MALACHI 1
A
Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough
Copyright
2002 James Melough
1:1. “The burden
of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.”
Its being described as a
“burden” declares that the prophet’s message is largely an announcement of
judgment, as applicable to Christendom as to the Israel of Malachi’s day.
1:2. “I have
loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not
Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob.”
Esau was the firstborn, and
therefore the holder of the birthright which gave to him a double portion of
the inheritance, and dominion over his brethren, Dt 21:17; but he despised his
birthright, his estimate of its worth being revealed in that he sold it for a
bowl of lentil soup, Ge 25:30-34.
God began by declaring His
love for the unworthy people, but their insolent retort was to ask Him when He
had loved them, the clear implication being that they didn’t believe Him! In
surpassing grace He patiently reasoned with them by referring to their
beginning as descendants of Jacob, the younger twin brother of Esau, as it is
written, “The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye
were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But
because the Lord loved you,” Dt 7:7-8.
He had loved Jacob so much
that by comparison His affection for Esau was like hatred. It has to be
understood, however, that the terms are relative, not actual. God loved Esau,
but not in the same way that He loved Jacob, as will be clear if we consider
His attitude relative towards the sinner whom Esau represents. He loves those
sinners, as it is written, “God so loved the world,” of unconverted men “that
he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life,” John
3:16.
The same assurance given Israel by Malachi is given us by John, “Herein is
love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave his Son to be the
propiation for our sins,” 1 John 4:10, we in turn responding, “We love him,
because he first loved us,” 1 John 4:19.
At this point it is
necessary to emphasize that this distinction between Esau and Jacob does not
imply God’s predestination of some to salvation, and of others to damnation.
He has predestinated that every unbeliever will ultimately enter the lake of
fire to endure eternal torment; and that every believer will enter heaven to
enjoy eternal bliss; but He has not predestinated the choice which
governs any man’s eternal state. Whether a man will be in heaven or the lake
of fire is determined by his own free-will choice to accept or reject Jesus
Christ as his personal Savior. That it is a free-will choice is made clear
throughout Scripture, as for example, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” Mt 11:28, and the Lord’s lament, “Ye
will not come to me, that ye might have life,” Jn 5:40.
What has led to confusion
relative to predestination is failure to take account of God’s omniscience by
which He foreknows the choice each man will make; but His foreknowledge should
never be confused with His predestination. To say that He foreknows
everything only because he has predestinated everything is blasphemy, for it
makes Divine foreknowledge a farce. The order relative to Divine
foreknowledge and predestination is demonstrated in Ro 8:29, “For whom he did
foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of his Son....” Note that foreknowledge precedes predestination, and that
predestination is not to salvation, but to conformity to Christ’s image or
likeness, and only those who have first made a free-will choice of Christ as
Savior are the objects of that Divine predestination.
By His foreknowledge God
knew that Esau would reject salvation, that rejection being typologically
portrayed in his sale of the birthright recorded in Ge 25:29-34, just as
Jacob’s having the faith to buy the birthright (he didn’t steal it as is so
often declared) is the typological figure of his having the faith to save his
soul by looking forward to the vicarious death of the seed of the woman,
Christ. Incidentally, the faith of the OT believer that looked forward to
Christ’s vicarious death is no different from that of the NT believer who
looks back to that sin-atoning death.
Another truth typologically
demonstrated in Esau’s being the firstborn, and Jacob the second, is that in
Scripture every firstborn is rejected in favor of the secondborn, because the
firstborn represents what we are by natural birth, while the secondborn
represents what we become by the new birth.
God therefore loved Jacob
because He foreknew that in spite of all his waywardness he would eventually
become Israel,
obedient, and therefore blessed. He loved Esau also, but that love was
tempered by the foreknowledge that this firstborn son of Isaac would never
repent of his sin, but would instead increase in malignant hatred of the
secondborn Jacob, and would ultimately seek to kill him, see Ge 27:41.
That murderous hatred of
Esau against Jacob is a type of the natural man’s implacable hatred of Christ
and of God, vented without mercy at Calvary.
Israel
has fulfilled the type, for Israel is God’s firstborn, see Ex 4:22, “Thus
saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn.” The man Christ
Jesus, prior to His death, was God’s secondborn, becoming His firstborn in
resurrection, and as Head of a new spiritual race, born-again believers, “And
he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn
from among the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence,”
Col 1:18.”
Adverse circumstances may
sometimes cause us to question God’s love for us, but the remedy is to
remember Calvary.
1:3. “And I
hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of
the wilderness.”
God’s “hatred” of Esau has
already been discussed in the preceding verse, and need not be enlarged on
here, except to note that when Babylon captured Israel it also captured Edom
and Moab, but only Israel was restored. Edom and Moab still lie desolate.
Because God is holy He must
punish sin, and His desolating the territory of Esau is the tangible evidence
that Esau, by his disobedience, had chosen to make himself an heir of cursing
rather than blessing.
The mention of “his
mountains” relates to the mountain fastnesses of the land of Edom in which
Esau and his people imagined themselves impervious to attack. There is,
however, no place where man is beyond the reach of God.
“Dragons” is more correctly
translated “jackals.”
The destruction of Esau’s
kingdom points symbolically to the ultimate end of every unbeliever in the
lake of fire.
1:4. “Whereas
Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate
places; thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down;
and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against
whom the Lord hath indignation for ever.”
In Heb 12:11 it is written,
“Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous:
nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness
unto them which are exercised thereby.” Had Esau had even a glimmering of
spiritual intelligence he would have recognized that God’s having laid his
territory waste was Divine chastisement designed to turn him from the path of
folly to faith and blessing; but as with every unconverted man, he took no
account of God, for with the unconverted every circumstance of life is viewed
simply as a chance happening of fate, the response of some being to accept it
stoically; and that of many others being similar to Esau’s, “we will return
and build the desolate places.” Sadly the same attitudes mark the lives of
the majority of professed believers; there being a relative few with the
wisdom to examine every circumstance of life, and ask whether it is the rebuke
of sin, or part of the process by which God refines His gold.
The defiant attitude of
Esau’s unconverted heart is expressed in the words, “We are impoverished, but
we will return and build the desolate places.” And so is it with all the
unconverted of every age. They will continue in their self-willed busy
occupation with the things of this perishing world, while remaining blind to
the things that pertain to eternity. As quickly as God threw down in Edom,
the people hurried to rebuild; and so is it still. Men scurry frantically to
rebuild after every natural disaster, which they, in their eagerness to
dismiss God from His Own creation, attribute to Mother Nature. And in their
frenzied busyness to rebuild what God has thrown down, they fail to discern
that the destruction is the expression of His anger against their rebellion,
and is but a foretaste of that, which in the now imminent Tribulation, will
leave the whole world in ruins.
The reference to Esau’s land
being called “the border (the land) of wickedness,” and his people those
“against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever,” directs attention to how
spiritual eyes see today’s world. It too is a place of wickedness, and the
vast majority of its people, are those against whom God’s righteous anger will
burn for ever in the lake of fire, because they will die unrepentant in spite
of all His attempts to turn them out of the path of folly and destruction.
It may be interesting at
this point to glance briefly at Esau’s history. The territory of Esau (Edom
or Seir, as it is sometimes called), is a narrow strip of land about one
hundred miles long, and twenty to twenty-five miles wide, the river Zered,
which flows into the south eastern end of the Dead Sea, being its northern
border. The lower half of the rift valley which runs from the Sea of Tiberias
to the Gulf of Aquabah, was its western border; the Arabian Desert, its
eastern frontier; and the waste land towards Midian, its southern limit.
Esau (Edom) appears to have
seized the territory from a people known as the Horites.
Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction
of Jerusalem in 586 BC, and his carrying away captive into Babylon many of the
people of Judah, set in motion a series of events having far reaching
consequences. It was around that same time that the Nabataens, Arabs from the
eastern desert, began to encroach into Edom, with the result that many of the
Edomites simply abandoned the land and moved into the territory once possessed
by Judah. As more Nabataens spread into Edom, more Edomites moved into
Judah, those who remained being eventually absorbed by the Nabataens, their
identity as Edomites thus being brought to an end.
Greek influence was also
spreading, and because the Greek word for Edom was Idumea, the territory of
Judah and of those living there, came to be known as Idumea and Idumeans
respectively, so that in time the Edomites who had settled in Judah were
simply known as Idumeans, the name Edomite gradually ceasing to be used.
About 126 BC, a Jewish
leader, John Hyrcanus, subdued these former Edomites, compelled them to be
circumcised, and to adopt Judaism; and so much had they become a part of
Judaism, that when the Jews began their fatal rebellion against Rome, which
culminated in the Diaspora of AD 70, the former Edomites joined them, and were
virtually exterminated by the Romans, so that since AD 70 there is no
historical record of them. Thus God, in His own time, and in His own way,
executed His threatened judgment against Esau.
1:5. “And your
eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The Lord will be magnified from the border
of Israel.”
The believers amongst those
addressed by the prophet would see God’s judgment executed against Esau and
his people, and would worship, for whereas Esau’s land would be called “The
border of wickedness,” the land of Israel will yet be known as the border of
righteousness and blessing.
1:6. “A son
honoreth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is
mine honor? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts
unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we
despised thy name?
God had called Israel His
son, “Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn,” Ex 4:22, and
a son honors his father, but Israel had dishonored God by their sinful living,
as Paul declared to a later generation of Jews, “For the name of God is
blasphemed among the Gentiles through you,” Ro 2:24. It is instructive to
note that a rebellious son was to be stoned to death, see Dt 21:18-21.
The reverence of a son for
his father is impelled by love; and that of a servant for his master, by fear
of punishment; but Israel had lost all fear of God. As his sons they refused
him the reverence that His love ought to have inspired; and as His servants
they refused him even the reverence that fear might have been expected to
prompt. The proper fear of God, incidentally, is not the slavish fear that
dreads punishment, but rather that reverential awe which prompts worship,
obedience being the most convincing from of worship, as it is written, “Hath
the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the
voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken
than the fat of rams,” 1 Sa 15:22.
A servant honors his master,
and surely God, as Creator, is the Master, not only of the Jews, but of all
men; yet Israel had dishonored Him by refusing to obey Him.
Those addressed were the
priests, those who ought to have been examples to the people, but it was they
who not only didn’t love Him or fear Him, but who actually despised Him: they
held Him in contempt.
Their insolent response to
the charge was, “Wherein have we despised thy name?” Their consciences had
long since become so hardened as to blind them to their sin: they weren’t even
aware that they did despise God, and it is the same today with Christendom:
they too have no consciousness of offending Him even with the most blatant sin
1:7. “Ye offer
polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In
that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible.”
The polluted (defiled) bread
was the offerings they presented as part of their loveless ritualistic
“worship,” defiled, not only by the touch of their defiled hands, but by the
fact that the animals they offered were blemished, in spite of His having
commanded that every animal offered was to be unblemished. But again, their
arrogant response to the charge was, In what way have we defiled you? God’s
answer being His assertion that they despised His table. “Table” as used here
is not the Table of Shewbread, but rather the Brazen altar upon which the
sacrifices were burnt. As that which was offered to Him in sacrifice it was
figuratively His “bread,” see Le 21:6, and so called because as bread
satisfies man’s hunger, so does worship (represented here by the sacrifices)
satisfy God’s heart.
1:8. “And if ye
offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and
sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with
thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts.”
Beginning with the Passover
lamb, Ex 12:5, every animal offered was to be without blemish, the physical
perfection of the offering being a typological portrait of the moral
perfection of God’s true Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, see John 2:36. The
offering of a blemished animal therefore was a double offense: (1) it was
wilful disobedience, and (2) it spoiled one of God’s types, for it was
declaring typologically that Christ was blemished, i.e., that He wasn’t
sinless.
The seriousness of this
latter sin, the spoiling of one of God’s types, is demonstrated in that it was
for this very offense (albeit committed in ignorance) that Moses was denied
entry to Canaan, see Nu 20:11-12. In Ex 17:6 he had been commanded to smite
the rock, that smiting being a type of what the Lord Jesus Christ would endure
under the rod of God at Calvary. In Nu 20:8 he had been commanded to speak to
the rock, but instead he smote it as he had done in Ex 17:6, that second
smiting implying typologically that Christ would be smitten twice.
Apart from the typological
evil portrayed in their offering blemished animals, was the literal offense
offered God. It was tantamount to saying that He Himself was of little worth
in their estimation, and that a blemished animal was good enough for Him.
They were thus offering Him
an insult that they wouldn’t have dared offer one of their own governmental
officials.
Christendom repeats the
offense daily, for what passes with them for worship is a humanly-devised,
self-willed travesty that has replaced the Divine order with man’s.
1:9. “And now, I
pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us; this hath been by your
means: will he regard your persons? saith the Lord of hosts.”
There are two widely
accepted interpretations of this verse. One understands the first part of the
verse to be Malachi’s appeal to the priests to turn to God asking Him to be
gracious “unto us,” i.e., to the whole nation, his own humility being declared
in that he includes himself as part of the sinful nation.
The second interpretation
takes it to mean that the priests were hypocritically, and as a mere
formality, asking God to be gracious “unto us,” i.e.,to the nation, the
“means” by which they sought to ensure a favorable response being to continue
offering Him unacceptable sacrifices, they in their blindness being unaware of
what an insult they thus offered Him. The prophet’s question, Will he regard
your persons? must obviously be answered, No!
In context, this latter
interpretation seems the more likely. And again, Christendom daily duplicates
their hypocrisy.
1:10. “Who is
there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye
kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the
Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.”
The New Berkley Version
translates this “Oh, that there were one among you who would shut the doors,
that you might not kindle fire upon My altar in vain! ....”; and Taylor
translates it, “Oh, to find one priest among you who would shut the doors and
refuse this kind of sacrifice ....”; and The Amplified Bible
renders it, “Oh, that there were one among even you [whose duty it is to
minister to Me] who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on My
altar to no purpose [an empty, futile, fruitless pretense! ....”
Others, Knox, for example,
renders it, “Never man of you but must be paid to shut the door, light
altar-fire; no friends of mine, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept
an offering from your hand.”
These translations are not
mutually exclusive, for without doubt God did wish that there might be found
among them a man with the courage to declare the whole empty ritual an
abomination, and to close the Temple doors thus ending the travesty; but the
truth was that there wasn’t such a man: they were all spiritually blind, and
infected with the same mercenary spirit. There wasn’t one who would render
even the slightest service without being paid.
Few will have trouble seeing
in this the foreshadowing of the same mercenary spirit that governs most of
Christendom today. With a few rare exceptions, today’s clerics view “the
ministry” as a profession on a par with Law, Medicine, Engineering, etc., the
attitude of the people being expressed in the often repeated expression of
disgust, “All the church wants is money.”
1:11. “For from
the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be
great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my
name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith
the Lord of hosts.”
Some have seen in this a
reference to this present Church age, and such an application might be made,
but clearly it is the Millennium that is being described, for only in that
glorious day will this have its complete fulfillment, no such universal
adoration of Jehovah having been known in any past or present time.
Nor is there any reason to
view the incense and offerings other than literally, for Scripture makes it
clear that in the Millennium the Levitical ritual will be reinstated, the only
difference being that whereas the sacrifices of the OT age pointed on to
Christ’s great work at Calvary, those of the millennial age will point back to
it. And as those OT sacrifices expressed the genuine worship of the believing
remnant, and the feigned worship of the apostate mass of the nation, so will
it be in the Millennium. They will express the genuine worship of the
millennial true believers, and the ritualistic feigned worship of the mere
professors.
1:12. “But ye
have profaned it, in that ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted; and the
fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible.”
They had been profane, i.e.,
irreverent, both in regard to God’s name and His altar, for by bringing
blemished animals to offer in sacrifice they were making it clear that they
had no compunction about disobeying Him, their implication being that neither
He nor His altar were of much importance in their estimation. It is not that
they considered His altar to have been desecrated by their blemished
sacrifices: it is rather that they considered Him of so little importance that
it didn’t matter what they placed upon His altar. And since the offerings
were typologically God’s food, and they provided Him with animals that they
themselves wouldn’t eat, it was tantamount to saying that they held Him in
contempt.
1:13. “Ye said
also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the
Lord of hosts; and ye brought that which was torn, and lame, and the sick;
thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the
Lord.”
What ought to have been the
willing happy expression of loving adoration, had degenerated into a wearisome
loveless ritual, their irritation with all of it being expressed in snuffing,
i.e., the irritated sigh with which one reluctantly begins a tiresome or
boring task.
“... torn” is understood by
some to be used here in the sense of having been torn away from its owner, as
for example, seizure of the animal by a rich creditor from a poor defaulting
debtor; and by others, as having been pulled alive but maimed from the grasp
of a wild beast. In either case the Lord might well ask incredulously, Do you
actually expect Me to accept such offerings?
Yet apostate Christendom
offers God the same affront in their so-called worship. Instead of Spirit-indited
worship expressed in prayer and song as the Holy Spirit leads, the men
worshiping audibly and individually at the Holy Spirit’s impulse; and the
women, silently, and with their hair covered, the “minister” delivers a
homily, and the congregation’s only participation is to join in the communal
singing. And as for the “offering,” it rarely meets the minimum one-tenth
required in the age of law; and is not infrequently derived from questionable
sources, such as unscrupulous, shady business dealings, etc.
The judgment that overtook
apostate Israel is simply a foreshadowing of that which is about to engulf
apostate Christendom.
1:14. “But
cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and
sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith the
Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.”
Clearly this is a
hypothetical case used as an illustration of the prevailing evil, for what
they were doing was the equivalent of what is described here. The man had a
healthy male animal which he had vowed to sacrifice unto the Lord, but when
the time came to offer it, he substituted a blemished animal, and thereby
incurred God’s curse instead of His blessing. This was in essence what all of
the people were doing, and had been doing so long that they had ceased to see
anything wrong with it, and with the same result: they had incurred God’s
curse rather than His blessing.
Dr Fink in Liberty Bible
Commentary notes instructively that, “It is a mistake similar to that made
many years later by Ananias and Sapphira (cf. Acts 5:1-11).
Jehovah, the Lord of hosts,
is a great King, far above every earthly potentate, and even the heathen
nations of that day feared and reverenced Him, being mindful of what He had
done to Egypt when He had delivered Israel; and of His miraculous care of
Israel for forty years in the wilderness; and of what He had done to the
Canaanites when He had brought Israel into the land in the days of Joshua.
But the very people who had been the objects of all this miraculous loving
care, had long since forgotten, and He Who ought to have been the object of
their grateful worship, had become instead the butt of their contempt!
It might have been expected
that He would have destroyed them with a stroke, but He still loved them, and
in patient grace beyond comprehension, would chastise them as does a father
the son whom he loves, in order to bring them to repentance, and consequent
blessing. Sadly, however, it won’t be until the impending terrible
Tribulation judgments have done their work that those objectives will be
accomplished.
[Malachi 2]