Malachi 3:12

Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? Reproof for the non-payment of tithes and offerings, which is the cause of their national calamities, and promise of prosperity on their paying them. Verse 7. EVEN FROM THE DAYS OF YOUR FATHERS YE ARE GONE AWAY. Ye live as your fathers did when they brought on themselves the Babylonian captivity, and ye wish to follow in their steps. This shows that nothing but God's unchanging long-suffering had prevented their being long ago "consumed" (Malachi 3:6). RETURN UNTO ME - in penitence. AND I WILL RETURN UNTO YOU - in blessings. BUT YE SAID, WHEREIN SHALL WE RETURN? -...

This verse is taken from the law, in which among other things God promises so happy a state to his chosen people, that the nations themselves would acknowledge in them the blessing of God. There is yet a contrast to be understood, — that having fallen into such misery, they were become as it were detestable to all nations, according to what the law also declares concerning them, “If thou shalt keep my precepts, all nations shall call thee blessed; but if thou wilt despise me, thou shalt be a sport to all nations, all shall shake the head and move the lips; yea, they shall be astonished at the sight of thy misery, and whosoever shall hear his ears will tingle.” (Deuteronomy 28:1.) As then the Jews were consumed as it were in their miseries, the Prophet says, “If you turn to God, that happiness which he has promised you shall not be withheld; he has it as it were ready in his hand, like a...

7-12 The men of that generation turned away from God, they had not kept his ordinances. God gives them a gracious call. But they said, Wherein shall we return? God notices what returns our hearts make to the calls of his word. It shows great perverseness in sin, when men make afflictions excuses for sin, which are sent to part between them and their sins. Here is an earnest exhortation to reform. God must be served in the first place; and the interest of our souls ought to be preferred before that of our bodies. Let them trust God to provide for their comfort. God has blessings ready for us, but through the weakness of our faith and the narrowness of our desires, we have not room to receive them. He who makes trial will find nothing is lost by honouring the Lord with his substance....

Verse Malachi 3:12. _ALL NATIONS SHALL CALL YOU BLESSED_] They shall see that a peculiar blessing of God rests upon you, and your _land_ _shall be delightsome_; like _Paradise_, the _garden of the Lord_....

ALL NATIONS SHALL CALL YOU BLESSED - The promise goes beyond the temporal prosperity of their immediate obedience. Few could know or think much of the restored prolificalness of Judaea; none could know of its antecedents. A people, as well as individuals, may starve, and none know of it. Had the whole population of Judah died out, their Persian masters would not have cared for it, but would have sent fresh colonists to replace them and pay the tribute to the great king. The only interest, which all nations could have in them, was as being the people of God, from whom He should come, “the Desire of all nations, in whom all the families of the earth would be blessed.” Of this, God’s outward favor was the earnest; they should have again the blessings which He had promised to His people. AND YE SHALL BE CALLED A DELIGHTSOME LAND - , literally “a land of good pleasure.” It was not so much the...

EXPOSITION MALACHI 3:1 BEHOLD, I WILL SEND (_I send_) MY MESSENGER. God answers that he is coming to show himself the God of judgment and justice. Are they ready to meet him and to bear his sentence? Who this "messenger" is is disputed. That no angel or heavenly visitant is meant is clear from historical considerations, as no such event took place immediately before the Lord came to his temple. Nor can Malachi himself be intended, as his message was delivered nearly four, hundred years before Messiah came. The announcement is doubtless founded upon Isaiah 40:3, and refers to the same person as the older prophet mentions, who is generally allowed to be John the Baptist, the herald of Christ's advent ...

AND ALL NATIONS SHALL CALL YOU BLESSED,.... When they shall see the land freed from the devouring locust, and other hurtful creatures; the former and the latter rains given in their season, and the earth yielding a large increase: FOR YE SHALL BE A DELIGHTSOME LAND, SAITH THE LORD OF HOSTS; or a desirable n one; not only pleasant to themselves, being fruitful, but wished for by others, by their neighbouring nations, who, seeing their prosperity, could not but desire to dwell with them; or delightsome to the Lord of hosts: thus Jarchi interprets it, the land that I delight in; and so Aben Ezra; to which agrees the Targum, "and all nations shall praise you, because you dwell in the land of the house of my Shechinah or majesty, and do my will in it;'' and the Syriac version renders it, "the land of my delight": see Isaiah 62:4....

Malachi 3:1. _Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me:_ The name Malachi means «my messenger.» The reference here is, of course, to John the Baptist, who was to prepare the way of the Lord. Malachi 3:1. _And the lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,_ Now, the temple at Jerusalem is utterly destroyed, so how can the Jews still think the Lord, whom they profess to seek, will suddenly come to his temple? He must have come there already, so we know he did, for there is not one stone of the temple left standing upon another: «The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,» Malachi 3:1. Even the messenger of the covenant,

REBUKE FOR DEFRAUDING THE LORD CHAPTER 3:7-15 Another rebuke is administered. They were alway a stiff-necked people, never obedient to His ordinances. His gracious call to return unto Him, and the promise that He will return unto them is answered by “Wherein shall we return?” They had robbed God of what was His right. The tithes and offerings which He demanded in the law covenant had been withheld. On account of it the blessing was lacking and curse was upon the nation. Then follows a command to bring all the tithes into the storehouse, the challenge to prove Him, the assurance of abundant blessing. It is strange that even those who have a good knowledge of truth, the dispensations and the heavenly position of a Christian, should fall back upon this verse and claim that it is binding and should be practiced among believers. For a system like Seventh Day Adventism, a system which has per...

TITHES AND THE DIVINE BLESSING. The people cannot hope to win God's favour so long as they Withhold God's dues. When the tithes (Deuteronomy 12:17 f; Deuteronomy 14:22 *, Numbers 18:21 *, Leviticus 27:30 *; see p. 99 Malachi presupposes the stricter legislation of P as represented in the two latter passages) are paid in full to the Temple treasury, the curse of locusts (the DEVOURER, MALACHI 3:11) and drought shall be removed, and showers of blessing shall make the land fruitful. The word used for OFFERINGS ...