MPV Commentary

God's Love: Israel's Ingratitude: THE Priests' Mercenary

Spirit: A Gentile Spiritual Priesthood Shall Supersede Them.

1. The burden of this message is a heavy one for God to convey to Israel, represented now by the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, along with individuals from the ten tribes who had returned with the Jews from Babylon (Ezr 7:10). This is why "Israel" is used here, as in 2Ch 21:2, where Judah is regarded as the truest representative of Israel.

Malachi was a prophet sent by God to enflame His people's desire for Him, the great antitype and fulfiller of prophecy. No other prophet was sent after him until John the Baptist, who preceded Christ (compare 2Ch 12:6; 28:19).

2. I have loved you above all other men, even above the descendants of Abraham and Isaac. Yet, your response to this love is sin and dishonor to Me. You should be grateful for My gratuitous love, but instead, you return it with ingratitude.

You ask, "Wherein hast thou loved us?" But in painful contrast to My tearful tenderness stands your insolent challenge. The root of your sin was insensibility to God's love and to your own wickedness. Having had prosperity taken from them, they imply they have no tokens of God's love; they look at what God had taken, not at what God had left.

God's love is often least acknowledged where it is most manifested. We must not infer that God does not love us because He afflicts us. Men, instead of referring their sufferings to their proper cause, their own sin, impiously accuse God of indifference to their welfare (Moore). Thus Mal 1:1-4 form a fitting introduction to the whole prophecy.

Was not Esau Jacob's brother? And so, as far as dignity went, he was as much entitled to God's favor as Jacob. My adoption of Jacob was altogether by gratuitous favor (Ro 9:13). So God has passed by our elder brethren, the angels who kept not their first estate, and yet He has provided salvation for man.

The perpetual rejection of the fallen angels, like the perpetual desolations of Edom, attests God's severity to the lost and goodness to those gratuitously saved. The sovereign eternal purpose of God is the only ground on which He bestows favors withheld from another.

3. I did not choose Esau out to be the object of gratuitous favor, as I did Jacob (compare Lu 14:26, with Mt 10:37; Ge 29:30, 31; De 21:15, 16).

I laid his mountains waste, that is, his territory which was generally mountainous. Israel was punished by the Chaldeans, but Edom has been utterly destroyed (Jer 49:18). The land of Edom is now a desolate region given over to the curse of reprobation.

4. If Edom says she will recover herself, it shall be in vain, for I doom her to perpetual desolation, whereas I restore Israel. This Jehovah states to illustrate His gratuitous love to Israel rather than to Edom.

5. From the border of Israel, you should raise your voices to magnify the Lord, acknowledging that Jehovah has shown you a gratuitous favor not shown to Edom, and so ought to be especially magnified from the borders of Israel.

6. Turning from the people to the priests, Jehovah asks, whereas His love to the people was so great, where was their love towards Him? If the priests regard Him as their Father (Isa 63:16) and Master, let them show the reality of their profession by love and reverential fear (Ex 20:12; Lu 6:46).

They are blind alike to God's love and their own guilt. The same captious spirit of self-satisfied insensibility as prompted their question (Mal 1:2), "Wherein hast Thou loved us?" They are blind to both God's love and their own guilt.

7. You offer polluted bread, namely, blemished sacrifices (Mal 1:8). It was the duty of some of the priests to stand at the doors of the court of the altar of burnt offerings and to have excluded blemished victims (Calvin).

8. Since you Jewish priests and people "despise My name" (Mal 1:6), I shall find others who will magnify it (Mt 3:9). Do not think I shall have no worshippers because I have not you; for from the east to the west My name shall be great among the Gentiles (Isa 66:19, 20).

Pure offering is not "the blind, the lame, and the sick," such as you offer (Mal 1:8). In every place implies the catholicity of the Christian Church (Joh 4:21, 23; 1Ti 2:8). The incense is figurative of prayers (Ps 141:2; Re 8:3).

9. Think you that God will be persuaded by such polluted gifts to be gracious to you? Far from it.

10. Not one even of the least priestly functions would you exercise without pay, therefore you ought to fulfill them faithfully (1Co 9:13). Drusius and Maurer translate, "Would that there were absolutely some one of you who would shut the doors of the temple, and that ye would not kindle fire on My altar in vain!" Better no sacrifices than vain ones (Isa 1:11-15).

11. For since you Jewish priests and people "despise My name" (Mal 1:6), I shall find others who will magnify it (Mt 3:9). Do not think I shall have no worshippers because I have not you; for from the east to the west My name shall be great among the Gentiles (Isa 66:19, 20).

12. Renewal of the charge in Mal 1:7.

13. What a weariness is it! You regard God's service as irksome and try to get it over by presenting the most worthless offerings. Compare Mic 6:3, where God challenges His people to show wherein is the "weariness" or hardship of His service. Also Isa 43:22-24, wherein He shows that it is they who have "wearied" Him, not He who has wearied them.

14. You are a deceiver, a hypocrite. Not poverty but avarice was the cause of your mean offerings. A male animal was required by law (Le 1:3, 10). Even the heathen dread Me because of My judgments; what a reproach this is to you, My people, who fear Me not (Mal 1:6)!