsible to faithfully expound to you the meaning and message of Holy Scripture.
Gospel preachers understand that they must seek, must have, and must deliver Gods message to those who hear him (Isa 40:1-2; Jer 23:28). In 2 Samuel 18 we are told that Ahimaaz out ran Cushi, but he had nothing to tell. He ran without being sent!
(Jer 23:28) The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD.
Gospel preachers know that the Word of the Lord is the instrument by which God does his work among men. This Book holds the gold, silver and precious stones with which the church of God is built (1 Corinthians 3). The Gold of Christs Person! The Silver of His Atonement, of His Blood! The Precious Stones of His Accomplishments!
(Jer 23:29) “Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?”
The word of the Lord is a burden to his servant in the reception of it. I do not think that any man can ever preach the gospel aright until he has had it borne into his own soul with overwhelming energy. You cannot preach conviction of sin unless you have experienced it. You cannot preach repentance unless you have been turned to God. You cannot preach faith unless you exercise it. You may talk about these things, but there will be no power in the talk unless what is said has been experimentally proved in your own soul.
It is easy to tell when a man speaks what he has made his own, or when he merely parrots forth secondhand information. God says to his prophet, Son of man, eat this roll. You have to eat it before you can hand it out to others. True preaching is the bursting forth of a well bubbling up from the great depths of the soul. It is the outflow of that which God the Holy Spirit has put within. If Christ has not made a well within us, there will be no outflow from us.
The Word of God is a burden; in the delivery of it. It is no trifle, it no easy thing to stand before the people and deliver a message which you believe you have received from God! He that finds it easy work to preach, will find it hard work to give an account of his preaching at the last great day.
I know that most preachers lament the fact that they do not have larger congregations. They engage in denominational politics, and move from one place to another, until they have landed a church large enough and respectable enough in the eyes of men to match their own high opinions of themselves. For my part, I find that I have the responsibility of preaching to as many as I want to give an account for in the last day. Whenever the Lord God increases the area of our influence, he increases our responsibilities .
When we have preached the message, the gospel becomes a greater burden still. It is a burden in the study, a burden in the closet, a burden in the pulpit, a burden in the heart, and a burden in the life of every faithful man!
WEIGHTY MESSAGE
Second, the Word of the Lord is called The burden of the Word of the Lord because its message is a weighty message. Thou hast magnified thy Word above all thy name (Psa 138:2). The message of this Book is all about eternal realities.
The Eternal God!
His Eternal Salvation!
Eternal Life!
Eternal Heaven!
Eternal Death!
Eternal Hell!
There is a dreadful, dreadful hell
And everlasting pains,
Where sinners must with devils dwell
In darkness, fire, and chains.
It is the responsibility of your pastor, my responsibility to discover, expose, and rebuke your sin. It is the preachers responsibility, by the direction of God the Holy Spirit, to find and press hard the matter that his audience needs to hear.
Christ and the Samaritan Woman
Harry Simms at Antioch
The Point of Rebellion
The Gospel Issue at Stake Election Redemption Righteousness Regeneration Will-worship Law and Grace!
If men are offended by the truth of God, it is my responsibility to offend them.
Illustration: Bob Lipps and Limited Atonement
Every true preacher of the gospel is careless of mans esteem, and speaks Gods Word faithfully. At the place where Gods glory is at stake, at the point at which men rebel against his right to be God, there we must be found bold and faithful!
Next, the Word of the Lord, the doctrine of the gospel is shaped on purpose to bring all human pride down into the dust, to destroy the glory of man. Christ is all (1Co 1:17-31).
Every thought of Human Merit and Righteousness!
Every high thought of Intellectual Arrogance!
Every thought of Distinction among Men!
T.-U.-L.-I.-P. The offense of the cross has not ceased (Gal 5:11).
(1Co 1:17-31) For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. (18) For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. (19) For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. (20) Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? (21) For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. (22) For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: (23) But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; (24) But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. (25) Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (26) For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: (27) But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; (28) And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: (29) That no flesh should glory in his presence. (30) But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: (31) That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
WEIGHTY CONSEQUENCES
Third, when I think of the weighty, weighty consequences of preaching the gospel to you, I cannot tell you what a burden it is to carry in my soul, The burden of the Word of the Lord (Eze 3:17-21; Eze 33:7-19; 2Co 2:15-17; 2Co 3:5).
(Eze 3:17-21) Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. (18) When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. (19) Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. (20) Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand. (21) Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul.
(Eze 33:7-19) So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. (8) When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. (9) Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. (10) Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live? (11) Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? (12) Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression: as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness; neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth. (13) When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it. (14) Again, when I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; (15) If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die. (16) None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him: he hath done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live. (17) Yet the children of thy people say, The way of the Lord is not equal: but as for them, their way is not equal. (18) When the righteous turneth from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, he shall even die thereby. (19) But if the wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby.
(2Co 2:15-17) For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: (16) To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? (17) For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.
(2Co 3:5) Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
AN ACCOUNTING
Fourth, the preaching of the Gospel is called carrying the burden of the Word of the Lord all who truly preach the gospel know that there will soon be a day of accounting before God. Soon you and I must give account before God!
(Heb 13:7) Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
(Heb 13:17) Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.
Those who preach, but do not preach the gospel must give account (1Co 9:16; Eze 3:17-21; Eze 33:7-19).
Those who preach the gospel faithfully must give account to God for all who have heard their message, and all who could have heard it.
You who hear me, all who hear Gods servants, must give account before God!
Brethren, pray for the preacher; and pray for yourselves. We have to bear the burden of the Lord; but there was one, the Head of all prophets, the great Lord of all true gospel preachers, who bore a far heavier burden. He his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree. Preacher, do you ever get weary? Let us look to him as he bows beneath his cross, take up the burden of the Word of the Lord cheerfully, and follow after the Savior.
Amen.
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
burden: Isa 13:1, Hab 1:1, Zec 9:1, Zec 12:1
by: Heb. by the hand of, Hag 1:1, Hag 2:1, *marg.
Reciprocal: 1Ki 10:29 – their means 2Ki 9:25 – the Lord Jer 23:14 – Sodom Jer 23:33 – What Eze 12:10 – This
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
MALACHIS MESSAGE
The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
Mal 1:1
We may be apt to think that, because Malachi comes last in the Old Testament, he lived after the other writers. This is not so. He lived about the same time as Ezra and Nehemiah. Nehemiah wrote the last history, Malachi the last prophecy.
I. The messengerthe name means My messenger, or the Messenger of Jehovah.He was sent with Gods message to the careless and wicked Jews.
II. The message.The message began by God telling these erring people that He loved them.
III. A practical lesson.Are not some of us worse than these Jews? God says, Yet I have loved you, and given my well-beloved Son to be your Saviour!
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
UNLIKE THE PROPHETS, Haggai and Zechariah, who furnish us with dates in regard to their utterances, Malachi gives us no such details. It seems certain, however, that he wrote about a century later; hence his words reveal how little effect the ministry of these two earlier prophets had produced amongst the masses of the people in the land. As we read through the short book we shall notice that every statement the prophet has to make – usually by way of correction – is repudiated. The people and their leaders were not prepared to admit anything. They were quite self-satisfied.
Satisfied with themselves, they were dissatisfied with God. Hence when the prophet made his first assertion – ‘I have loved you, saith the Lord’ – they challenge it at once. Many troubles afflicted the Palestinian Jews in those years, which God permitted as a chastisement, because of their state: these afflictions they resented, regarding them as harshness and contrary to love. Hence they challenged the assertion, in an insolent way, asking, ‘Wherein hast Thou loved us?’
The answer of God to this was to recall them to what marked His attitude and action from the beginning. He had loved Jacob and hated Esau. Human opinion would have reversed this: Jacob stooped to crooked and crafty schemes: Esau a fine manly fellow. Yes, but the ‘birth-right’, which carried with it, we believe, the advent of the Messiah, meant so little to Esau, that he sold it for a bowl of pottage, whereas Jacob esteemed it of highest worth. Here we have perhaps the earliest forecast that ‘What think ye of Christ’ is the test.
Now God maintained His attitude of judgment against Esau, as verses Mal 1:4-5 show, and thus magnified Himself beyond the border of Israel’ (New Trans.). But, on the contrary, Israel had been brought into relationship with God, who in regard to them had taken a father’s place, as verse Mal 1:6 shows. Love had established this relationship. How had they acted as to it?
To them God was both Father and Master. Both honour and fear should have been His, and yet the very priests had despised His name. They should have been the very first to have revered His name, and have acted consistently with it. They had not done so, and this brought the hand of God in government against them. They treated this as a denial of His original love towards their nation.
But it was not so. Nor are the fatherly chastisements that come upon His saints today, any denial of His love, as Heb 12:6 plainly declares. Let us remember this, and never ask, when trying circumstances arise – If God loves me, why does He send, or permit this?
In Malachi’s day the priests did not for one moment admit the charge laid against them. They repudiated it saying, ‘Wherein have we despised Thy name?’ This brought forth a more specific accusation as to their offering ‘polluted bread’ upon God’s altar; and verse Mal 1:8 gives further details as to this. The kind of offerings they were bringing meant that they treated ‘the table of the Lord’ as ‘contemptible’. It was not, we judge, that they were saying this in so many words, but that was what their actions declared; for, as we know, actions speak louder than words, and God knows perfectly how to interpret them.
The fact was that they were offering to God animals that they would never present to a secular governor; and further, as verse Mal 1:10 shows, they expected to make some material gain for the simplest things they did in the temple service. They were putting their own things first and treating God’s service as subservient to themselves. Has this no voice for us? We believe it has very definitely. The flesh in each of us would naturally and easily put our own earthly interests first, and treat ‘the kingdom of God and His righteousness’ as something that may conveniently fill up any little gaps left as we pursue our own things. It is all too easy to forget the Lord’s words in Mat 6:32.
Through the prophet God made it plain that though they profaned His name, He would yet make it ‘great’ as we see in verse Mal 1:11, and that even among the heathen, whom they so greatly despised. When the wise and mighty utterly fail, God takes up the weak and despised to achieve His ends, as is stated so clearly in 1 Corinthians l: 26- And what about the fulfilment of this prediction? It will be literally fulfilled in the coming millennial age, but we can make a spiritual application even today. We have humbly to admit that many of us, easy-going, English. speaking Christians, living amid luxuries, may have to take a back seat in the coming Kingdom of reward, compared with simple saints – often but babes in Christ – who live and die for their faith under Communist or Romish persecution.
The three verses that close this chapter again bring home the evils that were prevalent. Twice further the prophet charges home upon them what they were saying – ‘The table of the Lord is polluted’, and also, as to the service rendered, ‘What a weariness is it!’ They themselves had polluted it, and if the heart be not in God’s service, what a weariness it can become! To have ‘a form of godliness’ without the ‘power’, leads to all the evils delineated in 2Ti 3:1-5. We must never forget the closing words of the chapter. In Christ God is known to us as the God of all grace, but at the same time He is ‘a great King’, and His name is ‘dreadful’, or ‘to be revered’, among the nations. His grace does not cancel out His majesty; indeed His majesty enhances His grace.
Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary
Vital Questions
Mal 1:1-14; Mal 2:1-17; Mal 3:1-18
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
The Book of Malachi presents questions asked by God. In response, instead of a direct answer, the chosen people, Israel, ask God questions in return. As these pairs of questionings have to do with the theme in hand, we have decided to give a brief description of the varied questions that are in the Book as a whole.
1. The first pair of questions.
God says, “A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is Mine honour? and if I be a master, where is My fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise My Name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised Thy Name?” (Mal 1:6).
The Lord is speaking of the utter lack of filial honor, and servant-fear, which Israel manifested. If Israel desired to claim God as their father, God asks, “Where is Mine honor?” If Israel claims God as Master, God says, “Where is My fear?”
The reason God asks His question is because His people had offered polluted bread on His altar.
Israel answers God’s question by asking one. She says,
“Wherein have we despised Thy name?”
“Wherein have we polluted Thee?”
God replied at once, “In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible.” Then the Lord continues with a series of questions:
“And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts. And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he regard your persons? saith the Lord of hosts. Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire in Mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand” (Mal 1:8-10).
We trust that some who hear these words will stop and ponder their own course? How many of our gifts must displease the Lord, who so richly gave us His best; yea, His all. How can we treat the Lord Jesus Christ as we do. We find many who give to Him no more than the “left overs,” or, the no-account and worthless remains of things already sapped of their value.
When, on the other hand, we serve Him, we demand a good sum. We would not shut His doors, unless we were to receive something in coin or in honor from men. No marvel God says that He has no pleasure in us.
2. The second series of questions.
This time Israel speaks first. After God has charged His people concerning their sins, and laid bare their ignominy, showing how they had wearied the Lord, then Israel asks, “Wherein have we wearied Him?”
The Lord’s people are feigning innocency. They would seek to hide their shame. With a false piety they ask, “Wherein have we wearied Him?” God quickly places His finger on their sin, and specifies their iniquity. He says, “When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delighteth in them: or, Where is the God of judgment?”
God then tells Israel how He will send His messenger before His face, how He will come suddenly to the Temple, and then God asks,-“But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap.”
Let those who act foolishly and deceitfully with the Lord, remember that a day of judging lies ahead.
3. The third series of questions.
We now come to the verses assigned for today’s study. God calls unto Israel to return unto Him. Israel, still professing innocency, asks, “Wherein shall we return?”
In answer to this query, God asks some questions and makes some statements:
“Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed Me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed Me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts” (Mal 3:8-11).
How wicked it is to receive from the hand of the Lord, but never to return to Him! To take, but never to give. God gave definite command to Israel as to their tithes and offerings. When these were withheld, His people were no more than robbing Him. Are we better than they? Have we not received from the Lord, good measure, pressed down, and running over? Shall we then give back into His hand the miserable pittance that marks too many gifts. Shall Christians give a tenth? We reply that we certainly should not give less. Grace is not meaner than Law. Larger blessings demand larger gifts.
After God has said that He would hold back from Israel His blessings, as a punishment for their infidelity, then He says that their words have been stout against Him. Then follows:
4. The fourth series of questions.
“Your words have been stout against Me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against Thee? Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?” (Mal 3:13-14).
The questions this time are from Israel. She still persists in her innocency. She claims thus not to have spoken against the Lord. She even goes so far as to assert that she had served God in vain. She claimed to have kept the ordinances of God and to have walked mournfully before Him in vain.
Thank God the Book continues to give a prophecy of the time when Israel will seek the Lord, and when He will be gracious unto her.
Read also carefully 2Co 8:1-5, 2Co 8:9.
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
Mal 1:1. Burden means an important message or saying, and the Lord had something of that character to say to the people of Israel. Malachi was the last of the Old Testament prophets and wrote about four centuries before Christ. This would place him not long after the work of re construction following the return from the captivity. The people of Israel never worshiped idols after the return, but they often were careless about their duty to God and became selfish in their desires.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
INTRODUCTION
What word in Mal 1:1 indicates that the message, or messages, are in the nature of rebuke rather than comfort? With what declaration does Mal 1:3 begin? While Jehovah thus declares Himself towards His Israel, how do they receive it? This skeptical insinuation in the interrogation, Wherein hast thou loved us? is a peculiarity of the book, and shows the people to have been in a bad spiritual frame, calculated to give birth to the practical sins enumerated later.
Be careful not to read a wrong meaning into that reference to Esau, as though God caused him to be born simply to have an object on which He might exercise His hate, or as if that hate condemned the individual Esau to misery in this life and eternal torment beyond. The hate of Esau as an individual is simply set over against the choice of Jacob as the heir to the promised seed of Abraham. Esau did not inherit that promise, the blessing to the world did not come down in his line, but that of his brother Jacob, and yet Esau himself had a prosperous life; nor are we driven to the conclusion by anything the Bible says that he was eternally lost. Moreover, the particular reference is not so much to Esau as a man as to the national
descendants of Esau, the Edomites, who had not only been carried into captivity as Israel had been, but whose efforts to rebuild their waste places would not be successful as in the case of Israel, because the divine purposes of grace lay in another direction.
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary
Mal 1:1-3. The burden of the Lord The word burden is here, as often elsewhere, equivalent to prophecy; to Israel To those of all the tribes that were returned from captivity. I have loved you, saith the Lord That is, in a particular and extraordinary degree; not only as men, but above the rest of men, and above the other posterity, both of Abraham and Isaac. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? That is, wherein does thy particular love to us appear? What proofs hast thou given of loving us in an extraordinary degree? Us, who have been captives, and have groaned under the miseries of captivity, and bondage all our days till of late? Is this a proof of thy love to us?
Was not Esau Jacobs brother? saith the Lord Did not one father beget them, and one mother bear them? Yet I loved Jacob Namely, more than Esau; I preferred him to the honour and privileges of the birthright, and this of free love. I loved his person and his posterity. Here God is introduced as answering the question, which, in the preceding clause, they are represented as asking, namely, wherein his particular regard to them appeared. But it must be well observed, that Jacob and Esau, as elsewhere Israel and Edom, are put to signify the whole posterity arising from these two persons, namely, the Israelites and Idumeans. And in asking, Was not Esau Jacobs brother? God reminds them that the Idumeans, as they themselves very well knew, were descended from Abraham as well as they, and from a progenitor who was own brother to their progenitor Jacob. And I hated Esau I loved not Esaus posterity as I loved Jacobs. By hating here is only meant, having a less degree of love, for in this sense the expression is frequently used. Thus, Gen 29:31, Jacobs loving Leah less than Rachel is termed hating her; and Luk 14:26, the loving father and mother, wife and children, less than we love Christ, is termed the hating of them. That this is the meaning of the expression hating, there, is evident from the parallel text, Mat 10:37-38, where we read, He that loveth father or mother MORE than me, is not worthy of me, &c. From these, and other passages that might be produced, it is evident that the expression, hating, is frequently used to signify no more than loving in a less degree, or showing less regard or favour to one than another. Indeed, as it may be further added, it would be doing a high dishonour to the nature of God to suppose that the expression, as here applied to Jacob and Esau, is to be taken in the strict sense of the word hating. And laid his mountains and his heritage waste In these words the Lord shows in what sense he had hated Esau, that is, his posterity; he had given him a lot inferior to that which he had conferred on Jacob. Idumea had been laid waste by the arms of Nebuchadnezzar, five years after the taking of Jerusalem; and whereas Jacobs captivity, or that of the Israelites, were restored to their own land, and their cities rebuilt, Esaus never were. For the dragons of the wilderness Creatures which delight in desolate places, by which the utter desolation of Idumea is signified. The Hebrew word , or , here rendered dragons, signifies any large creature of the creeping kind, whether by land or sea. In this place it is taken for a great serpent, such as are commonly found in deserts and desolate places.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Mal 1:1. The word of the Lord by Malachi, my angel, my messenger, or the messenger of the Lord. Malachi flourished after the second temple was built, and about four hundred and twenty years before the christian era. He succeeded Zechariah in the higher walks of inspiration. His style is more uncouth than that of Isaiah, who flourished in the Augustinian age of Hebrew posy.
Mal 1:2-4. Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau. A father was said to hate his eldest son, when he gave the better inheritance to a younger brother. In like manner, when Jacob blessed the two sons of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, he gave the greater blessing to Ephraim, whose tribe nearly equalled Judah in strength. This was done by a prophetic spirit, as future ages proved. The prophet therefore charges the jews with base ingratitude to God, in profaning his worship, seeing he had restored their temple and city, while the mountains of Edom, or of Esau, lay waste for the dragons of the wilderness.Edom said, we will return and build too, like Jerusalem; but the Lord answered I will pull down. The wars made by the kings of Syria, as foretold in the eleventh chapter of Daniel, prevented Edom from rising to his former power. An apostle cites this passage in its true sense, showing that God had exalted believing gentiles to sit in heavenly places, while he had cast off the carnal jews in their state of unbelief, yet not without hope; for God was able to graft them in again, if they remained not in unbelief. Romans 9. How intoxicated then must those be with their system, who wrest such passages of scripture to personal and eternal election and reprobation! Hear St. Paul speak for himself: Behold the goodness and severity of God. On them which fell, severity, but towards thee, oh christian, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. Rom 11:22.
Mal 1:6. A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master. But by offering polluted beasts on the altar, they in fact accounted the altar polluted. A man who dishonours God in his worship, does a double wrong to his own soul. He loses the great reward, which is the gift of grace, and entails upon himself a curse.
Mal 1:7. Ye offer polluted bread upon my altar. Hebrews Lechem signifies the bread of God, meat of all kinds, the mincha or meat-offerings. This worldly wise people thought that the damaged part would do very well to be burnt on the altar, while they retained the choice parts for their own feasts. Christians also are often cruel towards their ministers. The situation of the clergy would be deplorable, if they were left to the mercy of the farmers; others of us also, who have served our people for half a century, have but a bare subsistence in hoary age. The remark of our prophet in the tenth verse is just, that the doorkeepers had a right to bread for their labour. The faithful minister who works night and day for his people, is often not appreciated till after his death. Then money is made of his remains, and his writings praise him in the gate.
Mal 1:11. From the rising of the sun, to the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the gentiles. A pure offering of sweet incense, defined in Rev 8:3 to be the prayers of the saints, shall be presented on the golden altar by the angel of the covenant. Then the legal sacrifice of beasts should cease, when Christ assumes his mediatorial glory.
REFLECTIONS.
God, to convince the jews that he had loved them in a very particular manner, tells them at the beginning of this prophecy, that he had loved Jacob, and hated Esau. The meaning of this is, that he had chosen Jacob in preference to Esau his brother, to be admitted into covenant with him; and that he had not restored the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, after their destruction, as he had restored the jews, the posterity of Jacob, by bringing them again to Jerusalem. Paul quotes this passage of Malachi in Romans 9. to show that God may choose whom he pleases, and grant them extraordinary favours, which he vouchsafes not to others; and that if we are so happy as to be the people of God, we owe it wholly to the free and gracious choice he has been pleased to make of us.
The remainder of this chapter gives a melancholy view of the corrupt and degenerate state of the jewish church in the days of this prophet. There had been a considerable revival under the ministry of Ezra and Nehemiah, but now the scene was changed, and there was a great declension in the life and power of religion. Those who ministered at the altar were become mere secular characters, were sordid and corrupt in their principles, making a trade of religion, and performing all its services with a view to worldly gain. The Lord therefore would no longer accept an offering at their hands.
Nor was this the worst of the case: the priests themselves were become despisers of religion, and set the example of pouring contempt upon the ordinances of public worship. They found it a weariness to wait upon the Lord, were glad when the service was over, and presumed to offer to the Lord what they dared not to have offered to a civil governor. No wonder, when such corruption was found among the ministers of the sanctuary, that it descended to all ranks of society, until the Lord was ready to disown his ancient people, and to make his name great among the heathen. Men who corrupt the true religion are more odious in the sight of God than its open enemies, and bring greater calamities upon their country.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Mal 1:1. Cf. Zec 9:1; Zec 12:1. The compiler of the Book of the Twelve, when he reached the end of Zech. (Zechariah 1-8), had still three short pieces in hand (Zechariah 9-11, 12-14, and Mal.). The first two were anonymous, and probably the third as well, but the first had an opening clause which served as a title and also as a model for titles for the other two. These the compiler supplied (Zec 12:1, Mal 1:1), added Zechariah 9-11 and Zechariah 12-14 to his eleventh book, and made his remaining pamphlet (Mal.), which had a subject and style of its own, into the twelfth.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
1:1 The {a} burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.
(a) See Geneva “Isa 13:1”
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
I. INTRODUCTION 1:1
This title verse explains what follows as the oracle of Yahweh’s word that He sent to Israel through Malachi. The Hebrew word massa’, translated "oracle," occurs 27 times in the Prophets (e.g., Isa 13:1; Isa 14:28; Nah 1:1; Hab 1:1; Zec 9:1; Zec 12:1; et al.). It refers to a threatening message, a burden that lay heavy on the heart of God and His prophet. "Pronouncement" and "utterance" are good synonyms.
"The word of Yahweh" refers to a message that comes from Him with His full authority. "Yahweh" is the name that God used in relationship to Israel as the covenant-making and covenant-keeping God. What follows is evidence that Israel was in trouble with Yahweh because the Jews had not kept the Mosaic Covenant. Yahweh, of course, was completely faithful to His part of the covenant.
"Malachi" means "my messenger." The prophet’s name was appropriate since God had commanded him to bear this "word" to the people of Israel. The prophet was not the source of the revelation that follows; he was only a messenger whose job it was to communicate a message from Yahweh (cf. Mal 2:7; 2Ti 4:2; 2Pe 1:20-21). As many as 47 of the 55 verses in Malachi are personal addresses of the Lord. [Note: Clendenen, p. 205.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
; Mal 2:1-17; Mal 3:1-18; Mal 4:1-6
PROPHECY WITHIN THE LAW
“MALACHI” 1-4
BENEATH this title we may gather all the eight sections of the Book of “Malachi.” They contain many things of perennial interest and validity: their truth is applicable, their music is still musical, to ourselves. But their chief significance is historical. They illustrate the development of prophecy within the Law. Not under the Law, be it observed. For if one thing be more clear than another about “Malachis” teaching, it is that the spirit of prophecy is not yet crushed by the legalism which finally killed it within Israel. “Malachi” observes and enforces the demands of the Deuteronomic law under which his people had lived since the Return from Exile. But he traces each of these to some spiritual principle, to some essential of religion in the character of Israels God, which is either doubted or neglected by his contemporaries in their lax performance of the Law. That is why we may entitle his book Prophecy within the Law, The essential principles of the religion of Israel which had been shaken or obscured by the delinquency of the people during the half-century after the rebuilding of the Temple were three-the distinctive Love of Jehovah for His people, His Holiness, and His Righteousness. The Book of “Malachi” takes up each of these in turn, and proves or enforces it according as the people have formally doubted it or in their carelessness done it despite.