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The Coming Messenger

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the L ord of hosts. ²But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; ³he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the L ord in righteousness. ⁴Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the L ord as in the days of old and as in former years.

⁵ Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the L ord of hosts.

⁶ For I the L ord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished. ⁷Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the L ord of hosts. But you say, “How shall we return?”

Do Not Rob God

⁸ Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, “How are we robbing you?” In your tithes and offerings! ⁹You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me—the whole nation of you! ¹⁰Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the L ord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. ¹¹I will rebuke the locust for you, so that it will not destroy the produce of your soil; and your vine in the field shall not be barren, says the L ord of hosts. ¹²Then all nations will count you happy, for you will be a land of delight, says the L ord of hosts.

¹³ You have spoken harsh words against me, says the L ord. Yet you say, “How have we spoken against you?” ¹⁴You have said, “It is vain to serve God. What do we profit by keeping his command or by going about as mourners before the L ord of hosts? ¹⁵Now we count the arrogant happy; evildoers not only prosper, but when they put God to the test they escape.”

The Reward of the Faithful

¹⁶ Then those who revered the L ord spoke with one another. The L ord took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who revered the L ord and thought on his name. ¹⁷They shall be mine, says the L ord of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them. ¹⁸Then once more you shall see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Malachi pursues the same subject; for he answers the Jews in the name of God — that they unjustly complained of his rigour as being immoderate, since they themselves were the cause of all their evils. He says that they were cursed, but he adds that this happened to them deservedly, as though he had said — “Be that granted what you say, (for lamentations were continually made,) why is it that God afflicts us without end or limits?” God seems to grant what they were wont reproachfully to declare; but he says in answer to this — “But ye have defrauded Me; what wonder then that my curse consumes you? As then I have been robbed by you, as far as ye could, I will render to you your just recompense; for it is not right that I should be bountiful and kind to you, while ye thus defraud me, and take from me what is my own.”

The meaning then is this — that it was indeed true that the Jews lamented that they were under a curse, but that the cause ought to have been searched out. They indeed wished their rapines and sacrileges to be forgiven, by which they defrauded God; but God declares that he punished them justly in consuming them with poverty and want, since they so sparingly rendered to him what they owed.

He mentions the whole nation, ²⁵⁵²⁵⁵     The words are expressive, for literally they are —
   And me have ye robbed, the nation, the whole of it.
    — Ed. and thus aggravates the wickedness of the Jews; for not a few were guilty of the sacrilege mentioned, but all, from the least to the greatest, they all plundered the tenths and the oblations. It hence follows that God’s vengeance did not exceed due limits, since there was as it were a common conspiracy; there were not ten or a hundred implicated in this sin, but, as he says, the whole people. It follows —

²⁵⁵ The words are expressive, for literally they are — And me have ye robbed, the nation, the whole of it. — Ed.