3:6 “Since, I, the Lord, do not go back on my promises, 2 you, sons of Jacob, have not perished.
3:2 Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can keep standing when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire, 13 like a launderer’s soap.
1:4 Edom 16 says, “Though we are devastated, we will once again build the ruined places.” So the Lord who rules over all 17 responds, “They indeed may build, but I will overthrow. They will be known as 18 the land of evil, the people with whom the Lord is permanently displeased.
4:1 (3:19) 24 “For indeed the day 25 is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant evildoers will be chaff. The coming day will burn them up,” says the Lord who rules over all. “It 26 will not leave even a root or branch.
1 tn Heb “from his mouth” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV).
2 tn Heb “do not change.” This refers to God’s ongoing commitment to his covenant promises to Israel.
3 tc The LXX presupposes an underlying Hebrew text of עָקַב (’aqav, “deceive”), a metathesis of קָבַע (qava’, “rob”), in all four uses of the verb here (vv. 8-9). The intent probably is to soften the impact of “robbing” God, but the language of the passage is intentionally bold and there is no reason to go against the reading of the MT (which is followed here by most English versions).
4 sn The tithes and contributions mentioned here are probably those used to sustain the Levites (see Num 18:8, 11, 19, 21-24).
4 tn Heb “will be” (so NAB, NRSV); TEV “your land will be a good place to live in.”
5 sn My name will be great among the nations. In what is clearly a strongly ironic shift of thought, the
6 sn My covenant refers to the priestly covenant through Aaron and his grandson Phinehas (see Exod 6:16-20; Num 25:10-13; Jer 33:21-22). The point here is to contrast the priestly ideal with the disgraceful manner in which it was being carried out in postexilic times.
7 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
8 tn Or perhaps “secularized”; cf. NIV “desecrated”; TEV, NLT “defiled”; CEV “disgraced.”
9 tn Heb “has married the daughter of a foreign god.” Marriage is used here as a metaphor to describe Judah’s idolatry, that is, her unfaithfulness to the
8 tc The verb שָׂנֵא (sane’) appears to be a third person form, “he hates,” which makes little sense in the context, unless one emends the following word to a third person verb as well. Then one might translate, “he [who] hates [his wife] [and] divorces her…is guilty of violence.” A similar translation is advocated by M. A. Shields, “Syncretism and Divorce in Malachi 2,10-16,” ZAW 111 (1999): 81-85. However, it is possible that the first person pronoun אָנֹכִי (’anokhi, “I”) has accidentally dropped from the text after כִּי (ki). If one restores the pronoun, the form שָׂנֵא can be taken as a participle and the text translated, “for I hate” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT).
9 tn Heb “him who covers his garment with violence” (similar ASV, NRSV). Here “garment” is a metaphor for appearance and “violence” a metonymy of effect for cause. God views divorce as an act of violence against the victim.
9 sn The refiner’s fire was used to purify metal and refine it by melting it and allowing the dross, which floated to the top, to be scooped off.
10 tn Heb “What [is the] profit”; NIV “What did we gain.”
11 sn The people’s public display of self-effacing piety has gone unrewarded by the
11 sn Edom, a “brother” nation to Israel, became almost paradigmatic of hostility toward Israel and God (see Num 20:14-21; Deut 2:8; Jer 49:7-22; Ezek 25:12-14; Amos 1:11-12; Obad 10-12).
12 sn The epithet
13 tn Heb “and they will call them.” The third person plural subject is indefinite; one could translate, “and people will call them.”
12 sn The epithet great king was used to describe the Hittite rulers on their covenant documents and so, in the covenant ideology of Malachi, is an apt description of the
13 tn Heb “and if you do not place upon [the] heart”; KJV, NAB, NRSV “lay it to heart.”
14 tn Heb “the curse” (so NASB, NRSV); NLT “a terrible curse.”
14 tn Heb “the
15 sn Though there is no explicit reference to marriage vows in the OT (but see Job 7:13; Prov 2:17; Ezek 16:8), the term law (Heb “covenant”) here asserts that such vows or agreements must have existed. References to divorce documents (e.g., Deut 24:1-3; Jer 3:8) also presuppose the existence of marriage documents.
15 sn Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:6 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 4:1 ET = 3:19 HT, 4:2 ET = 3:20 HT, etc., through 4:6 ET = 3:24 HT. Thus the book of Malachi in the Hebrew Bible has only three chapters, with 24 verses in ch. 3.
16 sn This day is the well-known “day of the
17 tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.