Maleakhi 2:17

Resistance to the Lord through Self-deceit

2:17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” Because you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the Lord’s opinion, ¹  and he delights in them,” or “Where is the God of justice?”

Maleakhi 2:12

2:12 May the Lord cut off from the community ²  of Jacob every last person who does this, ³  as well as the person who presents improper offerings to the Lord who rules over all!

Maleakhi 4:1

4:1 (3:19) ⁴  “For indeed the day ⁵  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 ⁶  will not leave even a root or branch.

Maleakhi 2:16

2:16 “I hate divorce,” ⁷  says the Lord God of Israel, “and the one who is guilty of violence,” ⁸  says the Lord who rules over all. “Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful.”

Maleakhi 1:10

1:10 “I wish that one of you would close the temple doors, ⁹  so that you no longer would light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and I will no longer accept an offering from you.

Maleakhi 3:12

3:12 “All nations will call you happy, for you indeed will live in ¹⁰  a delightful land,” says the Lord who rules over all.

Maleakhi 1:8

1:8 For when you offer blind animals as a sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer the lame and sick, ¹¹  is that not wrong as well? Indeed, try offering them ¹²  to your governor! Will he be pleased with you ¹³  or show you favor?” asks the Lord who rules over all.

Maleakhi 1:14

1:14 “There will be harsh condemnation for the hypocrite who has a valuable male animal in his flock but vows and sacrifices something inferior to the Lord. For I am a great king,” ¹⁴  says the Lord who rules over all, “and my name is awesome among the nations.”

Maleakhi 2:15

2:15 No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this. ¹⁵  What did our ancestor ¹⁶  do when seeking a child from God? Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth. ¹⁷ 

Maleakhi 1:9

1:9 But now plead for God’s favor ¹⁸  that he might be gracious to us. ¹⁹  “With this kind of offering in your hands, how can he be pleased with you?” asks the Lord who rules over all.

Maleakhi 2:6

2:6 He taught what was true; ²⁰  sinful words were not found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and integrity, and he turned many people away from sin.

Maleakhi 3:18

3:18 Then once more you will see that I make a distinction between ²¹  the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not.

Maleakhi 2:2

2:2 If you do not listen and take seriously ²²  the need to honor my name,” says the Lord who rules over all, “I will send judgment ²³  on you and turn your blessings into curses – indeed, I have already done so because you are not taking it to heart.

Maleakhi 3:10

3:10 “Bring the entire tithe into the storehouse ²⁴  so that there may be food in my temple. Test me in this matter,” says the Lord who rules over all, “to see if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until there is no room for it all.

[2:17]  ¹ tn Heb “in the eyes of the Lord.”

[2:12]  ² tn Heb “tents,” used figuratively for the community here (cf. NCV, TEV); NLT “the nation of Israel.”

[2:12]  ³ tc Heb “every man who does this, him who is awake and him who answers.” For “answers” the LXX suggests an underlying Hebrew text of עָנָה (’anah, “to be humbled”), and then the whole phrase is modified slightly: “until he is humbled.” This requires also that the MT עֵר (’er, “awake”) be read as עֵד (’ed, “until”; here the LXX reads ἕως, Jews). The reading of the LXX is most likely an alteration to correct what is arguably a difficult text.

[2:12]  tn Heb “every man who does this, him who is awake and him who answers.” The idea seems to be a merism expressing totality, that is, everybody from the awakener to the awakened, thus “every last person who does this” (NLT similar); NIV “whoever he may be.”

[4:1]  ⁴ 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.

[4:1]  ⁵ sn This day is the well-known “day of the Lord” so pervasive in OT eschatological texts (see Joel 2:30-31; Amos 5:18; Obad 15). For the believer it is a day of grace and salvation; for the sinner, a day of judgment and destruction.

[4:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.

[2:16]  ⁷ 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).

[2:16]  sn Though the statement “I hate divorce” may (and should) be understood as a comprehensive biblical principle, the immediate context suggests that the divorce in view is that of one Jewish person by another in order to undertake subsequent marriages. The injunction here by no means contradicts Ezra’s commands to Jewish men to divorce their heathen wives (Ezra 9–10).

[2:16]  ⁸ 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.

[1:10]  ⁹ sn The rhetorical language suggests that as long as the priesthood and people remain disobedient, the temple doors may as well be closed because God is not “at home” to receive them or their worship there.

[3:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “will be” (so NAB, NRSV); TEV “your land will be a good place to live in.”

[1:8]  ¹¹ sn Offerings of animals that were lame or sick were strictly forbidden by the Mosaic law (see Deut 15:21).

[1:8]  ¹² tn Heb “it” (so NAB, NASB). Contemporary English more naturally uses a plural pronoun to agree with “the lame and sick” in the previous question (cf. NIV, NCV).

[1:8]  ¹³ tc The LXX and Vulgate read “with it” (which in Hebrew would be הֲיִרְצֵהוּ, hayirtsehu, a reading followed by NAB) rather than “with you” of the MT (הֲיִרְצְךָ, hayirtsÿkha). The MT (followed here by most English versions) is to be preferred because of the parallel with the following phrase פָנֶיךָ (fanekha, “receive you,” which the present translation renders as “show you favor”).

[1:14]  ¹⁴ 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 Lord.

[2:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and not one has done, and a remnant of the spirit to him.” The very elliptical nature of the statement suggests it is proverbial. The present translation represents an attempt to clarify the meaning of the statement (cf. NASB).

[2:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the one.” This is an oblique reference to Abraham who sought to obtain God’s blessing by circumventing God’s own plan for him by taking Hagar as wife (Gen 16:1-6). The result of this kind of intermarriage was, of course, disastrous (Gen 16:11-12).

[2:15]  ¹⁷ sn The wife he took in his youth probably refers to the first wife one married (cf. NCV “the wife you married when you were young”).

[1:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “seek the face of God.”

[1:9]  ¹⁹ tn After the imperative, the prefixed verbal form with vav conjunction indicates purpose (cf. NASB, NRSV).

[2:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “True teaching was in his mouth”; cf. NASB, NRSV “True instruction (doctrine NAB) was in his mouth.”

[3:18]  ²¹ tn Heb “you will see between.” Cf. NRSV, TEV, NLT “see the difference.”

[2:2]  ²² tn Heb “and if you do not place upon [the] heart”; KJV, NAB, NRSV “lay it to heart.”

[2:2]  ²³ tn Heb “the curse” (so NASB, NRSV); NLT “a terrible curse.”

[3:10]  ²⁴ tn The Hebrew phrase בֵּית הָאוֹצָר (bet ha’otsar, here translated “storehouse”) refers to a kind of temple warehouse described more fully in Nehemiah (where the term לִשְׁכָּה גְדוֹלָה [lishkah gÿdolah, “great chamber”] is used) as a place for storing grain, frankincense, temple vessels, wine, and oil (Neh 13:5). Cf. TEV “to the Temple.”