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Malachi

Malachichapter 3

18 verses · BSBMalachi book hub →

Speaks with:Malachi 4×2Hebrews 13×2Zechariah 13×2Proverbs 3×2Luke 1×1Mark 1×1

Summary

Chapter summary

'Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple' (3:1): the verse Mark opens his Gospel with, applied to John the Baptist. But the coming is not comfortable: 'who can abide the day of his coming? … he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap,' sitting to purify the sons of Levi, a swift witness against sorcerers, adulterers, and those who oppress the hireling and the widow. 'For I, Jehovah, change not; therefore ye, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.' Then the tithe dispute ('Will a man rob God?') and the one invitation to test him: 'prove me now herewith' (3:10).

Context

Prophecy · Malachi — Malachi overview

  • A. 1–6 The messenger comes suddenly, like a refiner's fire
  • B. 7–12 Will a man rob God? Bring the whole tithe
  • C. 13–18 Your words have been stout, and a book of remembrance is written

The outline

  1. A.The messenger comes suddenly, like a refiner's firevv. 1 to 6

    Read vv. 1 to 6 →

  2. B.Will a man rob God? Bring the whole tithevv. 7 to 12

    Read vv. 7 to 12 →

  3. C.Your words have been stout, and a book of remembrance is writtenvv. 13 to 18

    Read vv. 13 to 18 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

The messenger before his face

Pattern

Malachi closes the Old Testament with a messenger sent to prepare the way and Elijah promised before the great day. The Gospels open exactly there: Gabriel says John will go in the spirit and power of Elias, Mark begins his book with Malachi's verse, and Jesus says of John, this is he of whom it is written.

The seam between the Testaments is a single promise kept. Four centuries of silence end with the very figure the last prophet named, and Jesus himself supplies the identification.

  1. Malachi 3:1 you are here

    Behold, I will send my messenger

  2. Malachi 4:5-6

    Elijah before the great and dreadful day

    The Old Testament's last promise: Elijah sent to turn the heart of the fathers to the children.

  3. Matthew 11:10

    Jesus names John as the messenger

    For this is he, of whom it is written.

  4. Mark 1:2

    Mark opens his Gospel with the verse

  5. Luke 1:17

    In the spirit and power of Elias

    Before John's birth the angel binds Malachi's two promises to him.

The world behind this chapter

Malachi 3
When
The same era · c. 460–430 BC
Where
The temple, the refiner's fire, and the storehouse
Who first heard it
People saying it does not pay to serve God

The history

A messenger is promised who will prepare the way, and then "the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple." The people had been asking where the God of judgment was. The answer is that He is coming, and the follow-up question is whether they can stand it.

Two trades supply the images. A refiner sat over molten silver skimming off the dross, and knew the metal was ready when he could see his own reflection in it. A fuller cleaned and whitened cloth with strong alkaline soap and hard physical scrubbing. Both are slow, deliberate, and rough — and both produce something clean rather than destroy it.

The tithe section is the most quoted part of the book. The storehouse was a set of rooms in the temple where grain, wine, and oil were kept to support the Levites and priests, who had no farmland of their own. Nehemiah found those rooms emptied and the Levites gone back to their fields because they were not being fed — the system had simply stopped working.

The windows of heaven and the devourer rebuked are farming language: rain in season, and pests or blight held off. Both were the difference between eating and not eating.

The chapter ends with a book of remembrance written before God for those who feared Him and spoke often to one another. Persian kings kept official daybooks recording services done for the crown, and Esther turns on one being read aloud at night. A ledger of loyal service was a familiar object at court — and God is described as keeping one.

What it meant to them

The complaint quoted here is honest and modern-sounding: it is vain to serve God, and the proud are the ones getting ahead. Malachi does not deny that it looks that way.

The answer is that a record exists. The people who kept talking about God together in a discouraging generation were being written down, and God calls them "my jewels" — my special treasure, the same word used for Israel at Sinai.

Sources cited

  • Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services (public domain)
  • Edwin Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Malachi 3. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

Connections from this chapter

v. 1 · A picture of Christ

I will send My messenger to prepare the way

Mark 1:2→

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “Behold, I will send My messenger ahead of You, who will prepare Your way.”

MannaFest topical index

This page draws on E. B. Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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