Malachi 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD announces that he will send a messenger to prepare the way, and that the Lord they are seeking will come suddenly to his temple, refining the Levites so their offerings are acceptable again. He then names the sins he will testify against, and charges the whole nation with robbing him in tithes and offerings, inviting them to test him by bringing the full tithe and seeing whether he opens the windows of heaven. The people are quoted saying it is useless to serve God, since the proud prosper; those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and a book of remembrance was written for them. God says they will be his on the day he gathers his treasured ones, and that the difference between the righteous and the wicked will again be visible.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • The LORD says he will send his messenger.
   • The messenger will prepare the way before the LORD.
   • The Lord whom the people seek will come suddenly to his temple.
   • The people seek the Lord.
   • The Lord who comes is called the messenger of the covenant.
   • The people delight in the messenger of the covenant.
   • The LORD declares that he is coming.
   • The LORD of hosts says this.
2. 3:2
   • The verse asks who can endure the day of his coming.
   • The verse asks who can stand when he appears.
   • He is like a refiner's fire.
   • He is like the lye or soap used by those who wash cloth.
3. 3:3
   • He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.
   • He will purify the sons of Levi.
   • He will refine them as gold and silver are refined.
   • The purpose is that they may present an offering to the LORD in righteousness.
4. 3:4
   • The offering of Judah and Jerusalem will then be pleasing to the LORD.
   • That offering will be pleasing as it was in the days of old.
   • That offering will be pleasing as it was in former years.
5. 3:5
   • The LORD says he will draw near to the people for judgment.
   • The LORD will be a swift witness against sorcerers.
   • The LORD will be a swift witness against adulterers.
   • The LORD will be a swift witness against those who swear falsely.
   • The LORD will be a swift witness against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages.
   • The LORD will be a swift witness against those who oppress the widow.
   • The LORD will be a swift witness against those who oppress the fatherless.
   • The LORD will be a swift witness against those who turn aside the resident foreigner from his right.
   • Those the LORD witnesses against do not fear him.
   • The LORD of hosts says this.
6. 3:6
   • The speaker is the LORD.
   • The LORD does not change.
   • Because of this the sons of Jacob are not destroyed.
7. 3:7
   • From the days of their fathers the people have turned aside from the LORD's statutes.
   • The people have not kept the LORD's statutes.
   • The LORD commands them to return to him.
   • The LORD promises that he will return to them.
   • The LORD of hosts says this.
   • The people asked in what way they should return.
8. 3:8
   • The verse asks whether a man may rob God.
   • The people have robbed the LORD.
   • The people ask in what way they have robbed him.
   • The answer is that they have robbed him in tithes and offerings.
9. 3:9
   • The people are cursed with a curse.
   • The people have robbed the LORD.
   • The whole nation is involved.
10. 3:10
    • The LORD commands that all the tithes be brought into the storehouse.
    • The purpose is that there may be food in the LORD's house.
    • The LORD invites the people to test him in this matter.
    • The LORD of hosts says this.
    • The LORD asks whether he will not open the windows of heaven for them.
    • The LORD asks whether he will not pour out a blessing for them.
    • The blessing will be so great that there will not be sufficient room for it.
11. 3:11
    • The LORD will rebuke the devourer for their sakes.
    • The devourer will not destroy the produce of their ground.
    • Their vine in the field will not fail to bear fruit at its time.
    • The LORD of hosts says this.
12. 3:12
    • All the nations will call the people blessed.
    • The people will be a land of delight.
    • The LORD of hosts says this.
13. 3:13
    • The people's words have been harsh against the LORD.
    • The LORD says this.
    • The people ask what they have spoken against him.
14. 3:14
    • The people have said that it is worthless to serve God.
    • The people asked what profit there is in having kept God's charge.
    • The people asked what profit there is in having walked in mourning before the LORD of hosts.
15. 3:15
    • The people now call the arrogant blessed.
    • Those who do wickedness are built up.
    • Those who test God escape.
16. 3:16
    • Those who feared the LORD spoke with one another.
    • The LORD paid attention and heard it.
    • A book of remembrance was written before him.
    • The book concerned those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name.
17. 3:17
    • The LORD of hosts says they will be his.
    • This will be on the day when he makes up his treasured possession.
    • The LORD will spare them.
    • He will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.
18. 3:18
    • The people will again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked.
    • They will see the difference between the one who serves God and the one who does not serve him.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

In the King James Version, "LORD" printed in capitals stands in for God's personal name in Hebrew, which the translators did not spell out; "LORD of hosts" means something like commander of the armies of heaven. The Hebrew word for "messenger" here is the ordinary word for someone sent with a message, and is also the word translated "angel" elsewhere. It is the same word that gives the prophet his name: Malachi means "my messenger." A covenant was a formal, binding agreement, of the kind kings made with nations and with each other, setting out obligations on both sides.

3:2

A "fuller" was a tradesman who finished and cleaned cloth, trampling and beating it in a solution made from plant ash or lye, far harsher than modern soap. Both pictures, the smelting furnace and the fuller's tub, are about violent cleaning, not gentle washing.

3:3

Levi was one of Jacob's twelve sons; his descendants were the tribe assigned to work at the temple, with the priests drawn from among them. Refining silver meant melting it so the impurities rose to the surface to be skimmed off, with the worker sitting over the crucible watching until the metal was clean.

3:4

"Judah" is the territory around Jerusalem, the surviving part of the old kingdom, by this time a small province under Persian rule. "The days of old" points back to the period before the exile to Babylon.

3:5

This is courtroom language: God appears as the witness for the prosecution rather than waiting to be called. A "hireling" was a day laborer with no land of his own, paid at the end of each day; Israelite law required his wages be handed over before nightfall. Widows, fatherless children, and resident foreigners are named together because all three lacked a male relative or landholding to defend them in a dispute.

3:6

"Sons of Jacob" means the nation descended from Jacob, the ancestor also called Israel, not the literal sons of one man.

3:7

From here Malachi runs on a fixed pattern: God makes an accusation, the people answer back with a question that denies it ("Wherein shall we return?"), and God replies with the evidence. The quoted objections are the prophet's way of staging his audience's attitude rather than a transcript of a conversation. "Ordinances" are laws or set requirements.

3:8

The tithe was a tenth of the year's grain, wine, oil, and livestock, owed as the support of the Levites and priests, who held no farmland. "Offerings" were the further portions of sacrifices and produce set aside for the temple staff. Withholding them left the temple personnel without income, which is why it is called robbery.

3:9

The "curse" is the penalty clause of the agreement between God and Israel: crop failure, drought, and blight were the listed consequences of breaking it. The wording assumes a reader who knows those terms were spelled out in advance.

3:10

The "storehouse" was a set of rooms in the temple complex where tithed grain, wine, and oil were kept and distributed. In 1611 English "meat" meant food of any kind, not flesh specifically, and "prove" meant to test or put to the proof. "The windows of heaven" pictures the sky as having hatches that are opened to let rain through, the same image used of the flood in Genesis.

3:11

"The devourer" translates a Hebrew word meaning simply "the eater," generally understood as locusts or similar crop pests. A vine "casting her fruit" is one that drops its grapes while they are still unripe.

3:12

"Delightsome" is 1611 English for delightful. "Call you blessed" does not mean the other nations will bless Judah; it means they will point at Judah as the obvious example of a people doing well.

3:13

"Stout" in 1611 English meant hard, defiant, or arrogant, not sturdy or brave.

3:14

"Walked mournfully" describes going about in the dress and manner of mourners, fasting, wearing sackcloth, putting dust or ashes on the head. The complaint is that they performed public acts of penitence and got nothing for it.

3:15

In 1611 English "happy" meant fortunate or well off, not cheerful, and to "tempt" God meant to test him or push to see what he would allow, not to entice him. "Set up" means built up, prospering.

3:16

Persian and other ancient kings kept official daybooks recording loyal service, to be repaid later; the book of Esther turns on one. "A book of remembrance" borrows that court practice.

3:17

"Jewels" translates a Hebrew word for a king's private treasure, the property he held personally, as distinct from the holdings of the state. The phrase "make up" means to gather or set aside.

3:18

"Discern" means to tell two things apart, to see clearly which is which.