Malachi 3:8

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? -...

_Will a man defraud the gods? _Some give this version, “Will a man defraud God?” But it is strained and remote from the Prophet’s design; and they pervert the meaning. For I do not see what can be elicited from this rendering, “Will a man defraud God?” But there are other two meanings which may be taken. The first is, “Will a man defraud his gods?” The word אלהים, _Aleim_, though it be in the plural number, is applied, as it is well known, to the true God; but it is applied also to idols; and in this place the Prophet seems to me to compare the Jews to the Gentiles, that their impiety might be made more evident. The same is the object of Jeremiah, when he says, “Go, and survey the islands, is there a nation which has changed its gods, while yet they are no gods.” (Jeremiah 2:10.) Since their blindness and obstinacy held fast the Gentiles in darkness, that they contin

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 3:8. _WILL A MAN ROB GOD?_] Here is one point on which ye are guilty; ye withhold the _tithes_ and _offerings_ from the temple of God, so that the Divine worship is neglected....

SHALL A MAN ROB OR CHEAT - , defraud God? God answers question by question, but thereby drives it home to the sinner’s soul, and appeals to his conscience. The conscience is steeled, and answers again, “In what?” God specifies two things only, obvious, patent, which, as being material things, they could not deny. “In tithes and offerings.” The offerings included several classes of dues to God: (a) the first fruits ; (b) the annual half-shekel Exodus 30:13; (c) the offerings made for the tabernacle Exodus 25:2; Exodus 35:5,...

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 ...

WILL A MAN ROB GOD?.... Or "the gods"; the false gods, the idols of the Gentiles; the Heathens will not do that, accounting sacrilege a great sin, and yet this the Jews were guilty of: or "the judges" c, as the Targum; civil magistrates; will any dare to defraud them of their due? see Malachi 1:8. YET YE HAVE ROBBED ME; keeping back from the priests and Levites, his ministers, what was due to them; and which, being no other than a spoiling or robbing of them, might be interpreted a robbing of God: BUT YE SAY, WHEREIN HAVE WE ROBBED THEE? as not being conscious of any such evil; or, however, impudently standing in it, that they were not guilty: to which is returned the answer, IN TITHES AND OFFERINGS; that is, they robbed God in not giving the tithes, and not offering sacrifices, according as the law required: but it may be objected, tha

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 ...