Malachi 3:13

Resistance to the Lord through Self-sufficiency

3:13 “You have criticized me sharply,” ¹  says the Lord, “but you ask, ‘How have we criticized you?’

Malachi 4:6

4:6 He will encourage fathers and their children to return to me, ²  so that I will not come and strike the earth with judgment.” ³ 

Malachi 1:5

1:5 Your eyes will see it, and then you will say, ‘May the Lord be magnified ⁴  even beyond the border of Israel!’”

Malachi 2:2

2:2 If you do not listen and take seriously ⁵  the need to honor my name,” says the Lord who rules over all, “I will send judgment ⁶  on you and turn your blessings into curses – indeed, I have already done so because you are not taking it to heart.

Malachi 2:14

2:14 Yet you ask, “Why?” The Lord is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, ⁷  to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law. ⁸ 

Malachi 3:17

3:17 “They will belong to me,” says the Lord who rules over all, “in the day when I prepare my own special property. ⁹  I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.

Malachi 1:7

1:7 You are offering improper sacrifices on my altar, yet you ask, ‘How have we offended you?’ By treating the table ¹⁰  of the Lord as if it is of no importance!

Malachi 2:3

2:3 I am about to discipline your children ¹¹  and will spread offal ¹²  on your faces, ¹³  the very offal produced at your festivals, and you will be carried away along with it.

Malachi 2:16

2:16 “I hate divorce,” ¹⁴  says the Lord God of Israel, “and the one who is guilty of violence,” ¹⁵  says the Lord who rules over all. “Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful.”

Malachi 4:4

Restoration through the Lord

4:4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, to whom at Horeb ¹⁶  I gave rules and regulations for all Israel to obey. ¹⁷ 

¹ tn Heb “your words are hard [or “strong”] against me”; cf. NIV “said harsh things against me”; TEV, NLT “said terrible things about me.”

² tn Heb “he will turn the heart[s] of [the] fathers to [the] sons, and the heart[s] of [the] sons to their fathers.” This may mean that the messenger will encourage reconciliation of conflicts within Jewish families in the postexilic community (see Mal 2:10; this interpretation is followed by most English versions). Another option is to translate, “he will turn the hearts of the fathers together with those of the children [to me], and the hearts of the children together with those of their fathers [to me].” In this case the prophet encourages both the younger and older generations of sinful society to repent and return to the Lord (cf. Mal 3:7). This option is preferred in the present translation; see Beth Glazier-McDonald, Malachi (SBLDS), 256.

³ tn Heb “[the] ban” (חֵרֶם, kherem). God’s prophetic messenger seeks to bring about salvation and restoration, thus avoiding the imposition of the covenant curse, that is, the divine ban that the hopelessly unrepentant must expect (see Deut 7:2; 20:17; Judg 1:21; Zech 14:11). If the wicked repent, the purifying judgment threatened in 4:1-3 will be unnecessary.

³ tn Or “Great is the Lord” (so NAB; similar NIV, NRSV).

⁴ tn Heb “and if you do not place upon [the] heart”; KJV, NAB, NRSV “lay it to heart.”

⁵ tn Heb “the curse” (so NASB, NRSV); NLT “a terrible curse.”

⁵ tn Heb “the Lord is a witness between you and [between] the wife of your youth.”

⁶ 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.

⁶ sn The Hebrew word סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah, “special property”) is a technical term referring to all the recipients of God’s redemptive grace, especially Israel (Exod 19:5; Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18). The Lord says here that he will not forget even one individual in the day of judgment and reward.

⁷ sn The word table, here a synonym for “altar,” has overtones of covenant imagery in which a feast shared by the covenant partners was an important element (see Exod 24:11). It also draws attention to the analogy of sitting down at a common meal with the governor (v. 8).

⁸ tc The phrase “discipline your children” is disputed. The LXX and Vulgate suppose זְרוֹעַ (zÿroa’, “arm”) for the MT זֶרַע (zera’, “seed”; hence, “children”). Then, for the MT גֹעֵר (go’er, “rebuking”) the same versions suggest גָּרַע (gara’, “take away”). The resulting translation is “I am about to take away your arm” (cf. NAB “deprive you of the shoulder”). However, this reading is unlikely. It is common for a curse (v. 2) to fall on offspring (see, e.g., Deut 28:18, 32, 41, 53, 55, 57), but a curse never takes the form of a broken or amputated arm. It is preferable to retain the reading of the MT here.

⁹ tn The Hebrew term פֶרֶשׁ (feresh, “offal”) refers to the entrails as ripped out in preparing a sacrificial victim (BDB 831 s.v. פֶּרֶשׁ). This graphic term has been variously translated: “dung” (KJV, RSV, NRSV, NLT); “refuse” (NKJV, NASB); “offal” (NEB, NIV).

¹⁰ sn See Zech 3:3-4 for similar coarse imagery which reflects cultic disqualification.

⁹ 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).

¹⁰ 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.

¹⁰ sn Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai (cf. Exod 3:1).

¹¹ tn Heb “which I commanded him in Horeb concerning all Israel, statutes and ordinances.”