Malachi 3:13
in Malachi 3“Your words against Me have been harsh,” says the LORD. “Yet you ask, ‘What have we spoken against You?’
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Your words have been stout against me, saith Jehovah. Yet ye say, What have we spoken against thee?
KJV
Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee?
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This verse in Malachi 3
Commentary
6 notes on this verseYour 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.
This site's exposition
Your words have been stout against me
on Malachi 3:13-15
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.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
Those who are spiritually immature put much stock in temporal promises and serve God with an eye to such remunerations. Then, when the people of evil life prosper, they are very much upset. For their enlightenment, Malachi goes on to differentiate the eternal blessedness of the New Testament, which only the good shall win, from the purely earthly good fortune of the old that as often as not comes to the wicked. He says, " 'Your words have been insufferable to me,' says the Lord. And you have said, 'What have we spoken against you?' You have said, 'He labors in vain that serves God, and what profit is it that we have kept ordinances and that we have walked sorrowfully before the Lord of hosts?' Therefore now we call the proud people happy, for they that work wickedness are built up, and they have tempted God and prospered. Then they that feared the Lord spoke everyone with his neighbor, and the Lord gave ear and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that fear the Lord and think of his name." The book in question is, of course, again the New Testament. Now let us hear the rest. " 'And they shall be my special possession,' says the Lord of hosts, 'in the day that I do judgment; and I will spare the man as a man spares his son who serves him. And you shall return and shall see the difference between the just and the wicked, and between him that serves God and him that serves not. For behold, the day shall come kindled as a furnace, and all the proud and all that do wickedly shall be as stubble, and the day that comes shall set them on fire,' says the Lord of hosts." That day in question is, of course, the day of the last judgment, concerning which I will have a great deal more to say, God willing, when the proper time comes.
(Verse 13) Your words have become burdensome to me, says the Lord, and you have said: What have we spoken against you? LXX: You have wearied me with your words, says the Lord. And you said, 'In what way have we spoken against you?' In that, when you were saying: Whoever does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and such people please Him; or certainly where is the God of judgment?
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
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.
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!
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
On the verses either side of this one
“It is futile to serve God” We worship Him for nothing, for we will receive no reward.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 5 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
9 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| חָזְק֥וּ | chazeku | they have been strong | H2388 → | |
| עָלַ֛י | ʾalai | on me | H5921 → | 5755 times |
| דִּבְרֵיכֶ֖ם | divreikhem | words your | H1697 → | 1440 times |
| אָמַ֣ר | ʾamar | he says | H559 → | 5305 times |
| יְהוָ֑ה | yahweh | Yahweh | H3068 → | 6520 times |
| וַאֲמַרְתֶּ֕ם | vaamartem | and you say | H559 → | 5305 times |
| מַה־ | mah- | what? | H4100 → | 752 times |
| נִּדְבַּ֖רְנוּ | nidbarnu | have we spoken together | H1696 → | |
| עָלֶֽיךָ׃ | ʾaleikha | on you | H5921 → | 5755 times |
חָזְק֥וּthey have been strong
chazekuH2388 →
עָלַ֛יon me
ʾalaiH5921 →5755 times
דִּבְרֵיכֶ֖םwords your
divreikhemH1697 →1440 times
אָמַ֣רhe says
ʾamarH559 →5305 times
יְהוָ֑הYahweh
yahwehH3068 →6520 times
וַאֲמַרְתֶּ֕םand you say
vaamartemH559 →5305 times
מַה־what?
mah-H4100 →752 times
נִּדְבַּ֖רְנוּhave we spoken together
nidbarnuH1696 →
עָלֶֽיךָ׃on you
ʾaleikhaH5921 →5755 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
2 Thessalonians 2:4He will oppose and exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship. So he will seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
it leads to
- Daniel 7:25
He will speak out against the Most High and oppress the saints of the Most High, intending to change the appointed times and laws; and the saints will be given into his hand for…
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Ezekiel 28:2
“Son of man, tell the ruler of Tyre that this is what the Lord GOD says: Your heart is proud, and you have said, ‘I am a god; I sit in the seat of…
- Revelation 13:6–7
And the beast opened its mouth to speak blasphemies against God and to slander His name and His tabernacle—those who dwell in heaven.
- Isaiah 14:13–14
You said in your heart: “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the far reaches of…
- Ezekiel 28:6
Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Because you regard your heart as the heart of a god,
- Daniel 7:25
Through
Romans 9:20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, “Why did You make me like this?”
it leads to
- Isaiah 29:16
You have turned things upside down, as if the potter were regarded as clay. Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pottery say of…
- Isaiah 45:9–11
Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?
- Isaiah 64:8
But now, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand.
- Isaiah 29:16
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Malachi
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, City of God 18.35; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Malachi and John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763).