Malachichapter 3
18 verses · Malachi · 460 to 430 BC · The Twelve
Key verse
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.
It stands in The messenger comes suddenly, like a refiner's fire, verses 1 to 6.
The chapter
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
The world behind this chapter
Malachi 3The 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.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
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
Where the chapter sits
Malachi 3 falls in Six disputations (chapters 1–3). ‘Wherein have we…?’, the people's challenges answered. Priestly failure (1); faithless marriages (2); robbery in tithes (3); the LORD sudden to his Temple and the Messenger of the covenant.
The messenger; tithe. ‘Prove me now herewith … if I will not open you the windows of heaven.’
After it: The day that comes; Elijah foretold, chapters 4.
The whole shape of Malachi→The structure of this chapter
Threads running through this chapter
- The messenger before his facePattern, v. 1
People2
Places1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. The messenger comes suddenly, like a refiner's fire
1. (vv. 1-2)
Malachi 3:1
“God answers their complaints of the absence of His judgments, that they would come, but would include those also who clamored for them. For no one who knew his own sinfulness would call for the judgment of God, as being himself, chief of sinners. Augustine pictures one saying to God, “Take away the ungodly man,” and that God answers, “Which?” Behold, I send My messenger before My face, and he shall prepare My way before Me - they, then, were not prepared for His Coming, for whom they clamored.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Malachi 3:1
“And that we may not have to ask, Of what God was the Word made flesh? he does himself previously teach us, saying, "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came as a witness, that he might bear witness of that Light. He was not that Light, but [came] that he might testify of the Light." By what God, then, was John, the forerunner, who testifies of the Light, sent [into the world]?”
Irenaeus· written before 202· AGAINST HERESIES 3:11.4patristic
Malachi 3:1
- Quoted inLuke 7:27“This is the one about whom it is written: ‘Behold, I will send My messenger ahead of You, who will prepare Your way before You.’”
'Behold, I send my messenger' (of John the Baptist)
- Quoted inMark 1:2As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “Behold, I will send My messenger ahead of You, who will prepare Your way.”
'Behold, I send my messenger' (Mark's composite 'as it is written in the prophets', w/ Isa 40:3)
- Quoted inMatthew 11:10“This is the one about whom it is written: ‘Behold, I will send My messenger ahead of You, who will prepare Your way before You.’”
'Behold, I send my messenger before thy face' ('this is he, of whom it is written')
Malachi 3:2
“But who may abide the day of his coming? - Only they who shall believe on his name; for they that will not, shall be blinded, and the unbelieving nations shall be destroyed by the Romans. Like fuller’s soap - כברית keborith, from ברר barar, to cleanse, any thing that deterges. Kali, or fern ashes, or such things. I doubt whether the composition which we call soap, was known in ancient times.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Malachi 3:2
“To the troublous times that should follow soon after. The Jewish doctors speak of the pangs or griefs of the Messiah, meaning (they say) the great afflictions that should be to Israel at the time of his coming; he himself speaks of great tribulation then approaching, such as was not since the beginning of the world, nor ever shall be, Matt. xxiv.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Malachi 3:2
“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 25:31-46).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Behold, I will send my messenger: , and he shall prepare the way before me answers the previous chapter's demand for the God of judgment with an announcement of arrival, the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in, following immediately after. The New Testament identifies this messenger directly, Matthew 11:10, Mark 1:2, and Luke 7:27 all quote the verse of John the Baptist, the Lord himself applying it to his forerunner. But who may abide the day of his coming? turns from the messenger to the one he announces, the coming itself framed as a refiner's fire and fullers' soap, purifying rather than merely comforting.
2. (vv. 3-4)
Malachi 3:3
“And he shall sit as a refiner, and purifier of silver,.... Kimchi interprets this, as he does the latter part of the preceding verse Mal 3:2, of the day, and not of the Lord, which he compares to a judge that sits and separates the guilty from the innocent; see 1Co 3:13 but it is to be understood of the Lord himself, and expresses his diligence in sitting and separating good men and principles from bad ones, just as silver is purified and refined from dross.”
2 more voices on this verse
Malachi 3:3
“THIS is spoken of as one of the results of the coming of the Lord—He would test and try all things, destroy the false and the evil and make those pure whom He permitted to remain. Behold, the Promised One has come! He whom Israel sought suddenly appeared in His Temple as the Messenger of the Covenant. Glad were the eyes of Simeon, Anna and all those who waited for Him—and glad, this day, are our voices as we proclaim that the Messiah has appeared!”
Malachi 3:3
“Christ by his gospel shall purify and reform his church, and by his Spirit working with it shall regenerate and cleanse particular souls; for to this end he gave himself for the church, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word ( Eph. v. 26 ) and purify to himself a peculiar people, Tit. ii. Christ is the great refiner.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Malachi 3:4
“When the Messiah comes, First, He will, by his grace in them, make them acceptable; when he has purified and refined them, then they shall offer such sacrifices as God requires and will accept.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
And he shall sit as a refiner: and purifier of silver extends the fire image into a specific craft, the refiner watching the metal until his own reflection appears in its surface, patient rather than merely destructive. The sons of Levi are purified as gold and silver, the same priesthood dispute chapter 2 opened now resolved by purging rather than by threat, so that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. The offering of Judah and Jerusalem being pleasant unto the Lord as in the days of old looks back past the present corruption to an earlier, uncorrupted worship the refining aims to restore.
3. (v. 5)
Malachi 3:5
“And I will come near to you to judgment - They had clamored for the coming of “the God of judgment;” God assures them that He will come to judgment, which they had desired, but far other than they look for. The few would be purified; the great mass of them (so that He calls them “you”), the main body of those who had so clamored, would find that He came as a Judge, not for them but against them.”
I will come near to you to judgment: turns the refining fire toward a specific list of offenses, a swift witness against sorcerers, adulterers, and false swearers first, then against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and turn aside the stranger from his right. The list joins ritual and moral failure in one sentence, ceremonial faithlessness in chapter 2 followed here by social injustice against the very people the law names for special protection. Fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts, closes the list by naming the root of every offense on it, the absence of the fear of God rather than any single sin standing behind them all.
4. (v. 6)
Malachi 3:6
“I am the Lord, I change not - The new dispensation of grace and goodness, which is now about to be introduced, is not the effect of any change in my counsels; it is, on the contrary, the fulfillment of my everlasting purposes; as is also the throwing aside of the Mosaic ritual, which was only intended to introduce the great and glorious Gospel of my Son. And because of this ancient covenant, ye Jews are not totally consumed; but ye are now, and shall be still, preserved as a distinct people - monuments both of my justice and mercy.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Malachi 3:6
“And that which follows: I am the Lord and I do not change, he states this because he had said earlier: he is like a consuming fire, and like the soap of fullers, so that we do not think that he changes his divine nature, since he is called an angel, or fire, or Borith for us.”
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Malachipatristic
Malachi 3:6-7
For I am the Lord, I change not: is among the clearest statements of divine immutability in the Old Testament, and the commentators read it as the reason the previous verse's judgment does not simply end Israel outright, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. The same unchanging character that judges also preserves, the Lord's faithfulness to his own covenant outlasting the nation's repeated unfaithfulness to it. Return unto me, and I will return unto you renews an offer the people answer, as through the whole book, with another skeptical question, Wherein shall we return?
B. Will a man rob God? Bring the whole tithe
1. (v. 7)
Malachi 3:7
“Even from the days of your fathers - Back to those days and from them ye are gone away from My ordinances. “I am not changed from good; ye are not changed from evil. I am unchangeable in holiness; ye are unchangeable in perversity.” Return unto Me - The beginning of our return is from the preventing grace of God.”
1 more voice on this verse
Malachi 3:7
“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 . . . days of your fathers--Ye live as your fathers did when they brought on themselves the Babylonian captivity, and ye wish to follow in their steps.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2. (vv. 8-10)
Malachi 3:8
“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. Thus doubly God was defrauded, the priests not discharging aright their sacrificial duties, and robbing God of the services of the Levites, who were driven away by destitution [GROTIUS].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Malachi 3:9
“Ye have been cursed with the curse - (not “with a curse”). The curse threatened had come upon them: but, as fore-supposed in Leviticus by the repeated burden, “If ye still walk contrary to Me,” they had persevered in evil. God had already shown His displeasure. But they, so far from being amended by it, were the more hardened in their sin. Perhaps as men do, they pleaded their punishment, as a reason why they should not amend. They defrauded God, under false pretences.”
1 more voice on this verse
Malachi 3:9
“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. If we would have God "open" His treasury, we must open ours. One cause of the barrenness of the Church is the parsimony of its members [MOORE].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Malachi 3:10
“Bring ye all the tithes - They had so withheld these that the priests had not food enough to support life, and the sacred service was interrupted. See Neh 13:10. And prove me now herewith - What ye give to God shall never lessen your store. Give as ye should, and see whether I will not so increase your store by opening the windows of heaven - giving you rain and fruitful seasons - that your barns and granaries shall not be able to contain the abundance of your harvests and vintage.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
Malachi 3:10
“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse,.... Or "treasury" (e); for there were places in the temple where the tithe was put, and from thence distributed to the priests and Levites, for the support of their families, as they wanted.”
Malachi 3:10
“The oil that is multiplied shall not be stayed as long as there are vessels to receive it, 2 Kings iv. Note, God will not only be reconciled to sinners that repent and reform, but he will be a benefactor, a bountiful benefactor, to them. We are never straitened in him, but often straitened in our own bosoms.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Malachi 3:10
“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 moon," which is never to be; and therefore means, for ever.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Will a man rob God?: names the specific form the people's unfaithfulness has taken, withheld tithes and offerings, and the Lord's answer is direct, ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse sets the remedy inside the covenant's own terms, provision for the Levites and the temple service rather than a private transaction between an individual and personal wealth, and the test offered, prove me now herewith, is addressed to the nation's corporate obedience rather than promised as a formula for any one giver. The windows of heaven opened and a blessing poured out belongs to this covenant setting, the commentators reading it as agricultural abundance answering a specific national failure rather than a general principle detached from it.
3. (vv. 11-12)
Malachi 3:11
“And I will rebuke the devourer - , the locust, caterpillar, or any like scourge of God. It might be, that when the rain watered the fields, the locust or caterpillar etc. might destroy the grain, so that the labors of man should perish; wherefore he adds, “I will rebuke the devourer. Neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time,” holding out a fair promise, but cut off by the frost-wind or the hail; the blossoms or the unripe fruit strewing the earth, as a token of God’s displeasure.”
Malachi 3:12
“All nations shall call you blessed - They shall see that a peculiar blessing of God rests upon you, and your land shall be delightsome; like Paradise, the garden of the Lord.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
I will rebuke the devourer: for your sakes extends the promise into practical agricultural terms, the fruits of the ground preserved and the vine no longer casting her fruit before the time, reversing a specific covenant curse from Deuteronomy's own warnings. All nations shall call you blessed widens the promise outward, a delightsome land visible enough to draw the nations' own notice, the same universal horizon touched at 1:11 now turned toward Israel's own restoration rather than the Gentiles' worship. The blessing is corporate and covenantal throughout, tied to the obedience already described rather than offered as an isolated guarantee.
C. Your words have been stout, and a book of remembrance is written
1. (vv. 13-15)
Malachi 3:13
“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.”
1 more voice on this verse
Malachi 3:13
“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.”
Malachi 3:15
“And now we call the proud happy,.... Or "therefore now" (q); since this is the case, that the worshippers of God are not regarded, and there is nothing got by serving him; they that are proud and haughty, that neither fear God nor regard men, are the happy persons; even presumptuous sinners, as the word (r) signifies, that stretch out their hands against God, and strengthen themselves against the Almighty; these enjoy all worldly happiness, while they that serve the Lord are mourning in sackcloth, and are in the utmost distress.”
1 more voice on this verse
Malachi 3:15
“And now we call the proud happy (blessed) - This being so, they sum up the case against God. God had declared that all nations should “call them blessed” Mal 3:12. if they would obey. They answer, using His words; And “now we (they lay stress on the word we,) pronounce blessed,” in fact, those whom God had pronounced cursed: Psa 119:21. “Thou hast rebuked the proud, who are cursed.” Their characteristic, among other bad men, is of insolence Pro 21:24. arrogance, boiling over with self-conceit, and presumptuous toward God.”
Your words have been stout against me: opens the sixth dispute with the same skeptical pattern as before, Wherein have we spoken so much against thee answered by a direct quotation of what the people have actually been saying. It is vain to serve God names the complaint plainly, obedience judged worthless because it seems to yield no profit, while we call the proud happy, and they that work wickedness are set up, the wicked's apparent prosperity again used, as in chapter 2, to erase any real distinction between righteousness and sin. Even they that tempt God are even delivered closes the complaint at its most extreme, testing the Lord's patience treated as a strategy that succeeds rather than a provocation that will be judged.
2. (vv. 16-18)
Malachi 3:16
“They that feared the Lord - There were a few godly in the land, who, hearing the language and seeing the profligacy of the rebels above, concluded that some signal mark of God’s vengeance must fall upon them; they, therefore, as the corruption increased, cleaved the closer to their Maker. There are three characteristics given of this people, viz.: - 1. They feared the Lord. They had that reverence for Jehovah that caused them to depart from evil, and to keep his ordinances. 2. They spake often one to another. They kept up the communion of saints.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Malachi 3:16
“Then - When contempt of God was grown so high. That feared the Lord - Those that were truly religious. Spake often - Conversed together the more frequently.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Malachi 3:16
"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.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Malachi 3:17
“And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels - o the recurrence of the words, עשה אני אשר יום, Mal. 3:21. Hebrew (Mal 4:3 in English), and the סגלה לי והייתםExo. 19:5; so that we have both phrases elsewhere.”
Malachi 3:18
“Then shall ye return - To your senses, when perhaps too late; and discern - see the difference which God makes, between the righteous and the wicked, which will be most marked and awful. Between him that serveth God - Your obedience to whom, ye said, would be unprofitable to you. And hits that serveth him not - Of whom ye said, his disobedience would be no prejudice to him. You will find the former received into the kingdom of glory; and the latter, with yourselves, thrust down into the bitter pains of an eternal death. Reader, ponder these things.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Malachi 3:18
“Ye - Ye contemners of God and religion, return to your reason, forced by the convincing power of God's judgments. Discern - Clearly see the happiness of the righteous, and your own misery, who perish in your wickedness.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Malachi 3:18
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: answers the surrounding complaint with a quiet remnant, a minority who kept faith while the majority questioned whether faith was worth keeping, gathering in mutual encouragement rather than in the crowd's cynicism. The Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him gives that quiet faithfulness a permanence the complainers' loud doubt never earns, every word remembered rather than lost in the noise of the age. They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels closes the chapter on ownership and mercy, the Lord sparing them as a man spareth his own son, with the promise that a day is coming when the righteous and the wicked, indistinguishable to the complainers of verse 15, will finally be told apart.
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 →
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The context
E. B. Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.