Malachi 1:13

Said. — Better, say.

And ye have snuffed at it. — Better, and ye puff at it — that is, treat it with contempt, “pooh-pooh it,” as we say. The service of the Temple, which they ought to have regarded as their highest privilege and pleasure, they look on as burdensome and contemptible. For “brought,” read bring.

Torn. — The word Gâzûl elsewhere means “stolen” (Deuteronomy 28:31), or “robbed “ — i.e., “spoiled” (Deuteronomy 28:29). It is perhaps not impossible that it may here be a later word for trêphâh, “torn” (comp. the cogn. Arabic ajzal, “galled on the back”), but it is not so used in post-Biblical Jewish writings. On the contrary, Rabbinic tradition uses our word when expressly mentioning that which is stolen as unfit to be offered as a burnt offering — e.g., the Sifrâ, (Vayyikrâ, Perek 6, Parashta 5, ed. Weis 7b), commenting on the words of Leviticus 1:10, says: “ ‘From the flock,’ and ‘from the sheep,’ and ‘from the goats:’ These words are limitations — viz., to exclude the sick (comp. also Malachi 1:8), and the aged, and that which has been dedicated in thought to an idol, and that which is defiled with its own filth; ‘its offering’ [English Version, his offering, comp. Note on Zechariah 4:2], to exclude that which is stolen.” (See also Talmud Babli, Baba Kamma 66b.) The English Version has the same in view in its rendering of Isaiah 61:8, where it has the authority of Talmud Babli, Sukkah 30a, and of Jerome and Luther. Perhaps the reason why people were inclined to offer a stolen animal may be, that it might very likely have a mark on it, which would render it impossible for the thief to offer it for sale, and so realise money on it, for fear of detection; so then he makes a virtue of a necessity, and brings as an offering to God that which he could not otherwise dispose of.