Malachi 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, I HAVE LOVED YOU - above other men; nay, even above the other descendants of Abraham and Isaac. Such gratuitous love on my part called for love on yours. But the return ye make is sin and dishonour to me. This thought, which is to be supplied, is left unexpressed, sorrow, as it were, breaking off the sentence (Menochius). Compare, as to God's gratuitous love to His people, ; . YET YE SAY, WHEREIN HAST THOU LOVED US? In painful contrast to the tearful tenderness of God's love stands their insolent challenge. The root of their sin was insensibility to God's love, and to their own wickedness. Having had their full prosperity...

I am constrained by the context to read all these verses; for the sense cannot be otherwise completed. God expostulates here with a perverse and an ungrateful people, because they doubly deprived him of his right; for he was neither loved nor feared, though he had a just claim to the name and honor of a master as well as that of a father. As then the Jews paid him no reverence, he complains that he was defrauded of his right as a father; and as they entertained no fear for him, he condemns them for not acknowledging, him as their Lord and Master, by submitting to his authority. But before he comes to this, he shows that he was both their Lord and Father; and he declares that he was especially their Father, because he loved them. We now then understand the Prophet’s intention; for God designed to show here how debased the Jews were, as they acknowledged him neither as their Father nor as...

1-5 All advantages, either as to outward circumstances, or spiritual privileges, come from the free love of God, who makes one to differ from another. All the evils sinners feel and fear, are the just recompence of their crimes, while all their hopes and comforts are from the unmerited mercy of the Lord. He chose his people that they might be holy. If we love him, it is because he has first loved us; yet we all are prone to undervalue the mercies of God, and to excuse our own offences....

Verse Malachi 1:2. WAS _NOT ESAU JACOB'S BROTHER?_] Have I not shown a greater _partiality_ to the _Israelites_ than I have to the _Edomites_? _I LOVED JACOB_] My _love to Jacob_ has been proved by giving him greater privileges and a better inheritance than what I have given to _Esau_....

I HAVE LOVED YOU, SAITH THE LORD - What a volume of God’s relations to us in two simple words, “I-have-loved you” . So would not God speak, unless He still loved. “I have loved and do love you,” is the force of the words. When? And since when? In all eternity God loved; in all our past, God loved. Tokens of His love, past or present, in good or seeming ill, are but an effluence of that everlasting love. He, the Unchangeable, ever loved, as the apostle of love says 1 John 4:19, “we love Him, because He first loved us.” The deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, the making them His Romans 9:4, “special people, the adoption, the covenant, the giving of the Law, the service of God and His promises,” all the several mercies involved in these, the feeding with manna, the deliverance from thei

EXPOSITION VERSE 1:1-2:9 Part I. REPROOF OF THE PRIESTS FOR NEGLECT OF DIVINE SERVICE. MALACHI 1:1 § 1_. Heading and author. _THE BURDEN (Zechariah 9:1; Zechariah 12:1; see note on Nahum 1:1). The word of the Lord is heavy and full of threats, but, as St. Jerome notes, it is also consolatory, because it is not "against" but to Israel. By this name the whole covenanted nation is designated, here, perhaps, wi

I HAVE LOVED YOU, SAITH THE LORD,.... Which appeared of old, by choosing them, above all people upon the face of the earth, to be his special and peculiar people; by bestowing peculiar favours and blessings upon them, both temporal and spiritual; by continuing them a people, through a variety of changes and revolutions; and by lately bringing them out of the Babylonish captivity, restoring their land unto them, and the pure worship of God among them: YET YE SAY, WHEREIN HAST THOU LOVED US? the Targum renders it, "and if ye should say"; and so Kimchi and Ben Melech; which intimates, that though they might not have expressed themselves in so many words, yet they seemed disposed to say so; they thought it, if they said it not; and therefore, to prevent such an objection, as well as to show their ingratitude, it is put in this form; and an instance of his love is demanded, which is very sur...

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATIONS 1. Jehovah's Love for His People CHAPTER 1:1-5 The message of Malachi begins with the sublime statement, “I have loved you, saith Jehovah.” It is the message to Israel. This love is written large on every page of their history. A former prophet gave the message from the Lord, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” Amos 3:2. And long before that Moses had told them, “Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day” Deuteronomy 10:15. And the man of God in his final utterance burst out in praise, “Yea, He loved the people” Deuteronomy 33:3. And this generation, brought ba

YAHWEH'S LOVE FOR ISRAEL. This truth is questioned by some of the prophet's contemporaries, who are then reminded of the contrasted fortunes of the nations descended from Jacob and Esau. These peoples (Israel and Edom), sprung from twin brothers, and occupying adjacent lands, might have been expected to share equally in Yahweh's favour, but the recent desolation of Edom (probably by the Nabatean Arabs, who drove the Edomites away from their old territory to the district S. of Judah, hence called Idumæ a) shows that Yahweh metes out differential treatment. He will frustrate any attempt on Edom's part to reoccupy its former territory, and men will recognise that Yahweh is great, not only in Israel, but beyond it. The reason for this disparate action is found in the different religious temperaments of the two peoples, which perpetuate those of their eponyms. Edom reproduced the profanity of...

I HAVE LOVED Reference to Pentateuch (Deuteronomy 7:8; Deuteronomy 10:15; Deuteronomy 33:3). SAITH. hath said. Quoted in Romans 9:13, Esau Jacob's. Put by Figure of speech _Metonymy_ (of Adjunct), App-6, for their posterities. Quoted in Romans 9:13, SAITH THE LORD. [is] Jehovah's oracle....