
Text -- Malachi 3:9 (NET)




Names, People and Places, Dictionary Themes and Topics



collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)
Wesley -> Mal 3:9
Are greatly cursed.
JFB: Mal 3:7-12 - -- 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.
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.

JFB: Mal 3:7-12 - -- 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 bu...
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" (Mal 3:6).

JFB: Mal 3:7-12 - -- (Mal 3:16). The same insensibility to their guilt continues: they speak in the tone of injured innocence, as if God calumniated them.
(Mal 3:16). The same insensibility to their guilt continues: they speak in the tone of injured innocence, as if God calumniated them.

JFB: Mal 3:9 - -- (Mal 2:2). As ye despoil Me, so I despoil you, as I threatened I would, if ye continued to disregard Me. In trying to defraud God we only defraud our...
(Mal 2:2). As ye despoil Me, so I despoil you, as I threatened I would, if ye continued to disregard Me. In trying to defraud God we only defraud ourselves. The eagle who robbed the altar set fire to her nest from the burning coal that adhered to the stolen flesh. So men who retain God's money in their treasuries will find it a losing possession. No man ever yet lost by serving God with a whole heart, nor gained by serving Him with a half one. We may compromise with conscience for half the price, but God will not endorse the compromise; and, like Ananias and Sapphira, we shall lose not only what we thought we had purchased so cheaply, but also the price we paid for it. If we would have God "open" His treasury, we must open ours. One cause of the barrenness of the Church is the parsimony of its members [MOORE].
Clarke -> Mal 3:9
Clarke: Mal 3:9 - -- Ye are cursed with a curse - The whole nation is under my displeasure. The curse of God is upon you.
Ye are cursed with a curse - The whole nation is under my displeasure. The curse of God is upon you.
Calvin -> Mal 3:9
Calvin: Mal 3:9 - -- Malachi pursues the same subject; for he answers the Jews in the name of God — that they unjustly complained of his rigour as being immoderate, sin...
Malachi pursues the same subject; for he answers the Jews in the name of God — that they unjustly complained of his rigour as being immoderate, since they themselves were the cause of all their evils. He says that they were cursed, but he adds that this happened to them deservedly, as though he had said — “Be that granted what you say, (for lamentations were continually made,) why is it that God afflicts us without end or limits?” God seems to grant what they were wont reproachfully to declare; but he says in answer to this — “ But ye have defrauded Me; what wonder then that my curse consumes you? As then I have been robbed by you, as far as ye could, I will render to you your just recompense; for it is not right that I should be bountiful and kind to you, while ye thus defraud me, and take from me what is my own.”
The meaning then is this — that it was indeed true that the Jews lamented that they were under a curse, but that the cause ought to have been searched out. They indeed wished their rapines and sacrileges to be forgiven, by which they defrauded God; but God declares that he punished them justly in consuming them with poverty and want, since they so sparingly rendered to him what they owed.
He mentions the whole nation, 255 and thus aggravates the wickedness of the Jews; for not a few were guilty of the sacrilege mentioned, but all, from the least to the greatest, they all plundered the tenths and the oblations. It hence follows that God’s vengeance did not exceed due limits, since there was as it were a common conspiracy; there were not ten or a hundred implicated in this sin, but, as he says, the whole people. It follows —
TSK -> Mal 3:9
TSK: Mal 3:9 - -- Mal 2:2; Deu 28:15-19; Jos 7:12, Jos 7:13, Jos 22:20; Isa 43:28; Hag 1:6-11, Hag 2:14-17

collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)
Barnes -> Mal 3:9
Barnes: Mal 3:9 - -- Ye have been cursed with the curse - (not "with a curse"). The curse threatened had come upon them: but, as fore-supposed in Leviticus by the r...
Ye have been cursed with the curse - (not "with a curse"). The curse threatened had come upon them: but, as fore-supposed in Leviticus by the repeated burden, "If ye still walk contrary to Me,"they had persevered in evil. God had already shown His displeasure. But they, so far from being amended by it, were the more hardened in their sin. Perhaps as men do, they pleaded their punishment, as a reason why they should not amend. They defrauded God, under false pretences. They were impoverished by His curse, and so they could not afford to pay the tithes; as men say, "the times are bad; so we cannot help the poor"of Christ. "And Me ye still are defrauding"Me, ye; man, God. And that not one or other, but this whole people. It was a requital as to that, in which they had offended. "Because ye have not rendered tithes and first-fruits, therefore ye are cursed in famine and penury.""Because the people did not render tithes and first-fruits to the Levites, the Lord saith, that He Himself suffered fraud, whose ministers, constrained by hunger and penury, deserted the temple. For, if He is visited by others in prison, and sick, is received and cared for, and, hungry and athirst, receives food and drink, why should He not receive tithes in His ministers, and, if they are not given, be Himself deprived of His portion?"
Poole -> Mal 3:9
Poole: Mal 3:9 - -- Ye O priests, your sin, your sacrilege, of which you are guilty, hath provoked me.
Are cursed with a curse are greatly cursed, and are likely still...
Ye O priests, your sin, your sacrilege, of which you are guilty, hath provoked me.
Are cursed with a curse are greatly cursed, and are likely still to be cursed, the curse shall continue whilst you continue in this your sinful course.
For ye have robbed me this brought, increased, and multiplied your curse. Or, as some, yet ye do rob me ! Strange that you dare sin, whilst I am punishing for this very sin! Or by way of question, and do ye rob me ? will you go on thus to sin when you are under the curse for it? will you, as Ahaz, sin when in distress; or, Pharaoh-like, harden under the judgment?
Even this whole nation : like priest like people; the priests and Levites did unduly employ the tithes and offerings, and the people did unduly pay: it is like the people observed how much of the tithes were laid out otherwise than the law directed, and they were ready to think they might do well enough to keep that for a use better (as they did think) than the use the priests and Levites put it to, they thought it was ill spent by the priests, and well saved by them; but this, however seemingly excuse them to themselves, it leaves them guilty before God: the whole nation is sacrilegious, and the whole nation cursed for it.
Haydock -> Mal 3:9
Haydock: Mal 3:9 - -- Want. Hebrew, "malediction." St. Jerome specifies the kind. (Calmet) ---
Septuagint, "and you obstinately turn away your eyes, and supplant me," ...
Want. Hebrew, "malediction." St. Jerome specifies the kind. (Calmet) ---
Septuagint, "and you obstinately turn away your eyes, and supplant me," &c. (Haydock)
Gill -> Mal 3:9
Gill: Mal 3:9 - -- Ye are cursed with a curse,.... Or "with penury", as the Vulgate Latin version; which, though not a proper rendering of the word, is the meaning of t...
Ye are cursed with a curse,.... Or "with penury", as the Vulgate Latin version; which, though not a proper rendering of the word, is the meaning of the curse they were cursed with; rain was withheld from them for their sins, and the earth did not bring forth its usual increase; wherefore there was want of food in all their land; their blessings were cursed, as in Mal 2:2 for the following reason,
for ye have robbed me; because of this their iniquity, in not bringing their offerings to the Lord, and the tithes to the priests and Levites, their land was stricken with barrenness, and God gave them cleanness of teeth, and want of bread in all places: or, "but ye have robbed me" d; notwithstanding they were thus chastised of the Lord, yet were not reformed, but went on in withholding from God and the priests, what belonged to them:
even this whole nation; the sin was become general, and therefore a general judgment was inflicted on them: Grotius thinks, that the people seeing the priests withhold the tithes from the Levites, they refused to pay them to them, and so the sin became universal. Kimchi observes, that in other sins charged upon the nation, the people were not all alike guilty, but in this which respected the tithes and offerings they were.

expand allCommentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes
