Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

This is the burden of the word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi:

“Malachi--see Introduction. God sent no prophet after him till John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, in order to enflame His people with the more ardent desire for Him, the great antitype and fulfiller of prophecy.”

Though Edom may say, “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “They may build, but I will demolish.

“For a time Judea seemed as desolate as Idumea; but though the latter was once the highway of Eastern commerce, now the lonely rock-houses of Petra attest the fulfilment of the prophecy.”

“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. But if I am a father, where is My honor?

“He addresses the priests because they ought to be leaders in piety to the rest of the people, whereas they are foremost in "despising His name."”

When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is it not wrong? And when you present the lame and sick ones, is it not wrong? Try offering them to your governor!

“Your earthly ruler would feel insulted, if offered by you the offering with which ye put off God (see Le 22:22, 24).”

“Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would no longer kindle useless fires on My altar!

“DRUSIUS and MAURER translate, "Would that there were absolutely some one of you who would shut the doors of the temple (that is, of the inner court, in which was the altar of burnt offerings), and that ye would not kindle fire on My altar…”

“But you profane it when you say, ‘The table of the Lord is defiled, and as for its fruit, its food is contemptible.’

“Renewal of the charge in Mal 1:7. fruit . . . meat--the offerings of the people. The "fruit" is the produce of the altar, on which the priests subsisted. They did not literally say, The Lord's table is contemptible; but their acts virtually said so.”

You also say: ‘Oh, what a nuisance!’ And you turn up your nose at it,” says the LORD of Hosts. “You bring offerings that are stolen, lame, or sick!

“Also Isa 43:22-24, wherein He shows that it is they who have "wearied" Him, not He who has wearied them. snuffed at--despised. it--the table of the Lord, and the meat on it (Mal 1:12).”

Behold, I will rebuke your descendants, and I will spread dung on your faces, the waste from your feasts, and you will be carried off with it.

“You shall get the dung of the maw as your perquisite, instead of the maw. one shall take you away with it--that is, ye shall be taken away with it; it shall cleave to you wherever ye go [MOORE].”

“My covenant with him was one of life and peace, which I gave to him; it called for reverence, and he revered Me and stood in awe of My name.

“MAURER thus explains it; the Hebrew is, literally, "My covenant was with him, life and peace (to be given him on My part), and I gave them to him: (and on his part) fear (that is, reverence), and he did fear Me," &c.”

True instruction was in his mouth, and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity.

“The priest was the ordinary expounder of the law; the prophets were so only on special occasions. iniquity . . . not found--no injustice in his judicial functions (De 17:8, 9; 19:17). walked with me--by faith and obedience (Ge 5:22).”

For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, because he is the messenger of the LORD of Hosts.

“Hag 2:11). the law--that is, its true sense. messenger of . . . Lord--the interpreter of His will; compare as to the prophets, Hag 1:13.”

“So I in turn have made you despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not kept My ways, but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”

“Because ye do not keep the condition of the covenant, I will not fulfil the promise. partial in the law--having respect to persons rather than to truth in the interpretation and administration of the law (Le 19:15).”

Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us?

“Ezr 9:1-9), and so violating "the covenant" made by Jehovah with "our fathers," by which it was ordained that we should be a people separated from the other peoples of the world (Ex 19:5; To intermarry with the heathen would defeat this purpose of Jehovah…”

And this is another thing you do: You cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and groaning, because He no longer regards your offerings or receives them…

“Or, "the second time" means this: Your first sin was your blemished offerings to the Lord: now "again" is added your sin towards your wives [CALVIN]. covering . . . altar . . .”

Yet you ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have broken faith, though she is…

“Isa 54:6). wife of thy covenant--not merely joined to thee by the marriage covenant generally, but by the covenant between God and Israel, the covenant-people, whereby a sin against a wife, a daughter of Israel, is a sin against God [MOORE].”

But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire, like a launderer’s soap.

“His mission is here regarded as a whole from the first to the second advent: the process of refining and separating the godly from the ungodly beginning during Christ's stay on earth, going on ever since, and about to continue till the final separation (Mt…”

“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and…

“I . . . come near . . . to judgment--I whom ye challenged, saying, "Where is the God of judgment?" (Mal 2:17).”

Yet from the days of your fathers, you have turned away from My statutes and have not kept them.

“Reproof for the non-payment of tithes and offerings, which is the cause of their national calamities, and promise of prosperity on their paying them. from . . .”

Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you ask, ‘How do we rob You?’ In tithes and offerings.

“But they appropriated all the tithes, robbing the Levites of their due nine-tenths; as they did also, according to JOSEPHUS, before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.”

You are cursed with a curse, yet you—the whole nation—are still robbing Me.

“We may compromise with conscience for half the price, but God will not endorse the compromise; and, like Ananias and Sapphira, we shall lose not only what we thought we had purchased so cheaply, but also the price we paid for it.”

Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts.

“GESENIUS not so well translates, "Even to a failure of sufficiency," which in the case of God could never arise, and therefore means for ever, perpetually: so Ps 72:5, "as long as the sun and moon endure"; literally, "until a failure of the sun and…”

At that time those who feared the LORD spoke with one another, and the LORD listened and heard them.

“"Then," when the ungodly utter such blasphemies against God, the godly hold mutual converse, defending God's righteous dealings against those blasphemers (Heb 3:13). The "often" of English Version is not in the Hebrew.”

So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”

“Then shall ye . . . discern--Then shall ye see the falseness of your calumny against God's government (Mal 3:15), that the "proud" and wicked prosper. Do not judge before the time till My work is complete.”

“But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out and leap like calves from the stall.

“Eph 5:14; and in His second coming, 2Pe 1:19. The Church is the moon reflecting His light (Re 12:1). The righteous shall by His righteousness "shine as the Sun in the kingdom of the Father" (Mt 13:43).”

Then you will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I am preparing,” says the LORD of Hosts.

“Their prosperity and the adversity of the godly shall soon be reversed. Yea, the righteous shall be the army attending Christ in His final destruction of the ungodly (2Sa 22:43; 19:14, 15). ashes--after having been burnt with the fire of judgment (Mal 4:1).”