Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Malachi 3:13
Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken [so much] against thee?
Ch. Mal 3:13 to Mal 4:3 The righteous judgment of God
13. have been stout ] See Mal 2:17. Comp. Job 21:14-15; Judges 15.
so much ] Omit so much here, and often, Mal 3:16. The force of the Hebrew conjugation is “reciprocal” (Gesen.), to speak “together”, or “one with another”. Comp. Psa 119:23; Eze 33:30.
It was not the perplexed questioning of a devout heart (Psalms 73), nor the secret cogitation of an ungodly heart (Psa 14:1), but the open blasphemy of those who “sat in the seat of the scorner” (Psa 1:1).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Your words have been stout against Me – , probably oppressive to Me, as it is said, the famine was strong upon the land. And ye have said, What have we spoken among ourselves against Thee? Again, the entire unconsciousness of self-ignorance and self-conceit! They had criticized God, and knew it not. Before, he had said Mal 2:17. Ye have wearied the Lord with your words, and ye said, Wherein have we wearied Him? When ye said, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord etc.
Now he repeats this more fully. For the people who returned from Babylon seemed to have a knowledge of God, and to observe the law, and to understand their sin, and to offer sacrifices for sin; to pay tithes, to observe the sabbath, and the rest, commanded in the law of God, and seeing all the nations around them abounding in all things, and that they themselves were in penury, hunger and misery, was scandalized and said, What does it benefit me, that I worship the One True God, abominate idols, and, pricked with the consciousness of sin, walk mournfully before God? A topic, which is pursued more largely in Ps. 73. Only the Psalmist relates his temptations to God, and Gods deliverance of him from them; these adopted them and spake them against God. They claim, for their partial and meagre service, to have fulfilled Gods law, taking to themselves Gods words of Abraham, he kept My charge .
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 13. Your words have been stout against me] He speaks here to open infidels and revilers.
What have we spoken] They are ready either to deny the whole, or impudently to maintain and defend what they had spoken!
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Your words; your discourses concerning my providences over you and others, your reasonings, censures, and verdicts passed on your own ways, and on the ways of your God.
Have been stout; proudly justifying yourselves as deserving better usage from God, or insolently arraigning God for his kindness to others, who in your judgment are worse than yourselves, by such words as those Mal 2:17.
Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? you think you have spoken nothing so proudly and stoutly, and challenge me to tell you wherein, or with what words you have showed such insolence.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
13-18. He notices the complaintof the Jews that it is of no profit to serve Jehovah, for that theungodly proud are happy; and declares He will soon bring the day whenit shall be known that He puts an everlasting distinction between thegodly and the ungodly.
words . . . stoutHebrew,“hard”; so “the hard speeches which ungodlysinners have spoken against Him” (Jude15) [HENDERSON].
have we spokenTheHebrew expresses at once their assiduity and habitof speaking against God [VATABLUS].The niphal form of the verb implies that these things were said, notdirectly to God, but of God, to one another (Eze33:20) [MOORE].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord,…. Hard and strong; they bore very hardly upon him, were exceeding impudent and insolent; murmuring at his providence; arraigning his justice and goodness; and despising his word, worship, and ordinances. Aben Ezra says, this is a prophecy concerning the time to come, that is, the times of the Messiah; and so it describes the Jews in his times.
Yet ye say, what have we spoken [so much] against thee? or “what have we spoken against thee?” as if they were not guilty in any respect, and as if nothing could be proved against them; and as though the Lord did not know what they had said in their hearts, seeing they had not spoken it with their mouths: though the supplement of our translators, “so much”, is confirmed by the Targum, which is,
“and if ye say, how (or in what) have we multiplied speech before thee?”
and so Kimchi observes, that the form in which the Hebrew word is denotes much and frequent speaking: and Abarbinel agrees with him, though he rather thinks it has this sense, “what are we spoken of to thee?” what calumny is this? what accusation do they bring against us to thee? what is it that is reported we say against thee? thus wiping their mouths, as if they were innocent and harmless.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The impatient murmuring of the nation. – Mal 3:13. “Your words do violence to me, saith Jehovah; and ye say, What do we converse against Thee? Mal 3:14. Ye say, It is vain to serve God; and what gain is it, that we have kept His guard, and have gone about in deep mourning before Jehovah of hosts? Mal 3:15. And now we call the proud blessed: not only have the doers of wickedness been built up, but they have also tempted God and have been saved.” After the Lord has disclosed to the people the cause of His withholding His blessing, He shows them still further, that their murmuring against Him is unjust, and that the coming day of judgment will bring to light the distinction between the wicked and those who fear God. with , to be strong over any one, does not mean to be harsh or burdensome, but to do violence to a person, to overpower him (cf. Exo 12:33; 2Sa 24:4, etc.). The niphal nidbar has a reciprocal meaning, to converse with one another (cf. Eze 33:30). The conversations which they carry on with one another take this direction, that it is useless to serve God, because the righteous have no advantage over sinners. For see the comm. on Gen 26:5. Halakh q e dorannth , to go about dirty or black, either with their faces and clothes unwashed, or wrapped in black mourning costume ( saq ), is a sign of mourning, here of fasting, as mourning for sin (cf. Psa 35:13-14; Psa 38:7; Job 30:28; 1 Maccabees 3:48). , from awe of Jehovah. The fasting, and that in its external form, they bring into prominence as a special sign of their piety, as an act of penitence, through which they make reparation for certain sins against God, by which we are not to understand the fasting prescribed for the day of atonement, but voluntary fasting, which was regarded as a special sign of piety. What is reprehensible in the state of mind expressing itself in these words, is not so much the complaint that their piety brings them no gain (for such complaints were uttered even by believing souls in their hours of temptation; cf. Psa 73:13), as the delusion that their merely outward worship, which was bad enough according to what has already been affirmed, is the genuine worship which God must acknowledge and reward. This disposition to attribute worth to the opus operatum of fasting it attacked even by Isaiah, in Isa 58:1-14; but after the captivity it continued to increase, until it reached its culminating point in Pharisaism. How thoroughly different the persons speaking here are from the believing souls under temptation, who also appeal to their righteousness when calling upon God in their trouble, is especially clear from their further words in Mal 3:15. Because God does not reward their fasting with blessing and prosperity, they begin to call the proud sinners, who have happiness and success, blessed. is the particle of inference. The participle has the force of a futurum instans (cf. Ewald, 306, d), denoting what men prepare to do. Zedm , the haughty or proud, are the heathen, as in Isa 13:11, who are called in the following clause. The next two clauses are placed in a reciprocal relation to one another by gam … gam (cf. Jer 12:16-17; Exo 1:21), and also, notwithstanding the fact that they have tempted God, are delivered when they fall into misfortune. Bachan Elohim , to prove or test God, i.e., to call out His judgment through their wickedness.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Wicked Conversation Reproved; Evil Maxims of Sinners; Pious Converse Commended; Promises to the Godly. | B. C. 400. |
13 Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? 14 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? 15 And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. 16 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. 17 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. 18 Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
Among the people of the Jews at this time, though they all enjoyed the same privileges and advantages, there were men of very different characters (as ever were, and ever will be, in the world and in the church), like Jeremiah’s figs, some very good and others very bad, some that plainly appeared to be the children of God and others that as plainly discovered themselves to be the children of the wicked one. There are tares and wheat in the same field, chaff and corn in the same floor; and here we have an account of both.
I. Here is the angry notice God takes of the impudent blasphemous talk of the sinners in Zion and his just resentments of it. Probably there was a club of them that were in league against religion, that set up for wits, and set their wits on work to run it down and ridicule it, and herein strengthened one another’s hands. Here is,
1. An indictment found against them, for treasonable words spoken against the King of kings: Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. They spoke against God, in reflection upon him, in contradiction to him, as their fathers in the wilderness (Ps. lxx. 19); yea, they spoke against God. What he said, and what he designed, they opposed, as if they had been retained of counsel against him and his cause. Their words against God were stout; they came from their pride, and haughtiness, and contempt of God. What they said against God they spoke loudly, as if they cared not who heard them; they were not themselves ashamed to say it, and they desired to propagate their atheistical notions and to infect the minds of others with them. They spoke it boldly, as those that were resolved to stand to it, and were in no fear of being called to an account. They spoke it proudly, and with insolence and disdain, scorning to be under the divine check and government. They strengthened themselves; they would be valiant against the Almighty, Job xv. 25.
2. Their plea to this indictment. They said, What have we spoken so much against thee? They deny the words, and put the prophet to prove them; or, if they spoke the words, they did not design them against God, and therefore will not own there was any harm in them; at least they extenuate the matter: What have we spoken so much against thee, so much that there needs all this ado about it? They cannot deny that they have spoken against God, but they make a light matter of it, and wonder it should be taken notice of: “Words” (say they) “are but wind; others have said more and done worse; if we are not so good as we should be, yet we hope we are not so bad as we are represented to be.” Note, It is common for sinners that are unconvinced and unhumbled to deny or extenuate the faults they are justly charged with, and to insist upon their own justification, against the reproofs of the word and of their own consciences. But it will be to no purpose.
3. The words themselves which they are charged with. God keeps an account of what men say, as well as of what they do, and will let them know that he does so. We quickly forget what we have said, and are ready to deny what we have said amiss; but God can say, You have said so and so. They had said it as their deliberate judgment.
(1.) That there is nothing to be got in the service of God, thought it is a service that subjects men to labour and sorrow. They said, It is vain to serve God, or, “He is vain that serves God, that is, he labours in vain and to no purpose; he has his labour for his pains, and therefore is a fool for his labour. What profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, or his observation, that we have observed what he has appointed us to observe?” What mammon, or wealth, have we gained, says the Chaldee, intimating (says Dr. Pocock) that it was for mammon’s sake only that they served God, and so indeed not God at all, but mammon. “We have walked mournfully, or in black, with great gravity and great grief, before the Lord of hosts, have afflicted our souls at the times appointed for that purpose, and yet we are never the better.” Perhaps this comes in as a reason why they would not trust God to prosper them upon their bringing in the tithes (v. 10); “For,” say they, “we have tried him in other things, and have lost by him.” This is a very unjust and unreasonable reflection upon the service of God, and we can call witnesses enough to confront the slander. [1.] They would have it thought that they had served God and had kept his ordinances, whereas it was only the external observance of them that they had kept up, while they were perfect strangers to the inward part of the duty, and therefore might say, It is in vain. God says so (Matt. xv. 9), In vain do those worship me whose hearts are far from me while they draw near with their mouth; but whose fault is that? Not God’s, who is the rewarder of those that seek him diligently, but theirs who seek him carelessly. [2.] They insisted much upon it that they had walked mournfully before God, whereas God had required them to serve him with gladness, and to walk cheerfully before him. They by their own superstitions made the service of God a task and drudgery to themselves, and then complained of it as a hard service. The yoke of Christ is easy; it is the yoke of antichrist that is heavy. [3.] They complained that they had got nothing by their religion; they were still in poverty and affliction, and behindhand in the world. This is an old piece of impiety. Job 21:14; Job 21:15, What profit shall we have if we pray unto him? Elihu charges Job with saying something like this. Job xxxiv. 9, It profits a man nothing that he should delight himself with God. The enemies of religion do but set up against it the old cavils that have been long since answered and exploded. Perhaps this refers to the errors of the sect of the Sadducees, which was the scandal of the Jewish church in its latter days; they denied a future state, and then said, It is vain to serve God, which has indeed some colour in it, for, if in this life only we had hope in Christ, we were of all men most miserable, 1 Cor. xv. 19. Note, Those do a great deal of wrong to God’s honour who say that religion is either an unprofitable or an unpleasant thing; for the matter is not so: wisdom’s ways are pleasantness, and wisdom’s gains better than that of fine gold.
(2.) They maintained that wickedness was the way to prosperity, for they had observed that the workers of wickedness were set up in the world, and those that tempted God were delivered, v. 15. The outward prosperity of sinners in their sins, as it has weakened the hands of the godly in their godliness (Ps. lxxiii. 13), so it has strengthened the hands of the wicked in their wickedness. Note, [1.] Those that work wickedness tempt God by presumptuous sins; they do, as it were, try God, whether he can and will punish them as he has said in his word, and, in effect, challenge him to do his worst, by provoking him in the highest degree. [2.] Those that tempt God by their wicked works are many times both delivered out of the adversity into which they were justly brought and advanced to the prosperity which they were utterly unworthy of. They are not only set up once, but when we thought their day had come to fall, and they were in trouble, they were delivered and set up again; so strangely did Providence seem to smile upon them. [3.] Though it be thus, yet it will not warrant us to call the proud happy. For they may be delivered and set up for a while, but it will appear that God resists them, and that their pride is a preface to their fall; and, if so, they are truly miserable, and it is folly to call them happy, and to bless those whom the Lord abhors. Wait awhile, and you shall see those that work wickedness set up as a mark to the arrows of God’s vengeance, and those that tempt God delivered to the tormentors. Judge of things as they will appear shortly, when the doom of these proud sinners (which follows here, ch. iv. 1) comes to be executed to the utmost.
II. Here is the gracious notice God takes of the pious talk of the saints in Zion, and the gracious recompence of it. Even in this corrupt and degenerate age, when there was so great a decay, nay, so great a contempt, of serious godliness, there were yet some that retained their integrity and zeal for God; and let us see,
1. How they distinguished themselves, and what their character was; it was the reverse of theirs that spoke so much against God; for, (1.) They feared the Lord–that is the beginning of wisdom and the root of all religion; they reverenced the majesty of God, submitted to his authority, and had a dread of his wrath in all they thought and said; they humbly complied with God, and never spoke any stout words against him. In every age there has been a remnant that feared the Lord, though sometimes but a little remnant. (2.) They thought upon his name; they seriously considered and frequently mediated upon the discoveries God has made of himself in his word and by his providences, and their mediation of him was sweet to them and influenced them. They thought on his name; they consulted the honour of God and aimed at that as their ultimate end in all they did. Note, Those that know the name of God should often think of it and dwell upon it in their thoughts; it is a copious curious subject, and frequent thoughts of it will contribute very much to our communion with God and the stirring up of our devout affections to him. (3.) They spoke often one to another concerning the God they feared, and that name of his which they thought so much of; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak, and a good man, out of a good treasure there, will bring forth good things. Those that feared the Lord kept together as those that were company for each other; they spoke kindly and endearingly one to another, for the preserving and promoting of mutual love, that that might not wax cold when iniquity did thus abound. They spoke intelligently and edifyingly to one another, for the increasing and improving of faith and holiness; they spoke one to another in the language of those that fear the Lord and think on his name–the language of Canaan. When profaneness had come to so great a height as to trample upon all that is sacred, then those that feared the Lord spoke often one to another. [1.] Then, when iniquity was bold and barefaced, the people of God took courage, and stirred up themselves, the innocent against the hypocrite, Job xvii. 8. The worse others are the better we should be; when vice is daring, let not virtue be sneaking. [2.] Then, when religion was reproached and misrepresented, its friends did all they could to support the credit of it and to keep it in countenance. It had been suggested that the ways of God are melancholy unpleasant ways, solitary and sorrowful; and therefore then those that feared God studied to evince the contrary by their cheerfulness in mutual love and converse, that they might put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. [3.] Then, when seducers were busy to deceive and to possess unwary souls with prejudices against religion, those that feared God were industrious to arm themselves and one another against the contagion by mutual instructions, excitements, and encouragements, and to strengthen one another’s hands. As evil communication corrupts good minds and manners, so good communication confirms them.
2. How God dignified them, and what further honour and favour he intended for them. Those who spoke stoutly against God, no doubt looked with disdain and displeasure upon those that feared him, hectored and bantered them; but they had little reason to regard that, or be disturbed at it, when God countenanced them.
(1.) He took notice of their pious discourses, and was graciously present at their conferences: The Lord hearkened and heard it, and was well pleased with it. God says (Jer. viii. 6) that he hearkened and heard what bad men would say, and they spoke not aright; here he hearkened and heard what good men did say, for they spoke aright. Note, The gracious God observes all the gracious words that proceed out of the mouths of his people; they need not desire that men may hear them, and commend them; let them not seek praise from men by them, nor affect to be taken notice of by them; but let it satisfy them that, be the conference ever so private, God sees and hears in secret and will reward openly. When the two disciples, going to Emmaus, were discoursing concerning Christ, he hearkened and heard, and joined himself to them, and made a third, Luke xxiv. 15.
(2.) He kept an account of them: A book of remembrance was written before him. Not that the Eternal Mind needs to be reminded of things by books and writings, but it is an expression after the manner of men, intimating that their pious affections and performances are kept in remembrance as punctually and particularly as if they were written in a book, as if journals were kept of all their conferences. Great kings had books of remembrance written, and read before them, in which were entered all the services done them, when, and by whom, as Esther ii. 23. God, in like manner, remembers the services of his people, that, in the review of them, he may say, Well done; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. God has a book for the sighs and tears of his mourners (Ps. lvi. 8), much more for the pleadings of his advocates. Never was any good word spoken of God, or for God, from an honest heart, but it was registered, that it might be recompensed in the resurrection of the just, and in no wise lose its reward.
(3.) He promises them a share in his glory hereafter (v. 17): They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels. When God utterly cuts off the Jewish church and nation for their infidelity, the remnant among them, that believed his word, and, having waited for the consolation of Israel, welcome him when he comes, shall be admitted into the Christian church, and shall become a peculiar people to God; God will take care of them, that they perish not with those that believe not; but that they be hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger against that nation. They shall be my segullah–my peculiar treasure (it is the word used, Exod. xix. 5), in the day when I make or do what I have said and designed to do; so some read it. These pious ones shall have all the glorious privileges of God’s Israel appropriated to them and centering in them; they shall now be his peculiar treasure, when the rest are rejected; they shall now be the vessels of mercy and honour, when the rest are made vessels of wrath and dishonour, vessels in which is no pleasure. This may be applied to all the faithful people of God, and the distinction he will put between them and others in the great day. Note, [1.] The saints are God’s jewels; they are highly esteemed by him and are dear to him; they are comely with the comeliness that he puts upon them, and he is pleased to glory in them; they are a royal diadem in his hand, Isa. lxii. 3. He looks upon them as his own proper goods, his choice goods, his treasure, laid up in his cabinet, and the furniture of his closet, Ps. cxxxv. 4. The rest of the world is but lumber, in comparison with them. [2.] There is a day coming when God will make up his jewels. They shall be gathered up out of the dirt into which they are now thrown, and gathered together from all places to which they are now scattered; he shall send forth his angels to gather his elect, who are his jewels, from the four winds of heaven (Matt. xxiv. 31), to gather his jewels into his jewel-house, as the wheat from several fields into the barn. All the saints will then be gathered to Christ, and none but saints, and saints made perfect; then God’s jewels will be made up, as stones into a crown, as stars into a constellation. [3.] Those who now own God for theirs, he will then own for his, will publicly confess them before angels and men: “They shall be mine; their sanctification shall be completed, and so they shall be perfectly and entirely mine, without any remaining interests of the world and the flesh.” Their relation to God shall be acknowledged, and his property in them. He will separate them from those that are not his, and give them their portion with those that are his; for to them it shall be said, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you. They were in doubt, sometimes, whether they were belonging to God or no; but the matter shall then be put out of doubt. God himself will say unto them, You are mine. Now their relation to God is what they are reproached with, but it will then be gloried in; God himself will glory in it.
(4.) He promises them a share in his grace now: I will spare them as a man spares his own son that serves him. God had promised to own them as his and take them to be with him; but it might be a discouragement to them to think that they had offended God, and that he might justly disown them, and cast them off; but, as to that, he says, “I will spare them; I will not deal with them as they deserve. I will rejoice over them” (so some expound it) “as the bridegroom over his bride,” Isa 62:5; Zep 3:17. But the word usually signifies to spare with commiseration and compassion, as a father pities his children, Ps. ciii. 13. Note, [1.] It is our duty to serve God with the disposition of children. We must be his sons, must by a new birth partake of a divine nature, must consent to the covenant of adoption and partake of the spirit of adoption. And we must be his servants; God will not have his children trained up in idleness; they must do him service, and they must do it from a principle of love, with cheerfulness and delight, and as those that are therein serving their own true interest, and this is serving as a son with the father, Phil. ii. 22. [2.] If we serve God with the disposition of children, he will spare us with the tenderness and compassion of a Father. Even God’s children that serve him stand in need of sparing mercy, that mercy to which we owe it that we are not consumed, that mercy which keeps us out of hell. Nehemiah, when he had done much good, yet, knowing there is not a just man on earth, that does good and sins not, and that every sin deserves God’s wrath, prays, Lord, spare me according to the greatness of thy mercy; see Neh. xiii. 22. And God, as a Father, will show them this mercy. He will not be extreme to mark what we do amiss, but will make the best of us and our poor performances; he will mitigate the afflictions his children are exercised with, and save them from the ruin they deserve. The father continues to spare the son, and does it with complacency, because he is his own; thus God will spare humble penitents and petitioners, as a man spares his son that serves him, though we do him so little service, nay, though we do him so much disservice.
3. How they will thus be distinguished from the children of this world (v. 18): “Then shall you return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between sinners and saints, between those that serve God and make conscience of their duty to him and those that serve him not, but put contempt upon his service. You that now speak against God as making no difference between good and bad, and therefore say, It is in vain to serve him (v. 14), you shall be made to see your error; you that would speak for God, but know not what to say as to this, that there seems to be one event to the righteous and to the wicked, and all things come alike to all, will then have the matter set in a true light, and will see, to your everlasting satisfaction, the difference between the righteous and the wicked. Then you shall return, that is, you shall change you mind, and come to a right understanding of the thing.” This primarily respects the manifest difference that was made by the divine Providence between the believing Jews and those that persisted in their infidelity, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the Jewish church and nation, by the Romans. But it is to have its full accomplishment at the second coming of Jesus Christ, and on that great discriminating day when it shall be easy enough to discern between the righteous and the wicked. Note, (1.) All the children of men are either righteous or wicked, either such as serve God or such as serve him not. This is that division of the children of men which will last for ever, and by which their eternal state will be determined; all are going either to heaven or to hell. (2.) In this world it is often hard to discern between the righteous and the wicked. They are mingled together, good fish and bad in the same net. The righteous are so distempered, and the wicked so disguised, that we are often deceived in our opinions concerning both the one and the other. There are many who, we think, serve God, who, having not their hearts right with him, will be found none of his servants; and, on the other hand, many will be found his faithful servants, who, because they followed not with us, did not, as we thought, serve him. But that which especially raised the difficulty here was that the divine Providence seemed to make no difference between the righteous and the wicked; you could not know wicked men by God’s frowning upon them, for they commonly prospered in the world, nor righteous men by his smiling upon them, for they were involved with others in the same common calamity. None now knows God’s love or hatred by all that is before him, Eccl. ix. 1. (3.) At the bar of Christ, in the last judgment, it will be easy to discern between the righteous and the wicked; for then every man’s character will be both perfected and perfectly discovered, every man will then appear in his true colours, and his disguises will be taken off. Some men’s sins indeed go beforehand, and you may now tell who is wicked, but others follow after; however, in the great day, we shall see who was righteous and who wicked. Every man’s condition likewise will be both perfected and everlastingly determined; the righteous will then be perfectly happy and the wicked perfectly miserable, without mixture or allay. When the righteous are all set on the right hand of Christ, and invited to come for a blessing, and all the wicked on his left hand, and are told to depart with a curse, then it will be easy to discern between them. As to ourselves, therefore, we are concerned to think among which we shall have our lot, and, as to others, we must judge nothing before the time.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Here again God expostulates with the Jews on account of their impious and wicked blasphemy in saying, that he disappointed his servants, and that he made no difference between good and evil, because he was kind to the unfaithful and the faithful indiscriminately, and also that he overlooked the obedience rendered to him.
He says now that their words grew strong; by which he denotes their insolence, as though he had said, Vous avez gagné le plus haut; for חזק, chezak, is to be strong. He means that such was the waywardness of the Jews that it could not by any means be checked; they were like men whom we see, who when once seized by rage and madness, become so vociferous that they will not listen to any admonitions or sane counsels. At first they murmur and are only heard to whisper; but when they have attained full liberty, they then send forth, as I have said, their furious clamours against heaven. This is the sin which the Prophet now condemns by saying, that the Jews grew strong in crying against God. (260) They again answer and say, In what have we spoken against thee? (261) It appears from these so many repetitions that the hypocrisy, which was united with great effrontery, could not be easily corrected in a people so refractory: it ought indeed to have come to their minds that they had wickedly accused God. But they acknowledge here no fault, “What meanest thou?” as though they wished to arraign the Prophet for having falsely charged them, inasmuch as they were conscious of no wrong.
(260)
Your words have waxen bold against me. — Newcome
Your words against me have been hard. — Henderson.
Ye have made heavy (or, overcharged — ἐβαρύνατε) against me your words. — Septuagint
To “grow strong” is the idea expressed by Jerome and Marckius; and it is the common meaning of the verb. “Strong of forehead” in Eze 3:7, is rendered “impudent” in our version, and very justly. Impudence or insolence is what is here evidently meant, —
Insolent against me have been your words.
—
Ed.
(261) Rather, “What have we been talking together against thee? The verb is in Niphal, and only found so here, in the sixteenth verse, Psa 119:23, and Eze 33:30. It denotes a mutual converse, a talking together, or a frequent converse. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.
Mal. 3:13-18.] Impatient murmuring is most unreasonable; the day is coming which will bring to light the distinction between the righteous and the wicked.
Mal. 3:13. Stout] (bold) sig. to bind fast, make firm, and in a bad sense to be hard or obstinate, such as that in Jud. 1:15. [Henderson]. Keil gives, to do violence to one, to overpower him (cf. Exo. 12:33; 2Sa. 24:4). Specimen words are given.
Mal. 3:14.] God has no regard to well doing, therefore there is no advantage in serving him (cf. ch. Mal. 2:17). His ordinance] Lit. what he requires to be observed, prescribed rites. Mourn.] In black or mournful garb, as a sign of penitence. Voluntary fasting is brought into prominence.
Mal. 3:15.] Because God does not reward their works with prosperity, they call proud] sinners happy men, favourites of God when blessed (cf. Psa. 73:12). The wicked are set] Lit. built up, i.e. flourish (cf. Jer. 12:16-17; Exo. 1:21), and though they have tempted God, are delivered.
Mal. 3:16. Then] When the wicked were openly talking one with another; so the godly held mutual intercourse, and defended the providence of God. Jehovah noticed their conversations, and wrote them in a book]. A custom borrowed from a Persian king, recording the names and merits of any who deserved well, that they might be rewarded (cf. Est. 6:1-2). God keeps a book also (cf. Psa. 56:9; Dan. 7:10). Before] To lie open before him, and remind him of righteous deeds.
Mal. 3:17. Jewels] Lit. private, peculiar property, expressing the highest estimation of Gods people and their perfect security in the day of judgment. Spare] (Psa. 103:17-18) Contrasted with punishment.
Mal. 3:18. Return] to a better mind. Discern] the falseness of your calumny against Gods dealings (cf. Exo. 11:7). The day of judgment will change many opinions concerning Gods ways and Gods people.
HOMILETICS
HARD SAYINGS AGAINST GOD.Mal. 3:13-15
The people still murmur against God, and openly declare that there is no profit in serving him, because the righteous have no advantage over the wicked. But this murmuring is unjust, and the coming judgment will make a distinction between those who fear God and those who fear him not. Some of their hard words are given. The common sentiment of the time was that piety brings no reward, and the religious error of the time that observance of outward forms was the service which God should bless.
I. Gods service is falsified. It is vain to serve God.
1. This sentiment springs from a wrong estimation of Gods service. It is not a mercenary service. The Jews waited not upon God in love, but in hope of being well paid. Religion is not a bargain, but affection, obedience, and gratitude to God. It is not a mournful but a delightful service. What profit that we have walked mournfully, in black and in grief? Fasting, prescribed or voluntary, was considered meritorious, had claims upon God, and when left unrewarded, they complained against God. Wherefore have we fasted, and thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?
2. This sentiment is denied by Scripture. Paul seems to give some truth to it when he says, If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But from the same person we learn that Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. God himself told the Jews that the meanest act for him would not be left without reward (ch. Mal. 1:10). In every sense, wisdoms ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are paths of peace. Riches and honour are with me; my fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver.
3. This sentiment is contradicted by Christian experience. Gods people have found Gods service their highest happiness and joy. They have tasted that the Lord is good, and that the man who trusts in him is blessed. Whatever be their outward condition, their spiritual experience gives the lie to such an impudent statement concerning Gods service. Blessed are they that do his commandments.
II. Gods justice is impugned. Because they met with no reward for their services; because the wicked seemed to prosper rather than the righteous; they openly declared that Gods favourites were proud and ungodly men. The wicked have put God to the test, they reply, calling down vengeance from heaven; but they are built up, and flourish, and though they have tempted God by breaking his laws, yet they are delivered from misfortune. Hence they gave wrong verdicts, and set at nought the decrees of God. We call the proud happy. We should not cavil against Gods dealings for many reasons.
1. We cannot read the heart. How do we know who are happy, and who are not happy. Men most prosperous outwardly may be most miserable inwardly. Beneath the splendid show may be the worm, the canker, and the grief. And men most afflicted may be most happy. The glare of prosperity should not blind our judgment. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth.
2. We forget the future. For a time the proud may be happy, but their happiness is shortlived, only for a season, and does not satisfy. The wicked may be set up, but they build on a wrong foundation, and great may be their fall. Those who tempt and defy God, may be delivered for the present; but God is often most angry with men when he seems best pleased; sweeps them away when their inward thought is to continue for ever. On earth what a curse, and how uncertain their prosperity! But at the great day, how sudden, complete, and terrible their overthrow! Headlong their fall, without escape, and without hope. How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors.
DIVINE RECOGNITION OF CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP.Mal. 3:16-18
The prophet now contrasts the faithful few with the sceptical many. While the ungodly were uttering hard sayings, those who feared God held mutual intercourse, defended Gods dealings, and encouraged one another to love and trust him. A remnant has always been found in the darkest days, whom God has noticed and blessed.
1. The practice they adopted. In character and conduct they stand out in remarkable contrast.
1. They were secretly pious. They thought upon his name. The wicked do not think upon God; or if they do, their thoughts concerning him are sinful and vain. The righteous, in contrast, esteem and ever seek to honour the name of God. They meditate upon his perfections, works, and words, and their meditation is sweet.
2. They were personally sincere. They feared the Lord, not in slavish terror, but with awe and filial reverence. They were loyal and true in their profession. The root of the matter was in them. Fear was the secret spring, the hidden power of holy life.
3. They openly encouraged one another. So powerful was their piety, that it was revealed in their speech. (a) They spoke openly one to another, without fear or shame. (b) They spoke often, to encourage and strengthen one another. Amid the atheism and ungodliness of the times, they mutually talked not about the politics of the nation, but of personal religion and the God they feared.
II. The distinction they gained. Those who disregarded God would ridicule his people. But here is a caution to the wicked, and an encouragement to the godly.
1. God heard their conversation. The Lord hearkened and heard it. God was thought to be forgetful, or an idle spectator of events. But not a sigh nor a prayer, not a loyal word nor a feeble meeting, escape his notice.
2. God remembered their works. As earthly monarchs record the deeds and remember the names of their servants, so the King of Heaven keeps a record of his people. The meanest service will not be forgotten. Write this a memorial in a book.
3. God spared them on earth. I will spare them, in contrast with the doom of the wicked: as a man spareth his own son, in tender compassion (Psa. 103:17-18). All of mercy, nothing from merit.
4. God will reward them at judgment. In the coming day men will return to a right mind, and confess the justice of God. (a) They shall be separated from the wicked. Discern between the righteous and the wicked. This not always possible on earth, will be easy at the great day. (b) They will be claimed as peculiar treasure. They shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels. They are precious to God, and will be owned and honoured by him. There is a solemn, an eternal distinction between those who serve God and those who serve him not. The reward of Gods servants is the greatest, the highest distinction we can attain. What are all the distinctions of the world to refuge on earth and blessedness in heaven? Follow the example that you may share the honour and happiness of the saints. Verily, there is a reward for the righteous: verily, he is a God that judgeth in the earth.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Mal. 3:14. Vain. They themselves are vain and most vain, for two reasons, and in two respects. First, they take themselves to be servers of God. Secondly, they stick in the bark, serve him with the outside only, honour him with the lips, and not with their hearts; they bring vain oblations, empty performances, serve him with formalities which he rejects with scorn as he did the Pharisees devotions (Luk. 16:15) [Trapp].
Mal. 3:15. Proud, happy. A sentiment
1. At variance with the truth of God. Thou hast rebuked the proud, who are cursed (Psa. 119:21).
2. Displaying ignorance. How do we know that the proud are happy? Can we read their hearts? (Pro. 21:24).
3. Indicative of pride. They boast of their superior intelligence. We call. Pride is increased by ignorance; those assume the most who know the least [Gay].
Mal. 3:16. The Divine jewels. My jewels. It is a strong expression of value. Much in this world even on which God sets high value, though much that he condemns. Something which he distinguishes from all that sparkles and glitters with material lustrefrom things which earthly and carnal men have most coveted and idolized. These jewels are scattered here and there, among earthly things; not in a collected state, except in Gods view. By him they are seen as one sacred company and fraternity. Unequal in degrees of purity and lustre, accounted the dross and offscouring of society; but He to whom they belong sees them in a different light; a beam of his radiant light falls on each, and all will see them at last. There will be a collecting, an assembling of them together. The grand act of righteous separation must bring the saints together, that the effect of redemption may be conspicuously displayed. Think of that stupendous knowledge and power which will secure that none of them shall be missing, or will be lost! Not one lost in the vastness of the scene; not one that was even in the utmost obscurity in mortal life; not one in the remotest corner of the earth, or island of the sea. When each sees all, each may wonder at the vigilance, the affectionate care, and the mighty power that will have brought them all together, after preserving them all separately, in infinite variety of circumstances and so many ages. Then, when the jewels are made up, he will pronounce, they are mine. What triumph to hear it! What congratulation with one another! And what a situation that must bein place and circumstances, felicity and gloryin which he will assign their abode within the immediate manifestation of his presence! Looking at this prospect, which of us can be content that his soul should be wanting when the Lord of Hosts shall make up his jewels! Who can bear the thought of being cast among the baser rejected things of creation, and for him to say, That is not mine; take it away! [J. Foster].
Mal. 3:17. Spare them. If a man spares any one, it will surely be his own son. The very relation pleads for him. He spares them as to exemption. He spares them as to correction. They are afflicted, but have alleviations. He spares them as to exertion. He considers their strength, and will not require of some what he ordains for others. He spares them as to acceptance. Their best actions are imperfect. Their obedience needs pardon. He views all through Christ. He spared not him, that he might spare you. Never forget the kindness of God, and spare not your selves in his cause [Jay].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
Mal. 3:13-15. Stout words. Rash, undigested, ill-considered speech, is responsible for much of the heart-burning and trouble in the Churches. Expressions which convey the impression that the Lord acts unjustly or unkindly, especially if they fall from the lips of men of known character and experience, are as dangerous as fire-brands among stubble; they are used for blasphemous purposes by the ill-disposed, and the timid and trembling are sure to be cast down thereby, and to find reason for yet deeper distress of soul [Spurgeon].
Language is the dress of thought [Johnson].
Mal. 3:16-18. Spake often. When the wicked are talking against God, the righteous should talk for him. Religious conversation is necessary, all the more, for the very reasons that chill and repress it. When a fire burns low, the coals that are alive should be brought near together, that they may be blown into a flame. So when all is cold and dead, living Christians should draw near and seek the breathings of the Spirit, and kindle each other by mutual utterance. The words thus and then spoken shall be heard and recorded in heaven [Lange].
The Chronicles of heaven shall keep
Their words in transcript fair;
In the Redeemers book of life
Their names recorded are [Doddridge].
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(13) Your words . . . against me.Better, your words put a constraint on me: viz., to prove myself to you to be the God of judgment.
Spoken.Or rather, conversed together. (Comp. Mal. 3:16.) They seem to have been in the habit of conversing together, and comparing the promises of God towards them with the then state of affairs. God had promised that they should be a proverb among the nations for blessedness; but, say they, seeing that things are as they are, we [feel more inclined to] call the proud happy [or blessed]. (See further in Note on Mal. 3:15.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13. Your words Who are the persons addressed is made clear in Mal 3:14-15, a class of people whose faith was shaken. The prophet may have in mind the same persons whose skepticism is met in Mal 3:1-12.
Stout Literally, are strong. Compare the colloquial “to be hard on a person.” Their words contain a serious accusation, which casts reflections on the character of Jehovah. Again the prophet places the general accusation at the head, to be expanded in the succeeding verses, and again he makes a question raised in self-defense his starting point (see on Mal 1:2).
What have we spoken so much So much should be omitted; literally, what have we conversed, that is, spoken to one another, against Jehovah. It would seem that the complaint was a subject of conversation.
In Mal 3:14-15 the prophet answers the question by reminding them of the contents of their conversations.
Serve God have kept his ordinance have walked mournfully The first is a general statement that they recognized Jehovah as their Lord and Master, the second affirms ready obedience to his will (Zec 3:7), the third refers to acts of penitence and mourning over shortcomings and sins (Joe 2:12). They claim that, so far as they know, they have done all that the law requires. But, they argue, if they have done this they are entitled to the divine blessings. This belief found support in the law (Deu 28:1-14), and it was the popular idea that a righteous and just God must reward the faithful service with prosperity and punish faithlessness with adversity (see on Amo 4:6-11). When these contemporaries of Malachi found that their expectations were not realized, they were seriously perplexed. So far as they could judge, no special benefits came to those who served Jehovah; on the contrary, pious persons were deeply afflicted, while the wicked lived in ease and prosperity.
And now Introduces the statement of a present fact and experience.
We call the proud happy The proud are not the heathen, but the arrogant persons within the Jewish community, who have no regard for God and who think that they can get along without him and religion, the very opposite of the humble, God-fearing persons mentioned in Mal 3:16 (compare Psa 19:13-14). These arrogant persons, who, according to the law (Deu 27:15-26; Deu 28:15 ff.), should have been smitten with the curse of God, were enjoying the greatest prosperity and every one considered them perfectly happy and contented (compare Psalms 37).
Are set up R.V., “built up.” Instead of being destroyed they are built up like a magnificent structure; they flourish in all their undertakings. All this was contrary to the passages quoted from Deuteronomy, as well as to such prophetic utterances as Jer 12:16-17.
Tempt God The same verb is translated in Mal 3:10 “prove”; here the thought is that they challenge Jehovah through their wickedness (Isa 5:18-19). Persons who do these things surely deserve to be destroyed, but instead, when they do get into difficulties, Jehovah graciously interferes and delivers them. With these experiences in everyday life contradicting the teaching of the past, is it any wonder that the people were perplexed, that grave doubts came into the minds of some? Had they “ gone to the sanctuary of God” (Psa 73:17) they might have found relief.
Not the entire community was carried away by these doubts; there were those who possessed a stronger faith, who passed through the same perplexities, but believed that Jehovah was still in the heavens, and that somehow at some time he would reward the faithful and punish the faithless. To these patient saints the prophet turns in Mal 3:16.
Then When the skeptically inclined had given expression to their misgivings (Mal 3:14-15).
They that feared Jehovah The God-fearing persons (see on Mal 2:5) are the truly pious, whose faith in Jehovah is not easily shaken.
Spake often one to another The evidences of skepticism on every hand caused the faithful to join forces and come together frequently for the purpose of strengthening one another’s faith and counteracting the spread of skepticism. What they “spake” is not stated; it is clearly implied, however, that they spoke words of counsel, encouragement, and exhortation, to wait patiently until Jehovah in his own good time would manifest his righteousness. It is not possible to identify the God-fearing persons of Mal 3:16 with the persons who gave expression to their doubts in the language of Mal 3:14-15; two distinct classes are meant. If so, the LXX. reading this or thus in the place of then cannot be considered an improvement over the present Hebrew text; and if it were original, this could not refer backward to Mal 3:14-15, but must point forward to the conversations of the pious, which are not stated. It seems best to retain the present Hebrew text.
Hearkened, heard God paid attention to these conversations, and they were so pleasing to him that he determined to make a record of them and of the names of those who continued to fear him.
A book of remembrance Certainly this is to be understood figuratively; the thought is that Jehovah will remember the conduct of these pious souls until the day of reckoning, when their patience and fidelity will receive suitable reward. The figure may have been suggested by the “book of chronicles” of the Persian court (Est 2:23; Est 6:1; Est 10:2), in which seem to have been recorded the names and deeds of those who merited the royal favor (compare Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1).
For them For the benefit of them.
Thought upon his name Better, highly esteemed (Isa 13:17) or honored. For name see on Mal 1:6, and references there.
17a is rendered more literally in R.V., “And they shall be mine, saith Jehovah of hosts, even mine own possession, in the day that I make”; margin, “do this”; literally, And they shall be to me, saith Jehovah of hosts, for the day on which I do, a possession. In the day (R.V.) Literally, “for the day.” The names of the pious will be preserved (Mal 3:16) for the day of reckoning, so that on that day they may be singled out to receive their reward. Make (R.V.) Or, do; better, act, that is, in judgment. His inactivity of which the skeptics complain will then cease. A possession (R.V.) He will acknowledge them as his own, and this acknowledgment will assure them the divine favor and protection (compare Exo 19:5), in the day of reckoning, and will result in their salvation and glorification.
I will spare them From all suffering and harm, just as a loving father protects his son who has rendered loving and obedient service to him.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
A NEW DEFENSE OF JEHOVAH’S JUSTICE, Mal 3:13 to Mal 4:3.
These verses are parallel in thought to Mal 2:17 to Mal 3:12. They also are addressed to a class of doubters (Mal 2:17) whose confidence in Jehovah is shaken by the apparent inequalities of life; the good suffer while the wicked prosper (13-15). They are informed that their complaint is unwarranted, that Jehovah’s eye is over all, and, though at present the lot of the pious may seem hard, Jehovah keeps a record of those who are faithful, and when he appears in his temple (Mal 3:1) he will make a distinction between the righteous and the wicked (16-18). The wicked will be destroyed root and branch (Mal 4:1), while the righteous will be exalted forever (2, 3). In this wise, the prophet argues, Jehovah will prove himself a God of judgment and of justice.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
YHWH’s Final Charge Against His People, That They Have Spoken Against Him ( Mal 3:13 to Mal 4:3 ).
In this section YHWH finalises His list of complaints by distinguishing between the majority who have spoken against Him, and the minority Who have constantly spoken lovingly of Him, whose names are written in His Book of Remembrance, and He contrasts what the end will be of both groups.
Mal 3:13-14
‘Your words have been stout against me,
Says YHWH,
Yet you say,
What have we said to one another against you?
You have said,
It is vain to serve God,
And what profit is it that we have kept his charge,
And that we have walked mournfully before YHWH of hosts?’
YHWH now accuses Israel of speaking strongly against Him. Their response is to ask, how they have so spoken against Him. YHWH’s reply is that it is because they have said that it is vain to serve God and to keep His charge and to humiliate themselves before Him, because He simply does not respond. Note their emphasis on what they have done. They have slaved for Him, they have kept his stern charge, they have even dressed in black and made a great show of mourning over their sins. And they ask themselves what they have gained by their actions. The reply that they themselves provide is ‘nothing’, and that is because after all their arduous effort they cannot see that they have gained any benefit at all. To them their religion had been hard work, and they had expected to get a reward for it. Now they are wondering whether it is all worth while, whether to give it up and find a more convenient religion. Other gods did not make these high demands. They had reached a low ebb.
What a contrast these people were with those who ‘feared YHWH’ and spoke lovingly of Him among themselves. And they did this, not because of what they had gained from Him or hoped to gain from Him, but because they loved Him and worshipped Him as Who He was. They honoured Him and His Name. Herein lies the difference between true worshippers, and those who only worship Him for what they can get out of Him.
Mal 3:15
‘And now we call the proud happy,
Yes, those who work wickedness are built up,
Yes, they challenge God, and escape.
We have already seen in Mal 2:17 that there were many who were grumbling that God only seemed to do good to those who did what was evil. The grumble now continues as they declare that it was the proud and arrogant who were happy, it was those who worked wickedness who were built up, it was those who tested God out who escaped from problems and difficulties. And it did not seem right or fair to them. Those being described probably included some members of the community and also some of those among whom they lived, who had been settled there before they arrived. But their words remind us of the Psalmist in Psalms 73. He also was puzzled as to why the wicked flourished. But the difference in his case was that he went on to discover the answer when he ‘considered their end’, and he then went on to praise God.
But these people did not see beyond their criticisms. They stopped short at criticising and blaming God, and were deciding whether after all it was worth following Him when He was not fitting into their conceptions about what He ought to do. To them serving God was a kind of bargain. They did right by Him, and He did right by them. And it was His side of it that appeared to be failing. But, of course, as we have seen they only thought that they were doing right by Him because of their stereotyped ideas. As Malachi has brought out, they were in fact not doing right by Him at all.
Mal 3:16
Then those who feared YHWH spoke one with another,
And YHWH listened, and heard,
And a book of remembrance was written before him,
For those who feared YHWH,
And that thought on his name.’
But the true believers, those who really did ‘fear YHWH’, talked with one another about Him in glowing terms, and YHWH listened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who feared YHWH and called on His Name. Of course they did not realise that what they were saying was being recorded. They did it because they loved Him. But it is an indication to us of how God hears how we pray and how we talk with each other, and it reminds us of the joy we bring to Him when we do it aright.
Many cities in those days kept a book of those who had done great deeds on behalf of the city, and many kings had spies who kept a record of people’s conversations. Some also had ‘books of days’ in which daily events were recorded. This book was a combination of both in the best of senses.
The idea that God keeps a record of the conversations of His people brings new light to the words of Jesus, ‘him who confesses me before men, him will I confess before My Father in heaven’.
Mal 3:17
‘And they will be mine,
Says YHWH of hosts,
In the day that I make,
They will be a special treasure (my own possession),
And I will spare them,
As a man spares his own son who serves him.’
And because these believers had their thoughts filled with God and His goodness He affirms that they will be His ‘in the Day that He makes’ (compare Mal 4:3), the Day that He has prepared for His final judgments. They will be His own ‘special possession’. This was the term used of a king’s private treasures, as against what was put in the public treasury. It was also the term used of Israel when God was making His promises to them before the Sinai covenant (Exo 19:5) and setting them apart as His holy nation. Here then were the true Israel within Israel of whom Paul spoke (Rom 9:6), the true nation. And they will be YHWH’s own treasured possession.
And He will see them as His only son (compare Exo 4:22). And He assures them that He will behave towards them as a man behaves towards his only son, even when he has been caught in some fault. He will ‘spare’ them. He knows that they are not without fault, and He may chasten them. But He will not count it against them in that Day because they have served Him from their hearts.
‘In the day that I make.’ Compare Mal 4:3 where the same expression is used of the day when the unrighteous will be trodden underfoot as ashes. This is the Day of YHWH, the Day when ‘the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father’ (Mat 13:43) and the Day in which ‘all who cause men to stumble and all who do iniquity, will be cast into the furnace of fire’ (Mat 13:42).
Mal 3:18
‘Then will you return and discern,
Between the righteous and the wicked,
Between him who serves God,
And him who serves him not.’
Malachi takes over the ideas being expressed and sums up the situation. Then in that Day (the Day when He makes His judgments and makes these believers His own special possession) He will return and will judge between the righteous and the wicked, and between him who serves God and him who does not. We have these ideas filled out in the parables of Jesus, both those in Matthew 13, and those which regularly speak of the activities of servants who are waiting for their Master or their Lord. The idea is of that great Day when all are called to account.
‘The righteous and the wicked.’ The righteous are those who are responsive to God and who love His word. They live in accordance with His covenant and seek to please Him in all that they do. They are yielded to His service in their daily lives. They are walking in the narrow way that leads to life. The wicked would not necessarily be seen as wicked by men. But they are those who do not treat too seriously God and His commandments. They do not want to be bound too strictly by the covenant. They have no desire to walk in His ways, except outwardly. Their aim is to please themselves. They want little to do with God, apart from when He can be useful to them. Then they wonder why He does not answer them. They walk in the wide way that is trodden by the majority. They live lives free of all restrictions, or alternately live them in order to put God in their debt, and their way leads to destruction.
Mal 4:1
‘ For, behold, the day comes,
It burns as a furnace,
And all the proud,
And all who work wickedness,
Will be stubble,
And the day which comes will burn them up,
Says YHWH of hosts,
That it shall leave them neither root nor branch.’
But the Day is coming. And when it comes it will burn like a furnace, and this time not a refining furnace, but a destructive one. And all the proud and arrogant (compare Mal 3:15) and all who work wickedness (compare Mal 2:17) will be as the stubble which is destined to be burned once the fields are harvested. The Day that is coming will burn them up and consume them. The fires of God will burn and the stubble will be totally consumed. And the proud and those who disobey His word will be left with nothing, neither root nor branch. The whole will have been burned up. This is the guarantee of YHWH of hosts.
We can compare here the words of Jesus, ‘this is how it will beat the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the unrighteous from the righteous, and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (Mat 13:49-50).
Here is the answer to all the grumblers. This is what will happen to the arrogant and the proud, and to all who set themselves against God, whether openly or simply by apathy. But the point being made is that they need to take heed lest they form a part of it. God’s love for them is revealed in that He is yet giving them an opportunity to come out from their folly and become true believers (Mal 1:2-5). God’s sternness in that if they do not repent thane they will face the fires of judgment.
Mal 4:2
But to you who fear my name,
Will the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings,
And you will go forth,
And gambol as calves of the stall.
But in what contrast are those who ‘fear His Name’. On them will the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings. God’s righteousness will shine down on them like the rays of the noonday sun, and they will be fully restored. And they will be so full of spiritual life that they will, as it were, go out and gambol in the fields like calves newly released from their stalls.
This idea of the righteousness of God effective and powerful in the lives of men and women comes largely from Isaiah, where the righteousness of God parallels the idea of His salvation and deliverance, and speaks of an active righteousness that works in men’s lives, covering them with His righteousness and producing righteousness within them. Consider as a parallel Isa 45:8, ‘Drop down, O you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open, that they may bring forth salvation, and let her cause righteousness to spring up together; I the Lord have created it.’ See also Isa 46:13; Isa 51:5; Isa 56:1; Isa 59:17; Isa 61:10.
And in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ the sun of righteousness walked the earth and we saw the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2Co 4:6). As He Himself declared, ‘I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me should not dwell in darkness.’ Light had come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil (Joh 3:19), and that is why many did not come, and do not come today.
Mal 4:3
‘And you will tread down the wicked,
For they will be ashes under the soles of your feet,
In the day that I make,
Says YHWH of hosts.’
In that Day of God’s making, the righteous will triumph and the sinful and disobedient will be trodden underfoot like ashes, because they are as stubble burned to ashes in the fields. The thought is not one of vindictiveness. The point is that the righteous will walk the fields in which the stubble has been burned in preparation for the future good times. It is a picture of the future blessing of the righteous when the wicked are no more. Then the poor and the lowly who have followed Christ will, as it were, walk in fruitful fields, while the proud and the disobedient will simply be the dust.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Ways Of God Vindicated
v. 13. Your words have been stout against Me, salth the Lord, v. 14. Ye have said, It is vain to serve God, v. 15. And now we call the proud happy, v. 16. Then, v. 17. And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, v. 18. Then shall ye,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
SECTION VI
The Coming of a Day of Judgment which will vindicate the Ways of God, and reward the Righteous and punish the Wicked. Elijah the Prophet
Mal 3:13 to Mal 4:6
13Your words have been stout [bold] against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? 14Ye 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 [gloomily] before [because of Jehovah] the Lord of Hosts? 15And now16 we call the proud happy; yea they that work wickedness are set up; yea,17 they that tempt God are even delivered. 16Then they that feared the Lord spake often18 [ nothing corresponding to often in Hebrew] one to another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance19 was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. 17And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels20 [or possession]; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. 18Then shall ye return21 [again], and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
Footnotes:
[16]Mal 3:15., a particle of inference, chaps. 1:9, 2:1. (Ewald, 353.)
[17]Mal 3:15.The second marks a climax. Nordh. 1096.
[18]Mal 3:16.Spake often. The same word is used in Mal 3:13, and translated, spoken. The word often is not in the Hebrew.
[19]Mal 3:16.Remembrance (), found in Exo 28:29; Num 10:10.
[20]Mal 3:17., jewels (Exo 19:5; Deu 7:6; Deu 26:18).
[21]Mal 3:18.Return, , is used here as in 1:4, as an adverb, again (Gen 14:2).
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Mal 4:1-6
1For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all [ plural in LXX., Targum, and eighty MSS.] that do wickedly shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. 2But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun [ fem. as in Gen 15:17; Jer 15:9; Nah 3:17] of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up1 [leap for joy] as calves of the stall. 3And 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. 4Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, Which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with [strike out: with] the [as] statutes and judgments [precepts]. 5Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet2 before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: 6And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to [, to or together with] the children [sons], and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Mal 3:13. Your words have been bold against me. Jehovah through the Prophet, now shows the people that their murmuring against Him and his service as unprofitable is unjust. Hengstenberg and Reinke suppose that there is a dialogue between the Prophet and the people, that they reply to the Prophets words, and contradict them. Jehovah has said, Prove me now herewith? They reply, The wicked prove God, and are delivered. The Prophet says: They shall call you happy. They answer: And now we call the wicked happy. The Prophet says: Ye have not observed mine ordinances. The people reply: We have observed them. But as this view is too ingenious, and the Niphal is used, They spake one to another, they conversed about God, and as it is analogous to 2:17, Ye have wearied me with your words, we must reject it.
Your words are stout, that is, bold, presumptuous, impudent. We have the substance of them, that it was profitless to serve God, since He was not a righteous God, and that therefore they are to be called happy who sought to secure their earthly well-being, without regard to God. Such hard speeches of ungodly sinners against God never pass the lips of a pious Asaph or Job, not even in the times of sorest trial, and in hours of the deepest darkness. They, though uttering despairing feeling, never draw such conclusions, nor go so far as to renounce God. Some have found the atheism of these sinners in the phrase serve God, instead of serve Jehovah.
Mal 3:14. We have kept his ordinance. We have observed all the prescribed rites. Walked mournfully, to go about in sackcloth, to neglect their appearance in token of fasting, and for the sake of Jehovah. They lay stress upon fasting, whether prescribed or voluntary, which was regarded as more meritorious. They attributed worth to the opus operatum of fasting, a disposition attacked by Isaiah in Isaiah 58., which increased after the Captivity, until it culminated in the fasting twice in the week of the Pharisees. They felt that they had claims upon God, and complained that He did not reward them for it.
Mal 3:15. And now we call the proud happy. In consequence of the supposed uselessness of their piety, and the adversity in which Jehovah suffered them to remain, they, unlike Asaph, offend against the generation of Gods children by speaking thus, and begin to call the haughty sinners happy, as those who have chosen the best part. We must again regard the proud here as in Mal 2:17, as godless sinners in Israel. They must be the same with the proud in Mal 4:1, which Hengstenberg admits refers to sinners in Zion, though here he refers it to the heathen. The heathen are spoken of as the objects of the divine punishment, only when they have harmed Gods people, and never where the sins of his people are rebuked. The people now give the reason why they considered the haughty sinners happy. They appeal to the matter of fact, that, though the wicked have put God to the test by their sins, calling down the vengeance of heaven, yet they have been unpunished, and their condition is therefore to be envied. The two clauses correspond to each other, and are placed in a reciprocal relation to each other by the double yea ().
Mal 3:16. Then they that feared the Lord spake one to another. The prophet now in a narrative form gives the speeches of the godly in contrast with the hard speeches of the ungodly. There were a faithful few who feared God with a holy fear, and who valued his name, who, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, believed that verily there a God judging the earth. The language of the ungodly was the occasion of their speaking together, not, often, as in our version. It was then () they testified their faith in God. We need not adopt the view of Maurer and Hitzig, that vav. conv. is to be translated that, and begins the quotation of their very words, for this is contrary to usage. We have not the substance of their conversation. Jerome imagines that it was a defense of Gods dealings, which is doubtless correct. They sighed and cried for the abominations of the times (Eze 9:4). Horror took hold of them because of the wicked who forsook Gods law, and they exhorted one another daily not to lose their faith in God, as holy and righteous. Their conduct and words pleased God, and to show the certainty of their reward He is represented as recording their names and good deeds in a book of remembrance, lest He should forget to reward them. Some have found an allusion to the custom of ancient kings keeping books, in which all the most important events of their reigns were recorded, as in Est 6:1-2, but it rests upon a much older and Scriptural idea, that the names and actions of the righteous are written in a book before God (Psa 56:9; Dan 7:10). The Pirke Avoth, a collection of the sayings of the Rabbis, quotes this passage, and the comment of Rabbi Chanina ben Teradjon: Where two sit together, and there are no words of the law spoken between them, there is the seat of the scorner of whom it is said, He sitteth not in the seat of the scorner; but where two sit together, and words of the law are spoken between them, there dwells the Shekinah among them, as it is written, Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another.
Mal 3:17. And they shall be mine, etc. We find the additional promise, They shall be to me a peculiar treasure, not jewels, specifically, as in our version. The accents make (possession), the object of make, but most of the recent commentators, following the LXX., the Targum, and Jerome, regard it as the predicate of, They shall be to me. They shall be my possession in the day with I make, or appoint. In favor of this, we find the same words in Exo 19:5, to which- this verse doubtless refers. Ye shall be to me a peculiar possession out of all nations, and also in Deu 7:6 : The Lord, thy God, hath chosen thee to be to Him a people of possession. Further, in Mal 3:3, we find the same phrase as here, the day I make, or appoint. In the New Testament, this language is borrowed from the LXX. to represent the relation of believers to God, as in 1Pe 2:9; Eph 1:14; 2Th 2:14; Tit 2:14, where we find a peculiar people, where the same word, , is used, as in the Septuagint translation of this passage.
I will spare themmanifest tender compassion to them, as a man spareth not his son merely, but his son, who serveth him, who is filial and obedient. As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him (Psa 103:13).
Mal 3:18. Then shall ye again discern between. The subject of the verb must be the wicked murmurers, and not, as Henderson thinks, the righteous. The wicked had arraigned Gods Justice, now they shall be forced to acknowledge it in their own punishment. The word in Hebrew is sometimes used as an adverb. It is so regarded here by Khler, Keil, Gesenius, Henderson, and others. Hengstenberg and Keil find in Mal 3:18 a reference to Exo 11:7, where it is said: The Lord put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. Khler understands by it, that the wicked would now stand in a different relation to the question than they did before, that they would, in the future, in consequence of Jehovahs judgments, recognize that difference. Calvin understands it, if a different state of things. We are not to put too much emphasis upon it, nor need we refer it to any special case. The preposition between, seems to be used here as a noun, though not strictly such, in the sense of difference. The time will come, when ye will see the between in relation to the righteous and the wicked, as in Isa 65:13-14 : Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry. My servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall howl for vexation of spirit.
Mal 4:1. For, behold, the day cometh. In Hebrew, there are but three chapters in Malachi, the third chapter containing twenty-four verses, instead of eighteen, as in our version. Most of the modern Versions begin unnecessarily here a new chapter. The prophet now describes the results of that appointed day, first to the wicked (Malachi 3:19), and then to the righteous, in Malachi 3:20, 24.
Behold, the day cometh! We find similar language in Zep 1:15 : That day is a day of wrath, Dies lr, Dies Illa, and in Joe 2:31, where we find the great and terrible day of the Lord. Some have referred the day here spoken of to the destruction of Jerusalem, others to the last great day. While it is to receive its fulfillment in the last day, yet it is capable of more than one fulfillment. It is fulfilled in every coming to judgment. As Wordsworth says: All Gods judgments are hours, marked on the dial-plate, and struck by the alarum of that great day. The destruction of Jerusalem was but the fiery and blood-red dawn of that day of days. To the ungodly it will be like a furnace, where the five burns most fiercely, and which scorches and consumes everything which comes near it. They that do wickedly will then be as the dry chaff, which is utterly consumed. Isaiah uses the same figure; Isa 5:21; and Obadiah, Oba 1:18; Zec 12:6; Mat 3:12; Luk 3:17.
That it shall leave, etc. The here is not a relative pronoun, as Maurer and Reinke sup pose, but a conjunction; so Keil, Khler, and Ewald, so that neither root, nor branch, a proverb, to express utter destruction; not one shall escape.
John the Baptist made this verse the text of his exhortations when he spoke of the axe laid to the root of the tree, and the chaff burnt with unquenchable fire.
Mal 4:2. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise. Jehovah now turns, and directly addresses the righteous, and promises them that the Sun of Righteousness will rise upon them. There has been much difference of opinion as to whether the Sun of Righteousness was to be understood personally of Christ, or whether it is only a genitive of appositionthe sun, which is righteousness, or, righteousness, as a sun. The Fathers, Eusebius, Cyril, Theodoret, the early Protestant commentators, and a majority of modern ones, refer it to Christ, while the Jewish commentators, and Hengstenberg, Keil, Reinke, Khler, refer it to the consummation of salvation, in which Jehovahs righteousness reveals itself to the godly. Hengstenberg admits that the interpretation which refers it to Christ is well founded, though he does not find in it a distinct allusion to the person of Christ. Keil, while interpreting it, that righteousness, that is, salvation, is regarded as a sun, yet concedes that the personal view is founded upon a truth, that the coming of Christ brings righteousness. Henderson remarks: There can be no doubt with respect to the application, and refers to the passage where Christ is called the light of men, the light of the world, a great light (Isa 9:1), a light to the Gentiles (Isa 49:6), the true light, the day-spring from on high. Moore remarks: We cannot think that the prophet here meant to predict Christ personally, or, indeed, to look at the ground of this righteousness at all. We think it safer, from the parallel passages, from exegetical tradition, and from the internal evidence, commending itself to every believing heart, and which has found expression in hymns, and in the recorded religious history of multitudes, to understand this sublime figure not of an abstract righteousness, but of a personal Christ.
Healing in its wings. The beams of this sun are compared to the outstretched wings of a bird, to which they bear some resemblance. The figure is not to be carried out so far as to refer to the swiftness of a bird, or to the protection of her young by the mother bird, but is to be confined simply to healingHealing or salvation comes to the God-fearing through the wings, or beams of this sun, shining fully upon them. As when the sun returns to the earth in spring time, all nature rejoices in its light and warmth, so the righteous shall be awaked to a new life by the beams of this sun.
And ye shall go forth, and leap as calves. The righteous shall go forth from darkness, and their joy is compared, in a simple and childlike manner, to that of calves, let loose from the stall to go to pasture, who frisk and leap for joy.
Mal 4:3. They shall be ashes. The wicked, who have troubled them, shall be as little regarded by them as the ashes trodden under foot of men.
Mal 4:4. Remember ye the law of Moses. Now follows an exhortation as to the way in which the coming judgment is to be averted. We have here the conclusion of the whole book, and the appropriate sealing up of the Old Testament. There is in it an intimation, that no further communications are to be made. As they had gone away from Gods law, now they must give all diligence to observe and obey it. The Septuagint, it is difficult to see for what reason, has transposed this verse, and placed it at the end of the book, where it is out of place, as it serves as the introduction to the promise of John the Baptist, and the reformation to be wrought by him. Hengstenberg and Reinke suppose the reason of the transposition is to be found in the great importance of the precept, but the more probable reason is, that it was done, as in other cases, to avoid top harsh a sound in the last verse.
Which I commanded him, not whom I commanded, as Ewald, Reinke, and Bunsen. Jehovah calls attention to the divine authority and origin of the law. Moses was but the servant of Jehovah.
Statutes and Judgments. These words are found in the same combination in Deu 4:8, and may be construed as an exegetical definition, belonging to which, or with Khler, as the predicate, which are statutes and judgments.
Mal 4:5. Behold I will send Elijah the prophet. We have here a repetition of the promise in Mal 3:1 in a more specific form. Behold, I will send Elijah, not the Tishbite, as the Septuagint has it, but Elijah the prophet. But why is John the Baptist here called Elijah? The angel before his birth said unto his father, Zacharias, And he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah. There were many points of resemblance between Elijah and John. Both prophesied in a time of great unbelief and apostasy from the law; both sought to bring back the people to the piety of their fathers; both prophesied before great and terrible judgments. The historical circumstances in which they lived were remarkably parallel. Ahab reappears in Herod, Jezebel in Herodias The words of Mar 6:20, where he speaks of Herod, fearing John, and did many things, apply without any alteration to Ahab. Their very appearance, the fashion of their dress, and their mode of life, were identical. Bengel says of John: Even the dress and food of John were in accordance with his teaching and office. The minister of repentance led the same life as penitents themselves should lead. His mode of life was a sermon de facto on mortification. We may thus clearly see why John should be called in prophecy, which, for the most part, suppresses names, and which throws a thin veil of obscurity over its subjects, Elijah, just as Jesus himself was called David, because he was the son and successor of David (Hos 3:5; Eze 34:23; Eze 37:24; Jer 30:9). The interpretation of this prophecy, that Elijah was to reappear before the coming of the Messiah, has been universally held by the Jews, and the obstinacy with which they have clung to this opinion, received by tradition from their fathers, has been a great hindrance to their receiving Jesus as the Christ. In this interpretation, they have been countenanced by most of the Fathers, as Chrysostom, Origen, Cyril, Theodoret, Theophylact, Jerome, Tertullian, Augustine, who held to two Elijahs of prophecy, the one, John the Baptist, and the other, Elijah in person, who was to reappear, to convert the Jews, and prepare the way for the second coming of the Lord. The Romish commentators, in consequence of this consent of the Fathers, have held it a heresy, or next to a heresy, to reject this interpretation. Some few modern Protestant commentators, as Hitzig, Maurer, Ewald, Olshausen, Alford, Stier, and Ryle, have adopted the same view. Alford says: John the Baptist only partially fulfilled the great prophecy, which announced the real Elias (the words of Malachi will hardly bear any other than a personal meaning) who is to forerun the second and greater coming.
We have two most important declarations of our Lords on the Elijah of Malachi. Speaking of John the Baptist, he said: This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I will send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. And if ye will receive it, This is Elias, who was to come. Here our Lord declares that John fulfilled both prophecies in Malachi, and that he was his forerunner. And further, that so obstinate were their foregone conclusions, that e did not expect they would believe it.
In Mat 17:10, His disciples asked Him, saying, Why then say the Scribes, that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things, but I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Then understood his disciples, that He spake unto them of John the Baptist. We would remark, that this conversation was soon after the Transfiguration of our Lord, when Elijah appeared. Sharing the common Jewish opinion, and supposing his residence with our Saviour would be a permanent one, they were perplexed at his disappearance. Their question led our Lord to speak of the prophecy of Malachi, and to place Himself at the time of its utterance, when the coming of Elijah as John was yet future. Hence He uses the future in speaking of Johns agency. Alford infers from the use of the future, that Elijah is yet to reappear, but it can be easily explained in the way which has been done.
Again, the denial of John (Joh 1:21) has been made use of by the few Protestant commentators who have held the view of another Elijah. John did not deny to the deputation from the Sanhedrim, that he was the Elijah of Malachi. This he affirms, when he says, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord; but that he was Elijah in their sense, Alford finds in, If ye will receive it, a confirmation of his views, but this expression strengthens the exclusive reference to John the Baptist, that it was so plain, that nothing but the most inveterate prejudice prevented their acknowledging it.
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day. This expression, the great and terrible day, is found in Joe 2:31. The day (Mal 3:17; Mal 4:1-5) throughout has the same meaning. It refers especially to the destruction of Jerusalem. When the Lord Jesus came, it was not only to give eternal life to those who received Him, but for judgment upon those who rejected Him. His coming was necessarily followed by the condemnation of the unbelieving. The Gospel is always a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. But these words have more than one fulfillment. The last and perfect one will be in the last day.
Mal 4:6. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children. Some commentators, among whom are Ewald, Maurer, and Henderson, understand this of a restoration of family harmony, but it is better to understand it of a reconciliation between the ungodly, estranged from the piety of their ancestors and their pious forefathers, produced by repentance. Thus the bond of union, which had been broken, will be restored. That such is the meaning is proved by Luk 1:16-17, where the disobedient to the wisdom, or disposition, of the just, is substituted, as containing the same sense.
Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. By the earth here is meant, the land of Israel. The word, , curse, means anything devoted to the Lord, and is sometimes used in a good sense, as in Lev 27:28. More generally, however, in a bad sense, as in Zec 14:11, where it is translated, utter destruction, the ban of extermination.
The close of the Old Testament in Malachi is unspeakably solemn. On its last leaf we find the blessing and the curse, life and death, set before us. As its first page tells us of the sin and curse of our first parents, so its last speaks of the law given by Moses, of sin, and the curse following, mingled with promises of the grace which was to come by Jesus Christ. So on the last page of the New Testament, we read of plagues written in this book, but its last words are gracious words: Surely I come quickly ! Amen. Even so. Come, Lord Jesus ! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all! Amen.3
DOCTRINAL AND PRACTICAL
Wordsworth: The concluding sentence of Malachi is a solemn warning to these latter days. The Holy Spirit knows what is best for us. He warns us of future punishment, in order that we may escape it, and that we may inherit everlasting glory. Knowing the terror of the Lord, he would persuade men. And the character of these latter days, when the Evil One is endeavoring to lure men into his own grasp, and to make them his victims forever, by dissolving Gods attributes into one universal fullness of undiscriminating love; and by endeavoring to persuade them that his justice and holiness are mere ideal theories and visionary phantoms, and that there is no judgment to come, and that the terrors of hell are but a dream, in defiance of the clear words of Him who is the Truth (Mar 9:44; Mat 25:46), shows that there is divine foresight in this warning by Malachi. Let it not be forgotten that the Apostle of love, St. John, ends his Epistle with a warning against idolatry, and that at the close of the Apocalypse, there is a solemn declaration against all who tamper with any words of that book, which speaks in the clearest terms concerning judgment, I heaven, hell, and eternity. May we have grace so to profit by this solemn warning, that we may escape the malediction of those on the left hand at the great day, and inherit the blessing which will be pronounced to those on the right hand by the almighty and everlasting Judge! Now unto the King Eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen!
Keil: After Malachi, no prophet arose in Israel, until the time was fulfilled, when the Elijah predicted by him appeared in John the Baptist, and immediately afterwards the Lord came to his temple, that is to say, the incarnate Son of God to his own possession, to make all who receive Him children of God. Upon the Mount of Transfiguration, there appeared both Moses, the founder of the Law, and mediator of the Old Covenant, and Elijah the prophet, as the restorer of the law in Israel, who earnestly prayed, Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou hast turned their heart back again! to talk with Jesus of his decease, for a practical testimony to us all, that Jesus Christ, who laid down his life for us, to bear our sin, and redeem us from the curse of the law, was the beloved Son of the Father, whom we are to hear, that by believing in his name we may become children of God, and heirs of everlasting life.
M. Henry on Mal 3:14 : Walked mournfully. They insisted much upon it, that they had walked mournfully before God, whereas God had required them to serve Him with gladness and to walk cheerfully before Him. They by their own superstitions made the service of God a task and drudgery to themselves, and then complained of it as a hard service. The yoke of Christ is easy; it is the yoke of Antichrist that is heavy. They complained that they had got nothing by their religion; they denied a future state, and then said: It is vain to serve God, which has indeed some color in it, for if in this life only we had hope in Christ, we were of all men most miserable.
Note.Those do a great deal of wrong to Gods honor, who say that religion is either an unprofitable or an unpleasant tiling; for the matter is not so; wisdoms ways are pleasantness, and wisdoms gains are better than that of fine gold.
M. Henry on Malachi 4:16. They spake often, etc. Even in that corrupt and degenerate age, there were some that retained their integrity and zeal for God. In every age, there has been a remnant that feared the Lord, though sometimes but a little remnant. They thought upon his name; they seriously considered, and frequently meditated upon the discoveries God had made of Himself, and their meditation of Him was sweet. They consulted the honor of God, and aimed at that as their ultimate end in all they did. They spake often one to another concerning the God they feared, and that name of his, which they thought so much of; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak; and a good man out of the good treasure of his heart will bring forth good things. They that feared the Lord kept together as those that were company for each other; they spake kindly and endearingly one to another, for the preserving and promoting mutual love, that that might not wax cold when iniquity did thus abound. They spake edifyingly to one another, for the increase of faith and holiness; they spake one to another in the language of Canaan; when profaneness was to come to so great a height as to trample upon all that is sacred, then they spake often one to another. The worse others are, the better we should be; when vice is daring, let not virtue be sneaking. They were industrious to arm themselves and one another against the contagion by mutual instructions and encouragements, and to strengthen one another s hands. As evil communications corrupt good minds and manners, so good communications confirm them.
Moore: When the wicked are talking against God, the righteous should talk for Him. Religious conversation is necessary, all the more, for the very reasons that often chill and repress it. When a fire burns low, the coals that are alive should be brought near together, that they may be blown into a flame. So when all is cold and dead, living Christians should draw near and seek the breathings, of the Spirit, and kindle each other by mutual utterance. The words thus and then spoken shall be heard and recorded in heaven.
Doddridge has versified Malachi 4:16, 17:
The Lord on mortal worms looks down
From his celestial throne;
And when the wicked swarm around,
He well discerns his own.
The chronicles of heaven shall keep
Their words in transcript fair;
In the Redeemers book of life,
Their names recorded are.
Wordsworth: Malachi, as successor to Zechariah, discharged a peculiar office. Zechariah is one of the most sublime and impassioned among the goodly fellowship of the Prophets. The light of the sunset of prophecy is as brilliant and glorious as its noonday splendors. The prophecy of Zechariah is an impetuous torrent, sweeping along in a violent stream, dashing over rugged rocks, and hurling itself down in headlong cataracts, and carrying everything with it in its foaming flood. In Malachi, it tempers its vehemence in the clear haven of a translucent pool; there it rested in peace for four hundred years, till it flowed forth again in the Gospel.
M. Henry, on Malachi 4. Mal 4:4 : Observe the honorable mention that is made of Moses, the first writer of the Old Testament, in Malachi, the last writer. God calls him Moses, my servant, for the righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance. See how the penmen of Scripture, though they lived at a great distance of time from each other (it was twelve hundred years from Moses to Malachi) concurred in the same thing, all actuated and guided by one and the same spirit.
Pressel: We meet sometimes in the Old Testament with passages, like flowers among the rocks, which anticipate the New Testament. Of this kind are the few passages in which God is regarded not as Lord but as Father (Deu 32:6; 2Sa 7:14; Psa 89:27; Psa 103:13; Isa 63:16; Jer 31:20; Hos 1:10; Mal 3:17). God appears in them indeed more as the Father of the whole nation, than in a personal relation to individuals. The joyfulness of the sonship of individuals does not attain prominence, and it was not the prevailing consciousness of the whole people; but these few traces of the fatherhood of God disclose the continuity of both Testaments. The relation, which was not possible for the Old Testament Church, the New Covenant has granted us through Jesus Christ, and what the New has thus granted, the Old had already foreshadowed.
Though the prophecy of Malachi, of the coming of the Messiah, of the judgment accompanying it, and of the sending of the forerunner, contains nothing at all which would lead us to suppose that the first coming would find its fulfillment in a second at the end of days, before which time there should happen his rejection by his people, his redeeming work on Golgotha, and the whole history of the spread of his Gospel even to the ends of the earth, yet nothing can be concluded from this against the truth, that this last prophecy of the Old Testament had begun to be fulfilled in the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth; for the occasion and design of this last prophecy had nothing to do with the subsequent events; for God reveals to his faithful people at every stage, and under all relations, only just so much as they need. The Old Testament has sufficiently disclosed the most glorious glimpses into the Messianic future, as special Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah, and other books testify, but here the object is only to enforce on the light-minded and scoffing contemporaries of the prophet the ineffaceable difference between the godly and ungodly, and the certainty of the day in which that difference would be revealed to all eyes. It was for this object, that what God communicated to them through his prophets of the coming of the Lord, and the sending of his Forerunner, was exactly what they needed.
Mal 3:16-17. Then they that feared the Lord. What is the frivolity and scorn of the world, when compared with the refuge of the pious in the word of God, in the communion of those like-minded, in prayer, and in a blessed hereafter!
The Lord knoweth them that are his! This Holy Scripture everywhere testifies. Does also the Spirit of God testify it to our spirits?
The names of those who are registered in our church books are not all found in Gods book of remembrance. As it was a great privilege to be numbered among the people of Israel, so it is one now to be numbered in our church books as a Christian; but as then there was a difference between those whose names were in Gods book, and those who were not, so it is still now.
In thy fair book of life and grace,
O may I find my name,
Recorded in some humble place,
Beneath my Lord, the Lamb.
This is the highest distinction to which man can attain: all others are but a shadow, when compared with it. It is a distinction most undeserved, and yet promised to the sincere and pious. It excludes all merit, and yet it is a reward of true piety.
Mal 4:1. For behold the day comes!
That day of wrath ! that dreadful day !
When heaven and earth shall pass away,
What power shall be the sinners stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day !
Mal 4:2 What will the day of the Lord bring to the righteous, according to the promise of the Old Testament? The Sun of righteous ness; salvation under his wings; the joy of freedom; the triumph over the common enemies of the Lord and his people.
Mal 4:4-5 Moses and Elijah must even now go before the Lord: How far have they come to us? Or, Conversion is the turning point, where the Old Covenant ends, and the New begins: the heart begins, and the life must end.
Mal 4:6. He shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. How has the Word of God laid upon us the duty of our conversion, and that of our families! Grant me the heavenly joy, that after many a struggle, I may with rapture say, Dearest Father! Here am I, and those whom thou hast given me! No one of them is lost! all are prepared for thy kingdom! That this may be our experience, we must strive by persevering prayer, and it will, when realized, be a matter of heavenly joy. Finally: The last word of the Old Testament is the threatening of the curse; of the New, the prayer, Even so come, Lord Jesus! What should we wish our last word to be?
Chrysostom on, Behold the day cometh! Let us then imagine that that day has come, and let each one examine his reflections, and let him suppose that the Judge is already present, and that all things are revealed and published; for we must not only stand there, but also be made manifest. Would you not blush? would you not be beside yourselves? For if now, when the occasion is not yet present, but is merely supposed, and represented to the imagination, we are overwhelmed by our reflections, what shall we do, when that day has come,when the whole world is present,when angels and archangels, when crowded myriads, and the hurrying to and fro of all have come; and we are caught up in the clouds, and the gathering together full of terror has come; when trumpet after trumpet shall sound exceeding loud,when all these have come For even if there were no hell, what a punishment to be thrust out in the midst of such splendor, and to depart dishonored! For if even now, when a king and his retinue make a triumphal entry, the poor, reflecting on their poverty, receive not so much pleasure from the spectacle, as mortification, that they are not admitted to the presence of the king, nor share his favor, what will it be then! Or, do you consider it a light punishment not to be numbered in that company, not to be counted worthy of that unspeakable glory, to be thrust out from that joyful assembly, and from those unutterable blessings? when too, there shall be darkness, and gnashing of teeth, and everlasting chains, and the worm that never dies, and the fire that is never quenched, and tribulation and anguish, and tongues parched like the rich mans; when we shall beg for mercy, but no one shall hear; when we shall groan and howl because of our torments, and no one shall heed; and look round everywhere, and nowhere shall there be any to comfort us, what shall we say to those in such a condition, what can be more wretched than their souls! what more pitiable! For if we enter a prison, and see the squalid prisoners, some bound and famishing, others shut up in darkness, we weep aloud, we shudder, and avoid imprisonment there, when we are dragged away by force into the very torments of hell, what shall become of us! For these chains are not of iron, but of fire, never to be quenched; nor are our jailers men, whom it is often possible to persuade, but angels, whom we dare not look upon, because they are exceedingly enraged, that we have insulted their Lord. We do not see there, as here, some bringing money, some food others comforting words so that prisoners obtain some mitigation. Everything there is beyond the reach of alleviation. Even if Noah, or Job, or Daniel, should see their own families suffering punishment. they would not dare to relieve them. For natural sympathy is there extinguished. For while it is the case, that righteous parents have wicked children, and righteous children wicked parents, that the pleasure may there be unalloyed, and that those who enjoy the blessings may not lose their fruition from sympathy, even this natural affection, I say, is extinguished, and they share in their Lords indignation against their own offspring. For if common men, when they see their children wicked, disinherit them, and cut them off from the family, much more shall the righteous them. Therefore, let no one hope for good things, who has done no good work, though he may have ten thousand righteous ancestors, for every one shall receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done. And here I think I will make use of this fear to attack the adulterers, and not them only, but all those who do any wrong thing whatever. Let us ourselves hear therefore these things; if you have the fire of lust, oppose to it that fire, and being extinguished, it will quickly go out. If you are about to utter anything uncharitable, reflect on the gnashing of teeth, and your fear will be a bridle to you; if you wish to steal, hear the Judge commanding and saying, Bind him hand and foot and cast him into outer darkness, and you will in this way cast out your lust; if you are a drunkard, and spend your time in debauchery, hear the rich man saying, Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my parched tongue, and not obtaining his request, and you will get rid of this passion. If you love luxury, consider the tribulation and anguish there, and you will desire it no more; if you are harsh and cruel, remember those virgins who, because their lamps had gone out, were shut out of the bridal chamber, and you will soon become kind-hearted. Are you slothful? Think of him who hid the talent, and you will become more ardent than fire. Does covetousness of your neighbors property consume you? Think of the worm that never dies, and yon will easily get rid of this disease, and will reform all other sins, for He has commanded nothing burdensome or grievous. Why them do his commandments seem grievous to us? From our slothfulness. For as when we are zealous, even those things which seem intolerable will be light and easy, so when we are slothful, the things which are tolerable will appear to us grievous. In view of all this, let us not regard those who live luxuriously, but remember their end; let us not regard the extortioners, but remember their end,here cares and fears and anguish of soul, and there everlasting chains; let us not regard the lovers of glory, but remember what it begets,here slavery and hypocrisy, and there intolerable loss, and perpetual burning. For if we would thus reason with ourselves, and continually oppose these and the like things to our wicked lusts, we should speedily cast out the love of the present, and kindle the love of the future. Let us now therefore kindle it, and burn with it. For if the meditation on these things, imperfect as it may be, gives such pleasure, think how much delight a perfect realization will be. Happy, thrice happy, yea, infinitely happy are those who enjoy such blessings, as wretched, thrice wretched are those who suffer their opposite! That we may not be of the latter class, but of the former, let us choose virtue, for in this way we shall obtain these future blessings. God grant that we may all obtain them, through the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost together be glory, power, and honor now and always, and for ever and ever. Amen!
Footnotes:
[1]Mal 4:2.Grow up. , frisk. 70.: (Hab 1:8).
[2]Mal 4:5.LXX.: . The Masora directs that this verse should be repeated after the last verse, so thet the book may not end with a curse.
[3]Aben Ezra, at the close of his Commentary on the Minor Prophets says: May God soon fulfill the prophecy of Elijah, and hasten his coming! Rather may we pray that the veil may be taken from the hearts of the Jews, so that they may believe that this prophecy has been fulfilled, that Elias has already come, and that they may with us unite in the prayer, which every believing and loving soul continually prays: Come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
I include the whole of these verses under one reading, in order to observe in them what the last verse expresseth, the discerning between the righteous and the wicked. And what can more strikingly set these things forth than what is here said. Here is the Lord’s charge against all ungodly, carnal, careless, and Christless persons. What is their conduct, their language, their manners, their behavior? The whole may be summed up in Job’s account, they say unto God, that is, if not in word, yet what is the same thing indeed, depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. Reader! look into common life, and take with you the words of the man of Uz, as set forth in his book; compare the one with the other, and say how exact a representation he hath made. I beg the Reader to look at the whole passage. Job 21:7-15 . – Now mark the contrast in the Lord’s people, as set forth in this beautiful passage. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another. Of what do they speak? Of what do they think? for they are said also both to fear the Lord, and to think upon his name. Mark, I pray you, the several features by which they are here distinguished. And, oh! that the Reader and Writer, through grace, while marking the Lord’s account of his people by such distinguishing tokens, may find they are our own. And first, they are said to fear the Lord. Yes! the Holy Ghost, by David, long since observed, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Psa 111:10 . Such a fear, I apprehend, as includes the whole of vital godliness. And the effects that follow are then marked. They thought upon his name, that is, no doubt, God in his covenant love and faithfulness, as manifested in the person of his dear Son. For the name of God in scripture language, means the person, work, and offices of God, particularly as revealed in redemption. And thus being full in thought of the Lord in his grace, and love to his people; they spake of those things to one another; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. And thus love was kindled, and communicated from one to another, by this heart-refreshing, soul-comforting conversation. They spake not now and then only, but often one to another. They helped each his fellow, when the glorious topics of redeeming love, in God the Father’s covenant mercy in Christ, the person, grace, and loveliness of Jesus, his blood and righteousness, and the Spirit’s work in the heart became the sweet subjects of discourse. And we are told, so pleasing are such things to the Lord, that, speaking after the manner of men, he hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him. Not that the Lord needs records, or makes any; or is listening to the words or actions of his creatures, by way of gaining information: for all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Heb 4:13 . But what is here said of the Lord’s hearkening, means his approbation of his redeemed, thus speaking together of the great things of God. He draweth nigh to all such, in a way of grace, and manifests himself to them, otherwise than he doth to the world. See a beautiful proof of this, Luk 24:13-32 ; Joh 14:22-23 ; Psa 145:18-19 . But we must not stop here, in our review of this blessed passage. The Lord adds a promise, and a most comprehensive one it is. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels. The figure here made use of concerning the great day of God, is that of the world on fire, and Christ gathers his Segullah, his chosen ones, as jewels from the flame, as men would do by saving their valuables in such a time of destruction. And I pray the Reader to observe, how the Lord speaks of them. They shall be mine. The people of God are so from everlasting, in the gift of the Father, the purchase of Christ’s blood, and the regenerating testimony in their hearts of the work of God the Holy Ghost. But in that day he publicly owns them before a congregated world of men and angels, and takes them to himself forever. Oh! how eternally safe are all souls, in such securities! Oh! how gracious is the Lord, in the giving by the way such promises! Lord! give both Writer and Reader grace, to know our present interest in these sweet promises, and to live now in the enjoyment of them by faith, until we enter upon the everlasting possession of our inheritance by thy blood and righteousness in glory. Amen.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Mal 3:13 Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken [so much] against thee?
Ver. 13. Your words have been stout against me ] Or, re-enforced, or strongly confirmed. Superant me verba vestra, so some have rendered it. By your hard and hateful words you have been too hard for me, as it were. And it is as if God should say, I have given you my best advice to break off your sins, and to bring me my tithes, that I might bless you both with store and honour. But I have lost my labour; I see well, my sweet words are worse than spilt upon you, who are so hardened in your error and blasphemy, that you are still clamouring and casting out odious words against me, Pro 23:8 . Verba quid incassum non proficientia perdo? Once before you had set your foul mouths against me, and, like so many wolves (that were wood), you held up your heads and howled out these ugly words, “Every one that doth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them,” Mal 2:17 ; was it possible that the wit of malice could devise so high a slander? And now you are at it again, creaking like doors that move upon rusty hinges, nay, clattering and blustering out such hellish and hideous blasphemies, as at the hearing whereof it is great wonder if the heavens sweat not, earth gape not, sea roar not, all creatures conspire not to be avenged upon you; as the very stones in the wall of Aphek turned executioners of those blasphemous Syrians, when as, being but ignorant pagans, their tongues might seem no slander.
your words have been stout against me
Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Malachi
‘STOUT WORDS,’ AND THEIR CONFUTATION
Mal 3:13 – Mal 3:18
This passage falls into three parts,-the ‘stout words’ against God which the Prophet sets himself to confute Mal 3:13 – Mal 3:15; the prophecy of the day which will show their falsehood Mal 3:16 – Mal 4:3; and the closing exhortation and prediction Mal 4:4 – Mal 4:6.
I. The returning exiles had not had the prosperity which they had hoped.
So many of them, even of those who had served God, began to let doubts darken their trust, and to listen to the whispers of their own hearts, reinforced by the mutterings of others, and to ask: ‘What is the use of religion? Does it make any difference to a man’s condition?’ Here had they been keeping God’s charge, and going in black garments ‘before the Lord,’ in token of penitence, and no good had come to them, while arrogant neglect of His commandments did not seem to hinder happiness, and ‘they that work wickedness are built up.’ Sinful lives appeared to have a firm foundation, and to rise high and palace-like, while righteous ones were like huts. Goodness seemed to spell ruin.
What was wrong in these ‘stout words’? It was wrong to attach such worth to external acts of devotion, as if these were deserving of reward. It was wrong to suspend the duty of worship on the prosperity resulting from it, and to seek ‘profit’ from ‘keeping his charge.’ Such religion was shallow and selfish, and had the evils of the later Pharisaism in germ in it. It was wrong to yield to the doubts which the apparently unequal distribution of worldly prosperity stirred in their hearts. But the doubts themselves were almost certain to press on Old Testament believers, as well as on Old Testament scoffers, especially under the circumstances of Malachi’s time. The fuller light of Christianity has eased their pressure, but not removed it, and we have all had to face them, both when our own hearts have ached with sorrow and when pondering on the perplexities of this confused world. We look around, and, like the psalmist, see ‘the prosperity of the wicked,’ and, like him, have to confess that our ‘steps had wellnigh slipped’ at the sight. The old, old question is ever starting up. ‘Doth God know?’ The mystery of suffering and the mystery of its distribution, the apparent utter want of connection between righteousness and well-being, are still formidable difficulties in the way of believing in a loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful God, and are stock arguments of the unbeliever and perplexities of humble faith. Never to have felt the force of the difficulty is not so much the sign of steadfast faith as of scant reflection. To yield to it, and still more, to let it drive us to cast religion aside, is not merely folly, but sin. So thinks Malachi.
II. To the stout words of the doubters is opposed the conversation of the godly.
‘ Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another,’ nourishing their faith by believing speech with like-minded. The more the truths by which we believe are contradicted, the more should we commune with fellow-believers. Attempts to rob us should make us hold our treasure the faster. Bold avowal of the faith is especially called for when many potent voices deny it. And, whoever does not hear, God hears. Faithful words may seem lost, but they and every faithful act are written in His remembrance and will be recompensed one day. If our names and acts are written there, we may well be content to accept scanty measures of earthly good, and not be ‘envious of the foolish’ in their prosperity.
Malachi’s answer to the doubters leaves all other considerations which might remove the difficulty unmentioned, and fixes on the one, the prophecy of a future which will show that it is not all the same whether a man is good or bad. It was said of an English statesman that he called a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old, and that is what the Prophet does. Christianity has taught us many other ways of meeting the doubters’ difficulty, but the sheet anchor of faith in that storm is the unconquerable assurance that a day comes when the righteousness of providence will be vindicated, and the eternal difference between good and evil manifested in the fates of men. The Prophet is declaring what will be a fact one day, but he does not know when. Probably he never asked himself whether ‘the day of the Lord’ was near or far off, to dawn on earth or to lie beyond mortal life. But this he knew-that God was righteous, and that sometime and somewhere character would settle destiny, and even outwardly it would be good to be good. He first declares this conviction in general terms, and then passes on to a magnificent and terrible picture of that great day.
The promise, which lay at the foundation of Israel’s national existence, included the recognition of it as ‘a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people,’ and Malachi looks forward to that day as the epoch when God will show by His acts how precious the righteous are in His sight. Not the whole Israel, but the righteous among them, are the heirs of the old promise. It is an anticipation of the teaching that ‘they are not all Israel which are of Israel,’ And it bids us look for the fulfilment of every promise of God’s to that great day of the Lord which lies still before us all, when the gulf between the righteous and the wicked shall be solemnly visible, wide, and profound. There have been many ‘days which I make’ in the world’s history, and in a measure each of them has re-established the apparently tottering truth that there is a God who judgeth in the earth, but the day of days is yet to come.
No grander vision of judgment exists than Malachi’s picture of ‘the day,’ lurid, on the one hand, with the fierce flame, before which the wicked are as stubble that crackles for a moment and then is grey ashes, or as a tree in a forest fire, which stands for a little while, a pillar of flame, and then falls with a crash, shaking the woods; and on the otherhand, radiant with the early beams of healing sunshine, in whose sweet morning light the cattle, let out from their pent-up stalls, gambol in glee. But let us not forget while we admire the noble poetry of its form that this is God’s oracle, nor that we have each to settle for ourselves whether that day shall be for us a furnace to destroy or a sun to cheer and enlighten.
We can only note in a sentence the recurrence in Mal 4:1 of the phrases ‘the proud’ and they ‘that work wickedness,’ from Mal 3:15 The end of those whom the world called happy, and who seemed stable and elevated, is to be as stubble before the fire. We must also point out that ‘the sun of righteousness’ means the sun which is righteousness, and is not a designation of the Messiah. Nor can we dwell on the picture of the righteous treading down the wicked, which seems to prolong the previous metaphor of the leaping young cattle. Then shall ‘the upright have dominion over them in the morning.’
III. The final exhortation and promise point backwards and forwards, summing up duty in obedience to the law, and fixing hope on a future reappearance of the leader of the prophets.
Moses and Elijah are the two giant figures which dominate the history of Israel. Law and prophecy are the two forms in which God spoke to the fathers. The former is of perpetual obligation, the latter will flash up again in power on the threshold of the day. Jesus has interpreted this closing word for us. John came ‘in the spirit and power of Elijah,’ and the purpose of his coming was to ‘turn the hearts of the fathers to the children’ Luk 1:16 – Luk 1:17; that is, to bring back the devout dispositions of the patriarchs to the existing generations, and so to bring the ‘hearts of the children to their fathers,’ as united with them in devout obedience. If John’s mission had succeeded, the ‘curse’ which smote Israel would have been stayed. God has done all that He can do to keep us from being consumed by the fire of that day. The Incarnation, Life, and Death of Jesus Christ made a day of the Lord which has the twofold character of that in Malachi’s vision, for He is a ‘saviour of life unto life’ or ‘of death unto death,’ and must be one or other to us. But another day of the Lord is still to come, and for each of us it will come burning as a furnace or bright as sunrise. Then the universe shall ‘discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mal 3:13-15
Mal 3:13Your words have been arrogant against Me, says the LORD. Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against You?’ 14You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked in mourning before the LORD of hosts? 15So now we call the arrogant blessed; not only are the doers of wickedness built up but they also test God and escape.’
Mal 3:13
NASBYour words have been arrogant against Me
NKJVYour words have been harsh against Me
NRSV, NJByou have spoken harsh words against me
TEVyou have said terrible things about Me
JPSOAyou have spoken hard words against Me
This is a common term with a large semantic range. Its basic meaning is to be strong (BDB 304, KB 302, Qal PERFECT). It can have negative connotations of God hardening the hearts of
1. Pharaoh, Exo 7:13; Exo 7:22; Exo 8:15; Exo 9:35
2. Canaanite kings, Jos 11:20
but also a positive connotation:
a. encouraging Joshua (cf. Deu 1:38; Deu 3:28; Deu 31:6-7; Deu 31:23; Jos 1:6-7; Jos 1:9; Jos 1:18; Jos 10:25)
b. encouraging Israel to keep the covenant, Jos 23:6
c. encouraging Israel to fight, 2Sa 10:12 (twice)
In context the usage here fits #1. These post-exilic Jews had hardened their hearts and words against YHWH (cf. Psa 119:21; Psa 119:51; Psa 119:69; Psa 119:78; Psa 119:85; Psa 119:122).
What have we spoken against Thee Although they spoke to each other, God took it as to Himself (cf. Mal. 4:16). This is another use of diatribe.
Mal 3:14 ‘It is vain to serve God’ The word vain (BDB 996) means emptiness and vanity (see Psa 127:1). They were claiming that there were no visible benefits of worshiping and obeying YHWH.
1. to serve, BDB 712, KB 773, Qal INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT
2. we have kept, BDB 1036, KB 1581, Qal PERFECT
3. we have walked, BDB 229, KB 246, Qal PERFECT
All three verbals denote lifestyle faith. They viewed faith as what is in it for me? This is the spiritual plague of the modern western church. See Gordon Fee, The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels. Luk 12:15 screams at us!
SPECIAL TOPIC: WEALTH
what profit This term (BDB 130) usually has the connotation of gain made by violence. Here it denotes physical benefits from being a believer (cf. Job 22:3).
Mal 3:15 So now we call the arrogant blessed We are now at the heart of the question of Mal 2:17. We live in an unfair world which has been affected by our own rebellion (cf. Genesis 3). Often the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer (cf. Job; Psalms 73; Jer 12:1-4; Hab 1:2-4). The key to understanding life is our trusting attitude toward the faithfulness of God and His promises, and being patient for His justice in His time (cf. Gal 6:7).
they also test God and escape This same term, test, (BDB 103, KB 119) is used in a positive sense in Mal 3:10; therefore, the only difference is the attitude by which we trust the trustworthiness of God.
No one tests God and escapes (BDB 572, KB 589, Niphal IMPERFECT, cf. Pro 19:5; Amo 9:1).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
stout = hard, or bold.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mal 3:13-18
WHEN THE DAY COMES, TRUE WORSHIPPERS
WILL BE SPARED . . . Mal 3:13-18
(Mal 3:13-15) Malachi continues to list Jehovahs grievances against the people. They needed to return and they feigned unawareness of any such need (Mal 3:7). They robbed God, yet pretended not to be aware of the robbing (Mal 3:8). They have spoken against God, and again pretended innocence (Mal 3:13 cp. Mal 2:17). The prophet continues to speak frankly, as he answers this latest question, Ye have said, It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we keep his charge?
Such complaining is not uncommon among those who cannot understand the spiritual nature of Gods covenant. Those who see the covenant as a mercenary bargain, attend to outward observance in the hope of receiving material blessings. When such are not forthcoming, because they are at most incidental to Gods purpose in His people, such worshippers are always disappointed and prone to despair. God has never promised wealth to the faithful or poverty to the unjust. We manifest a gross ignorance of His nature and His love when we judge the worth of service to Him on such basis.
The evidence of this misunderstanding on the part of Malachis readers is seen in the last part of verses fourteen and fifteen. They equate their sacrifice of blemished animals and the withholding of tithes and offerings out of concern for material necessities with keeping His charge. They equate pietly with walking mournfully. They mistake pride for real happiness and complain that the wicked are better off than the rest. They accuse God, very subtly, of injustice because the wicked tempt God and escape.
Zerr: Mal 3:13-15. The Lord again takes up his complaint against fleshly Israel. One ot their chief faults was to deny that what they were doing was wrong. In so speaking they virtually charged God with making a false accusation against them. The Lord specifies some of the things they were saying unjustly. Perhaps the most serious was to deny that it was worthwhile to obey the law. Here Is another serious charge that reflects against the justice of God. They said that the proud and wicked persons were the ones who were accorded the most happiness by the Lord, which was the very opposite of the truth. It is no wonder that the Lord said he was “wearied” with them.
(Mal 3:16-18) Rather than continuing to rebuke their lack of perception, Malachi turns to words of comfort. He assures them the faithful will not be forgotten. They will be spared who are Godfearers, and ultimately made to understand the real difference between the righteous and the wicked.
A book of remembrance is being written he assures them, in which the names of the faithful were being recorded (cp. Esther 6). In the day when Jehovah acts, they will be spared His judgment and beyond this, they will be revealed as Jehovahs peculiar treasure. (cp. Joh 3:18, 1Pe 2:9)
Even in dark times there are those few who fear Him and so speak, i.e. converse with one another about Him,
THEY THAT FEARED JEHOVAH . . . Mal 3:16
Malachi foresees the repentance of some, though not all the people. They would speak with one another, No doubt their speaking would concern the need for repentance, for genuine worship. As always, the fear of Jehovah would prove the beginning of wisdom for Jehovah would hear and remember.
Zerr: Mal 3:16. Going back to the subject in verse 12 and others, the prophet looks forward to some of the glorious features of the Gospel age. .Then is an adverb of time, referring to things that were to be done in the Gospel system under Christ. The past tense is a grammatical form often used in prophetic writings, but it was several centuries in the future when Malachi wrote it. Space often are from one word which is DABAR and Strong defines it, “A primitive root; perhaps properly to arrange; but used figuratively (of Words) to speak.” Young defines it. “To speak (consult) together.” Among the many words by which it has been rendered in the King James Version are answer, communication, counsel, language, message, promise. question, reason, report, re- quest, saying, speech, talk, and word: the last one is used 770 times. With all this critical information at hand it would indicate that the wording in our common version is justified. It undoubtedly means that the citizens in the kingdom of Christ were to be in close touch with each other, which would require that they assemble whenever they can. This all agrees with the admonition at Paul in Hebrews that the disciples of Christ should not forsake the assembling together of themselves (Heb 10:25). Book of remembrance does not mean that God needs any mechanical plan to keep Him from forgetting anything. The expression is used figuratively and means that the names of God’s Children are carefully inscribed in the heavenly record, and the fact is spoken of as being recorded in a book. (See Luk 10:20; Heb 12:23; Rev 3:5 Rev 21:27.)’
THEY SHALL BE MINE . . . Mal 3:17-18
Malachis covenant consciousness is evident here. It is those who fear Jehovah and think on His name who are His people. No reference is made to religious ritual or racial origin.
Peter voiced this same conviction. Following the thrice repeated vision which convinced him to go to a non-Jewish home with the gospel, and the resultant demonstration of Gods overwhelming approval of his action in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Peter exclaimed, of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to Him. (Act 10:34-35) Paul confirms this same truth in Rom 2:13, For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. Malachi would have his readers understand this truth. In the days of Jehovah His people will be those who really serve.
Zerr: They shall be mine (Mal 3:17). If I were to buy and pay for something it certainly would be mine. Jesus purchased the church with his own blood and it is said to be His. (See Act 20:28; 1Pe 1:19 1Pe 2:9.) Jewels is from CEGULLAH which Strong defines, “wealth,” It is the word for “peculiar treasure” in Psa 135:4. The Lord regards the members of His church as jewels since they are so valuable, He having said such a great price (his blood) for them. That day means the Gospel dispensation in which time He was to make up or gather these jewels into the fold or church. I will spare them, etc., is equivalent In thought to that in Heb 8:11. The gist of Mal 3:18 is that the members or the new kingdom will have superior knowledge of what is right and wrong. That is because they will have the “perfect law of liberty” for their guidance. But this is not all, for the leaders of the Jewish kingdom, especially In the days of Malachi’s writing. had mixed together the good and the evil and bad refused to make any difference between them. (See Mal 2:17). The Gospel was to be clear and exacting and those who believe it will be trained to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Eph 5:11).
Questions On Malachi Chapter Three
1. What were the Lord’s plans? (Mal 3:1)
2. What would He do? (Mal 3:2-3)
3. What would be the result? (verse 4)
4. Against whom would God be a swift witness? (Mal 3:5) Why? (Mal 3:6-7)
5. What were they doing to God? (Mal 3:8)
6. What should they do? (Mal 3:10) If they did this, what would God do? (Mal 3:10-12)
7. In what manner (or ways) did they speak arrogantly against God? (Mal 3:13-15)
8. Who was in the Lord’s book of remembrance? (Mal 3:16)
9. How would God treat those people? (Mal 3:17)
10. What would they distinguish? (Mal 3:18)
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Wickedness and Pride Shall Find Judgment
Mal 3:13-18; Mal 4:1-6
The day cometh! either in the fall of Jerusalem or in some terrible catastrophe yet future. Whenever it comes may we be reckoned as Gods peculiar treasure, preserved as a woman preserves her jewels in the day of calamity, Mal 3:17. Sorrow and disaster are perpetually befalling the proud, or those that do wickedly; while on those who fear Gods name the dawn of the sun of righteousness is forever breaking and growing to the perfect day. In the beams of the sun there are not only light and color, but rays which bear health and vitality to the world and to men; so in Jesus there is power to salvation. Notice how the Old Testament ends with the word curse, while the Christs proclamation opens with Blessed.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
SERMON #16. DISCERNING BETWEEN THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE WICKED
Text:Mal 3:13-18
Subject:This Difference Between Wheat and Tares
Date:Sunday Evening January 3, 2010
Introduction:
My subject tonight is Discerning Between the Righteous and the Wicked. Our Lord Jesus tells us plainly that in every age, wherever the righteous are found the wicked will be found among them. In every field of wheat, there tares grow and thrive. Wherever sheep find pasture, goats will be found grazing beside them. He also tells us to let the tares grow together with the wheat and let the goats graze with the sheep. We are never to try to separate them. That is the Lords work, and he will do it by the gospel.
We must never try to separate the tares from the wheat; and we must never try to separate the wicked from the righteous. But that does not mean that they be discerned and will not be separated. In Malachi 3, the Lord God makes a very clear discernment and assures us that, when he has finished all things, we shall with him discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
(Mal 3:13-18) Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? 14 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? 15 And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. 16 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. 17 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. 18 Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
GODS CHARGE
First, in Mal 3:13-15 we read Gods charge against the wicked, the wicked among his own people, wicked men and women who profess themselves to be righteous and delude themselves into thinking that they are righteous, because they are religious.
Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Here the Lord declares that there are some in his house, among his professed people, who speak impudently against him, against his character as God, his gospel, his ordinances, his worship, his providence.
They pretend that they have not done so. Yet ye say, what have we spoken [so much] against thee? In fact, few would ever use such speech, though in their hearts they constantly speak evil against God.
(Mal 3:14-15) 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? 15 And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.
Few would utter such words, but many there are who are stoutly against God, judging him unjust and evil, because the wicked appear to prosper in this world. Listen to Jobs reply to Zophar (Job 21:6-15).
(Job 21:6-15) 6 Even when I remember I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold on my flesh. 7 Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power? 8 Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes. 9 Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. 10 Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf. 11 They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. 12 They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. 13 They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. 14 Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. 15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?
Sometimes true believers experience such beastliness as is described in our text. David did (Psalms 73). Sometimes the strongest of Gods saints are envious at the prosperity of the wicked. Do you ask, Why do the wicked prosper? Read the Word of God, and understand that when the proud are happy and those who work iniquity are set up, when those who defy God are delivered, it is that they might be ruined forever (Deu 32:35).
(Deu 32:35) To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.
(Psa 73:1-28) A Psalm of Asaph. Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. 2 But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. 3 For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4 For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm. 5 They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men. 6 Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment. 7 Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish. 8 They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily. 9 They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth. 10 Therefore his people return hither: and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them. 11 And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High? 12 Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches. 13 Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. 14 For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning.
15 If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children. 16 When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; 17 Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end. 18 Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction. 19 How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors. 20 As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.
21 Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins. 22 So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee. 23 Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. 24 Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. 26 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. 27 For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee. 28 But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.
(Psa 92:1-15) A Psalm or Song for the sabbath day. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High: 2 To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night, 3 Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound. 4 For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands. 5 O LORD, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep. 6 A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this
7 When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever: 8 But thou, LORD, art most high for evermore. 9 For, lo, thine enemies, O LORD, for, lo, thine enemies shall perish; all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. 10 But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil. 11 Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies, and mine ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me. 12 The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. 13 Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. 14 They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; 15 To shew that the LORD is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.
(Ecc 3:9-11) What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? 10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. 11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
THE CONTRAST
Second, Malachi draws a glaring contrast between the righteous and the wicked in Mal 3:16-17.
(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. 17 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.
Though we sometimes think like the wicked and unbelieving, though we sometimes act like the wicked and unbelieving, yet the Lord God causes his own to hear his word. He graciously causes his chosen to hear when he speaks. And one of the ways he causes us to hear his Word is by our conversations with each other in his house. Notice how Gods elect are described here.
Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another. Of what do they speak? Of what do they think? They who fear the Lord think upon his name.
1st. They are said to fear the Lord. The Holy Spirit, by tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Psa 111:10). This godly fear includes the whole of true faith and godliness.
Conviction
Repentance
Faith
Worship
Love
2nd The effects that follow godly fear are identified. They thought upon his name. I have no doubt that the name of the Lord here is given to point us to our Lord Jesus Christ, God in his covenant love and faithfulness, as manifested in the person of his dear Son. The name of God in scripture language, means the person, work and offices of God, particularly as revealed in redemption by Christ Jesus. Let us think on his Name!
JEHOVAH-JIREH The Lord will provide. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen (Gen 22:14).
JEHOVAH-RAPHA The Lord that healeth thee. And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee (Exo 15:26).
JEHOVAH-NISSI The Lord our Banner. And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi (Exo 17:15).
JEHOVAH-MKADDESH The Lord which doth sanctify you.: Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you (Exo 31:13); And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the Lord which sanctify you (Lev 20:8).
JEHOVAH-RA-AH The Lord my Shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want (Psa 23:1).
JEHOVAH-HOSEENU The Lord our Maker. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker (Psa 95:6).
JEHOVAH-ELOHEENU The Lord our God. Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship at his footstool; for he is holy…He spake unto them in the cloudy pillar: they kept his testimonies, and the ordinance that he gave them. Thou answeredst them, O Lord our God: thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions (Psa 99:5; Psa 99:7-8).
JEHOVAH-ELOHEKA The Lord thy God. I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: … Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me…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 (Exo 20:2; Exo 20:5; Exo 20:7).
JEHOVAH-ELOHAY The Lord my God. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee (Zec 14:5).
JEHOVAH-SHALOM The Lord our Peace.: Then Gideon built an altar there unto the Lord, and called it Jehovah-shalom: unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abiezrites (Jdg 6:24).
JEHOVAH-TSEBAHOTH The Lord of Hosts And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the LORD of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there (1Sa 1:3); And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha (Rom 9:29); Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth (Jas 5:4).
JEHOVAH-HELEYON The Lord Most High. I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness: and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high (Psa 7:17); For the Lord most high is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth (Psa 47:2); For thou, Lord, art high above all the earth: thou art exalted far above all gods (Psa 97:9).
JEHOVAH-TSIDKEENU The Lord our Righteousness. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS (Jer 23:6); In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The Lord our righteousness (Jer 33:16).
JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH The Lord is there. It was round about eighteen thousand measures: and the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there (Eze 48:35).
When our hearts are full with thoughts of the Lord in his grace, and love to our souls; we speak of those things to one another; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Thus love is kindled and communicated from one to another by heart-refreshing, soul-comforting conversation.
They spoke not now and then only, but often one to another. They helped each other, by reminding one another of the Lord God and his wondrous works for them and in them
Electing Love
Redeeming Blood
Covenant Faithfulness
Special Providence
Prevenient Grace
The New Creation
Preservation
Constant Mercy
Abiding Forgiveness
Perfect Righteousness
Heavenly Glory
The Triune God God the Father God the Son God the Holy Spirit
3rd The Prophet tells us that the Lord our God hears, approves of, accepts and remembers such speech among his children. So pleasing are such things to the Lord, that, speaking after the manner of men, he hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him.
Obviously the God of Glory does not need records, or make records to remind him of things. He is listening to the words or actions of his creatures, to gain information! All things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do (Heb 4:13). Malachi is simply telling us that our great God delights in our praise of him and in hearing us speak to one another about his greatness, his goodness, his grace and his glory. IMAGINE THAT!
He draws nigh to all who delight in him in mercy, love and grace; and he manifests himself to us in such a way as he does not to the world (Luk 24:13-32; Joh 14:22-23. Psa 145:18-19).
(Psa 145:18-19) The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. 19 He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them
GODS PROMISES
Them, the third thing we have before us in Mal 3:17-18 is Gods special promises to those who fear him, call uponhis name and speak forth his praise.
(Mal 3:17-18) 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. 18 Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels. The figure here made use of concerning the great day of God, is that of the world on fire, and Christ gathers his Bride, his chosen ones, as jewels from the flame, as men would save their valuables from a burning house.
They shall be mine. Manifestly Mine! We were his from everlasting, by the gift of the Father, and redemptively the purchase of his blood, and the regenerating testimony in our hearts by the work of God the Holy Spirit. But in that day he will publicly own us before a congregated world of men and angels, and take us to himself forever.
(Eph 2:4-7) But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
Oh, what blessed securities these are! Oh, how gracious is the Lord God our Savior, in the giving us such promises by the way! Oh, how safe we must be in and with and by Christ Jesus!
(Mal 3:18) Then (when the Lord our God has made all things new) shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
Let us, as long as we live in this world, especially as often as we gather here in his house
Fear the Lord
Speak often to one another about him.
Think upon his name.
Amen.
SERMON #17. JEHOVAHS JEWELS
Text:Mal 3:17
Subject:Gods Elect His Jewels
Date:Sunday Evening January 17, 2010
Introduction:
My subject is JEHOVAHS JEWELS. Our text is Mal 3:17. 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.
These words were spoken by God through his prophet Malachi in an age very much like our own, to a graceless generation, when the worship of Jehovah was peculiarly distasteful to men. Men and women who claimed to worship and serve the Lord God scoffed at his altar and his sacrifice. They said, What a weariness is it! They scornfully asserted, It is vain to serve God! And asked, What profit is it that we have kept his ordinance? And scornfully asked, What profit is it that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?
Yet, even in those dark, dark days, as in ours, there were bright stars shining out of the darkness. Though the great majority of those who claimed to worship God, only mocked him and blasphemed him in their religious exercises, there were small assemblies of devoted worshippers, here and there was a man, a woman, or two or three, upon whom the Triune Jehovah gazed with delight, people who feared the Lord, who spake often one to another of his great goodness, peerless majesty and wondrous grace, a people standing on the tiptoe of faith and expectation, waiting for the Consolation of Israel.
And our God hearkened and heard this elect remnant. He so approved of that which he heard, as they worshipped him, that he took notes of it and declared that he would publish it. A book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. He highly cherished these hidden ones
Faithful among the faithless found,
A meek and holy few they were,
Kept in all their heavenly armor bright,
And bravely scorned midst errors night.
The Lord Jehovah so highly cherished these few that he called them his jewels; and he declared that, in the great day when he gathers together his peculiar people, his special treasure, the distinct emblems of his royalty as the Monarch of the universe, he would look upon these hidden ones as being more priceless than emeralds, rubies, or pearls. They shall be mine, said he, in the day when I make up my jewels, when I gather my choicest jewels into my royal treasure house to be my glory and crown forever.
What a great declaration of grace! 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. Lets look this metaphor together for a few minutes and seek to worship our God.
THE COMPARISON
First, consider the comparison. The Lord God here compares his elect to jewels, his own peculiar jewels. Throughout the ages, men have treasured precious stones. Unbelievable prices have been paid for rubies, emeralds and diamonds. Nothing, it appears, is valued by men in whose hearts God has set the world, like gold and diamonds. So we should not be surprised by the fact that our God compares his chosen to those two things (gold and diamonds)[1] that we may know, and that the world may know, how precious we are to him. The very walls of Zion, the walls of Gods church built upon Christ the Foundation Stone are made of gold, and silver, and precious stones.
[1] Gods Elect Compared to Gold (Psa 105:37; Zec 13:9; Mal 3:3)
Compared to Diamonds (Exo 28:18; Exo 39:11)
Though Gods people are, always have been and, as long as time shall stand, always shall be, esteemed by men as something less than the off-scouring of humanity, the great Jeweler of Heaven, the Triune Jehovah, esteems them as precious beyond all price.
Oh, how God the Father values his people! He so great values our souls that he spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all (Rom 8:32).
God the Spirit so highly values the chosen that he makes it his work and his glory to call them, convert them, comfort them and keep them.
And God the Son so highly values these sinners he calls his jewels that he gave himself for us.
Our Saviors life was as dear to him as life is to us, and yet all that he had, even his life, he gave for his chosen (2Co 8:9). He counted-down the price of his jewels in drops of bloody sweat in the gloomy garden of Gethsemane. His very heart was broken, pouring out his precious blood that he might save his people from their sins and deliver us from the curse of the law.
Indeed, our Lord Jesus compares himself to a merchantman seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found the one pearl of great price, the church of his elect, for the joy thereof went and sold all that he had to buy that pearl and make it his own by divine purchase.
PROVIDENCE
Yes, the Triune God places great value upon those he calls his jewels. We see that, not only by the infinitely costly price of our redemption, but also by the fact that all providence is but a wheel upon which to polish and perfect the Lords jewels. Those stupendous wheels, Ezekiel saw, portrayed the great machinery of divine providence, by which he cuts the facets of his true choice gems, and makes his diamonds ready for his crown. It is written, all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
The Lord God values his people very highly; not only the rich among them, not alone the most gracious among them, but the very least and most unworthy among us are Jehovahs jewels. To fear the Lord and think upon his name are very simple indications of reverence, faith and worship. Yet, if we only measure up to that standard, so that we fear him and think upon his name, our great and gracious God declares that we are dear to him, his very jewels!
Though you possess no special gifts or eminent graces, though you have no talents or abilities others might envy, still, if you fear him and your heart is set toward the Lord Jesus, to think upon his name, you are precious to him.
Jewels well portray the Lords people, because jewels are extremely hard and durable. Diamonds will cut glass. Little penetrates them, to spoil them. Little injures them. They endure, and endure, and endure still. Well may Gods elect be compared to jewels. The believer has within him an incorruptible, undefiled new nature, created in righteousness and true holiness, called eternal life and immortality. He shall never die.
Jewels will out last the worlds lifetime, and glitter on as long as the sun shines. The rust of time does not corrupt them. The moth of age does not devour them. And no these jewels no thief can break through and steal. They are kept in Jehovahs hands, in the grip of his omnipotent grace!
The believer is born of an incorruptible seed, which liveth and abideth forever. The world has often tried to crush or destroy Gods diamonds, but all the attempts of malicious fury have failed. All that enmity has ever accomplished has only been, in the hands of God, the means of displaying the preciousness and brilliance of his jewels.
The fake jewels of gaudy religious works, those imitations made by men are soon enough made manifest. They are soon tarnished and soon destroyed.
The greenness of covetousness discolors them.
The rust of time erodes them.
The heat of trial dissolves them.
The weight of opposition crushes them.
But the true believer, the true gem, the choice jewel of God, survives the fires of time, and when the fast dissolving day arrives, he shall come forth from the furnace without a flaw.
The jewel is prized for its luster. It is the brilliance of the diamond which, in a great measure, that is the evidence and test of its value. The colors of various gems and the purity of diamonds are best seen and known when the light shines most brightly upon them. So it is with Jehovahs jewels. The heaven born soul catches the beams of the Sun of Righteousness; and his righteousness shines forth in them, for we are immortal and God dwells in us. We are partakers of the divine nature. Christ, the Hope of Glory is in us! Stand there, my brother, my sister, in the bright, shining Sun of Righteousness. See how the diamonds flash and sparkle with
Faith!
Hope!
Love!
Joy!
Peace!
Patience!
Forbearance!
Tenderness!
Care!
Forgiveness!
Mercy!
Generosity!
AARONS BREASTPLATE
Precious stones are the flowers of the mineral world, the blossoms of the deep mines, the roses and lilies of earths caverns. I imagine that few things seen by the eyes of men are as beautiful as the breastplate of the high-priest, studded with the twelve rows of gems, each with its own separate beauty, melting into splendorous harmony, that Lord commanded Moses to make for Aaron. The stones on that breastplate were intended by God to represent his people, as he beholds us, perfect, spotless, holy and pure in his darling Son.
There is a beauty, a divine and superhuman beauty, about Gods elect. The whole creation affords no fairer sight to the Most High God than an assembly of his saints, in whom he sees he beauty of holiness, the beauty of his own dear Son multiplied. The Triune Jehovah looks upon us with divine complacency, because he sees in us the beauty of his own ineffable perfection, because we are one with Christ, because we are in Christ and Christ is in us!
Christians are comparable to jewels because jewels are rare. Jewels are precious to men because they are rare. And Gods people are but few compared with the unregenerate multitudes of the world. Like the ruby, the diamond and the emerald, believers are marvelous creations of grace (2Co 5:17).
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christs stead, be ye reconciled to God. 21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
(2Co 5:17-21)
There are not many gems of grace which enrich the nations of the world. The way to heaven is narrow, and the Savior says, Few there be that find it. But there is a city, called The New Jerusalem, where pearls, and jasper, and carbuncle, and emeralds are common things. The streets are gold; and the walls are precious stones. O fair Jerusalem, when shall we enter your gates!
It should also be noted, as I have already indicated, that every jewel is the production of God. Jewels are often imitated; but no man has yet been able to make a diamond. Lives have been wasted in attempts to produce precious stones, but none have been made. They are the secret productions of Gods own wisdom and power; and men have no idea how he does it. And all the wit in the world combined cannot find out the secret of the heaven-born life. Religion tries, but can never produce one of these jewels.
Papacy cannot.
Reformers cannot.
Ritualists cannot.
Work-mongers cannot.
Altar calls cannot.
To make jewels for Christs crown is Gods work, and Gods work alone. We might preach until our tongues can no longer move and mens ears grew deaf, but not one dead sinner can ever be brought to life by our talk alone. The Spirit must go with the word, or it is just wasted breath. The Lord God alone can create a jewel of grace. A believer is as much a miracle as Lazarus when he rose from the tomb. It is as great a work of Deity to create a believer as it is to create a world.
There are of many different kinds of jewels, too. Perhaps there is not a single ray in the spectrum that is not represented amongst them, from the purest white of the diamond, to the red of the ruby, to the bright green of the emerald, to the blue of the sapphire. So is it with Gods people. They are not all alike; and they never will be. All attempts at uniformity must fail, and it is very proper that they should fail. We should never wish to be one in the sense of uniformity, but only in the sense of unity. It is not one jewel, but many that are set in one crown. It matters little whether we shine with the sapphires blue, or the emeralds green, or the rubys red, or the diamonds white, so long as we are the Lords in the day when he makes up his jewels.
Jewels are of all sizes, yet they are all jewels. The Hope diamond is no more a diamond than the one my wife has been wearing for forty-three years. It is a little larger, but no more a diamond. And all believers, are Gods workmanship (master pieces) created in Christ Jesus. Unlike the jewels men cherish, no matter the size of Gods jewels, all are his master pieces, equally precious in his sight. Abraham and Lot, Peter and Thomas, Paul and Barnabas are Jehovahs jewels. One may be valued above another by us, but not by him! He says of all his elect, They shall be mine in that day when I make up my jewels.
Once more, jewels are found all over the world. In the most frozen regions, on the tops of mountains, and in the depths of mines, jewels have been discovered, in the hot regions of the tropics and beneath the frozen icecaps, jewels have been found. So, Gods elect are to be found everywhere. Blessed be the name of God, ransomed sinners have learned to sing the praises of Immanuel in the regions of perpetual ice, and the children of the sun have learned to adore the Sun of Righteousness in the midst of the darkest corners Africa.
Wherever the jewels have been found, though they differ in some respects, yet they are all alike in others, and kings delight in them, and are glad to use them as regal ornaments. So, wherever Jehovah finds his precious jewels, North, South, East or West, he sees Christ in them and them in Christ; and he delights in them. The Lord Jesus counts them to be his true ornaments, with which he arrays himself as in ancient times a bridegroom adorned himself with ornaments, and as a bride decked herself with jewels. Imagine that. The Triune God, our great Jehovah, delights in us!
THE MAKING UP
In the second place, the Lord God speaks of making up his jewels. The Lord Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, has some, who are his jewels, his peculiar treasure.
They are loved with an everlasting love.
They were chosen in him before the world began.
He redeemed them with own precious blood,
Justified by his righteousness,
And sanctifies them by his grace.
They have the graces of his Spirit in them.
And they will be glorified with their Lord.
They are a peculiar people, separate from all others;
And he prefers them above all others.
The Lord God has the strongest affection for these jewels he calls his people,
And takes special care of them.
And there is a time when he will make them up. Their number is already complete in eternal election; but they must be gathered.
There was a gathering of them together in Christ at his death (Joh 11:52).
As they are called and converted by his grace, the jewels are gathered as his regenerated and sanctified ones.
Then, at the death these bodies, we shall be received into heaven, into his presence and bosom, gathered unto our Redeemer.
And at the last day, in the resurrection, there will be a collection of all Gods jewels at once unto him in resurrection glory!
The day spoken of by Malachi is distinct from all other days, referring to this Gospel Day in which we are privileged to live and serve our God. In this our day, in this gospel age, in all his works the Lord our God, the Triune Jehovah is making up his jewels! So let us devote ourselves to the business of seeking jewels everywhere. All the chosen are not saved yet. Blood-bought-multitudes remain to be ingathered. Oh, for grace to seek them diligently!
Many jewels are found, but they are not yet polished. They are precious gems, but it is only recently that they have been dug from the mine. I am told that when the diamond is first discovered, it glitters little; you can see that it is a precious gem, but perhaps one half of it will have to be cut away before it sparkles with its fullest splendor. So it will be with many of the Lords people. The great Jeweler of Heaven who cherishes them cuts them severely, that he may make them sparkle as diamonds in his hands!
The Master Jeweler takes off first one angle and then another, and breaking away much which we have foolishly cherished. Through this cutting process, he makes up, forms, works, dresses his jewels for his crown.
Today, the Lord Jesus is making up his jewels. When he has made them all up, as he purposed from the beginning, then he will come again and gather them all unto himself!
THE GREAT PRIVILEGE
Think, thirdly, of what a high and honorable privilege it is to be numbered among his jewels, numbered among the crown jewels of Jehovah himself!
They shall be mine. That does not include all men, but only those that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. If we are the Lords, then what privileges are ours! Then we are safe. Eternally secure in Christ.
Oh, how highly honored we are; and how highly honored we shall be (1Jn 3:1-3).
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. 2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he Isaiah 3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. (1Jn 3:1-3)
Remember where the jewels are to be forever. The Son of God himself shall wear them as his glory and joy. Believers will be unrivalled illustrations of the glory of divine grace throughout all ages. Can you see our glorious Well-beloved? There he sits: adored of angels and admired of men! But what are the ornaments he wears? Worlds were too small to be signets upon his fingers, and the heavens were not sufficient to serve as his footstool. But, oh, how bright he is, how glorious! And what are the jewels which display his beauty? They are souls redeemed by his death from going down into the pit. Blood-washed sinners! Men and women who, but for him, would have been tormented forever in the flames of the damned, but who now rejoice to sing, Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.
Soon, we shall be in the closest possible, the most intimate possible communion with Christ; and it shall endure forever! You are, one day, to display the glory of Immanuel. Unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places shall be made known, through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God. You shall be his gold rings set with the beryl. With you as his reward, he shall be as bright as ivory overlaid with sapphires. You are so dear to him that he bought you with his own blood because you could not be gotten for gold, neither could silver be weighed for the price thereof.
Your redemption by his death proves that your soul could not be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx or the sapphire; and when the ever-glorious God shall exhibit your sanctified spirit as an illustration of his glorious character and work, no mention shall be made of coral or of pearls, for your worth will be above rubies; the topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal you, nor shall the precious crystal be compared to you. C. H. Spurgeon
SPARED
Then, in the last line of our text, the Lord God says, And I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. That is a favor not granted to the apostate angels. God spared not the old world. And he did not the Jewish nation. He did not even spare his own dear Son. Yet, he promises chosen sinners that he will spare them as his own Son who served him faithfully throughout the age of his manhood and more: who served him faithfully throughout the ages of eternity!
Spared for Christs sake!
Spared with Christ!
Spared as Christ!
Spared forever!
What a day that will be, when Jehovahs Crown Jewels are all made up, gathered in and set as the diadem of his beauty and his glory, to the everlasting glory and praise of his name and to the everlasting, ever-increasing joy of our immortal souls (Isa 6:1-12).
1.For Zions sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalems sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.
2.And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name.
3.Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.
4.Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married.
5.For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.
6.I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence,
7.And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
8.The LORD hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast laboured:
9.But they that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the LORD; and they that have brought it together shall drink it in the courts of my holiness.
10.Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people.
11.Behold, the LORD hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.
12.And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken. (Isa 62:1-12)
May God gather you with his jewels, for Christs sake. O that he might spare you as his own Son!
Amen.
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
Your: Mal 2:17, Exo 5:2, 2Ch 32:14-19, Job 34:7, Job 34:8, Psa 10:11, Isa 5:19, Isa 28:14, Isa 28:15, Isa 37:23, 2Th 2:4
What: Mal 3:8, Mal 1:6-8, Mal 2:14, Mal 2:17, Job 40:8, Jer 8:12, Rom 9:20
Reciprocal: 1Sa 2:3 – let not arrogancy 1Sa 15:14 – What meaneth Job 1:11 – and he will curse thee Job 15:3 – he reason Job 15:13 – and lettest Job 15:25 – he stretcheth Psa 12:3 – tongue Psa 139:4 – there is not Isa 3:8 – because Isa 9:9 – in the pride Isa 45:19 – Seek Isa 46:12 – ye stouthearted Jer 28:10 – took Jer 44:18 – we have Eze 11:5 – Thus have Eze 18:25 – way Eze 24:19 – General Eze 35:13 – with Hos 7:13 – spoken Hos 12:8 – they Mal 1:2 – Wherein Mal 3:7 – Wherein Mat 25:44 – when 1Pe 4:5 – shall
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Mal 3:13. The Lord again takes up his complaint against fleshly Israel. One ot their chief taults was to deny that what they were doing was wrong. In so speaking they virtually charged God with making a talse accusation against them.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mal 3:13-15. Your words, &c. From this verse to the end of Mal 4:3, the prophet expostulates with the wicked for their hard speeches; and declares that God will make a fearful distinction between them and the righteous. Newcome. Have been stout against me Your words have been blasphemous, and void of all reverence and duty. Ye have spoken injuriously of me, and have uttered such things as dishonour me. Ye have even arraigned my proceedings, and spoken against them. Yet ye say, What have we spoken, &c. This is to the same purport as their words in Mal 3:8, and some other foregoing verses. They impudently deny the charge, therefore the prophet renews it against them in the following words; Ye have said If not with your lips, yet at least in your hearts; It is vain to serve God We receive no advantage from it, it is of no use to us. That they should talk thus impiously in the times of Zerubbabel, when Malachi uttered these reproofs and exhortations, is not probable; but God, who sees into the hearts of men, saw, lurking in their hearts, the seeds of that impiety which broke out in the following age. And what profit is it What benefit is it of to us; that we have kept his ordinance That we have attended upon the institutions of his worship, and have governed our lives according to his laws? And that we have walked mournfully before the Lord Have humbled ourselves before him with fasting and prayer, sackcloth and ashes. Their beholding the prosperity of the wicked made them conclude, that it was to no purpose to walk according to the laws of God, or to confess their offences and express their sorrow for them. And, or rather, but, or therefore, now we call the proud happy Those who behave themselves arrogantly against God, the proud contemners of his law. We can now do no less than think them happiest who do not concern themselves about the observance of Gods laws, but live according to their pleasure, and do every thing that their inclination or profit prompts them to do, without any fear of Gods calling them to an account for it. Yea, they that work wickedness are set up Are the flourishing ones; are raised to prosperity, as buildings are to their height. Yea, they that tempt God are even delivered Yea, they who, one would have supposed, should have wearied out Gods patience with their provocations, who have seemed to act as if they tried to provoke him, even these men escape those dangers and calamities which other men are involved in. Those who spake thus seem to have expected an exact distribution of temporal rewards and punishments to be made to good and bad men in this life.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Mal 3:13 to Mal 4:3. The Final Triumph of Righteousness.The prophet here returns to the complaint of those who thought that religion did not pay (with Mal 3:14; cf. Mal 2:17). They had kept Gods charge, faithfully observing their religious duties, and even wearing the sackcloth and ashes which marked humiliation and penance. Yet it is the arrogant and lax members of the community (cf. Psa 119:21; Psa 119:51, etc.) that do well; they challenge Gods judgment by their evil-doing, yet it does not fall upon them. Such were the words of pious Jews in Malachis day (the first word of Mal 3:16 should be thus or these things (LXX) instead of then), and Yahweh, ever mindful of His people, prepared a record (cf. the custom referred to in Est 6:1 f.) so that He may not fail to do them justice when the hour strikes. In the day of His action (the day on which I do or act) they, the true Israel, will be His peculium or special private possession, and while the sons who have been rebellious and disloyal are punished, those who have been faithful in service will be protected. Men will return and discern (i.e. they will once more, as in the good old times, see) virtue rewarded and vice punished; the moral distinctions will no longer be obliterated or blurred. Indeed, the arrogant and wicked will be totally destroyed like a prairie or a forest on fire. But the righteousness of the God-fearers (or of God Himself) will shine forth conspicuous to all, like the sun, and in its beneficent rays all their affliction will be healed. We may note that the Babylonian Shamash, the sun-god, was conceived of as the god of justice, and that Assyrian, Persian, and Egyptian monuments represent the solar disc with wings issuing on either side, his (Mal 4:2) is simply the archaic form of its; Malachi is not definitely predicting Christ, or indeed any personal agent. Exulting in their vindication, the godly will be as vigorous and joyful as young calves turned out from the dark stall to the sunny meadow. Alongside this picture is the grimmer one of the fate of the wicked (cf. Isa 66:24).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
3:13 Your words have been stout {m} against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken [so much] against thee?
(m) The Prophet condemns them of double blasphemy against God: first, in that they said that God had no respect for those that served him, and next, that the wicked were more in his favour than the godly.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
C. Situation: complacency toward serving the Lord 3:13-15
Now the Lord identified the sinful attitude that lay behind the peoples’ failure to tithe. This is the longest speech of the Judahites in the book, and it shows the hardness of the peoples’ hearts.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The people had spoken arrogantly against the Lord, yet when faced with their disrespect they asked for proof.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
7. THE JUDGMENT TO COME
Mal 3:13; Heb 3:13-19; Heb 4:1-2
This is another charge to the doubters among the pious remnant of Israel, who, seeing the success of the wicked, said it is vain to serve God. Deuteronomy was their Canon, and Deuteronomy said that if men sinned they decayed, if they were righteous they prospered. How different were the facts of experience! The evil men succeeded: the good won no gain by their goodness, nor did their mourning for the sins of their people work any effect. Bitterest of all, they had to congratulate wickedness in high places, and Jehovah Himself suffered it to go unpunished. Such things, says “Malachi,” “spake they that feared God to each other”-tempted thereto by the dogmatic form of their religion, and forgetful of all that Jeremiah and the Evangelist of the Exile had taught them of the value of righteous sufferings. Nor does “Malachi” remind them of this. His message is that the Lord remembers them, has their names written before Him, and when the day of His action comes they shall be separated from the wicked and spared. This is simply to transfer the fulfillment of the promise of Deuteronomy to the future and to another dispensation. Prophecy still works within the Law.
The Apocalypse of this last judgment is one of the grandest in all Scripture To the wicked it shall be a terrible fire, root and branch shall they be burned out, but to the righteous a fair morning of God, as when dawn comes to those who have been sick and sleepless through the black night, and its beams bring healing, even as to the popular belief of Israel it was the rays of the morning sun which distilled the dew. They break into life and energy, like young calves leaping from the dark pen into the early sunshine. To this morning landscape a grim figure is added. They shall tread down the wicked and the arrogant like ashes beneath their feet.
“Your words are hard upon Me, saith Jehovah. Ye say, What have we said against Thee? Ye have said, It is vain to serve God, and What gain is it to us to have kept His charge, or to have walked in funeral garb before Jehovah of Hosts? Even now we have got to congratulate the arrogant; yea, the workers of wickedness are fortified; yea, they tempt God and escape! Such things spake they that fear Jehovah to each other. But Jehovah gave ear and heard, and a book of remembrance {Eze 8:9} was written before Him about those who fear Jehovah, and those who keep in His Name. And they shall be Mine own property, saith Jehovah of Hosts, in the day when I rise to action, and I will spare them even as a man spares his son that serves him. And ye shall once more see the difference between righteous and wicked, between him that serves God and him that does not serve Him.”
“For, lo! the day is coming that shall burn like a furnace, and all the overweening and every one that works wickedness shall be as stubble, and the day that is coming shall devour them, saith Jehovah of Hosts, so that there be left them neither root nor branch. But to you that fear My Name the Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in His wings, and ye shall go forth and leap {Hab 1:8} like calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be as ashes beneath the soles of your feet, in the day that I begin to do, saith Jehovah of Hosts.”