Bible in one year 12/30/2021 Malachi 1-3 By Rev.Katherine Liu Bruce

 Bible in one year 12/30/2021 Malachi 1-3

By Rev.Katherine Liu Bruce

Christian Arts Ministries: Biblical precepts& Gospel music/Pastoral ministry & counseling

 

 The prophet Malachi means “my messenger” and could simply be a designation of an anonymous writer. More likely, however, it is a proper name. He is not mentioned elsewhere in the O.T.

The times of the book of Malachi, about one hundred years had passed since the return of the Jews to Palestine. The city of Jerusalem and the second Temple had been built, but initial enthusiasm had worn off. Following a period of revival under Nehemiah (Neh.10:28-29), the people and priests had backslidden and become mechanical in their observance of the law. Though lax in their worship (1:7) and delinquent in their tithing (3:8), they could not understand why God was dissatisfied with them.

Purpose and Theme Malachi rebuked the people for their neglect of the true worship of the Lord, and called them to repentance (1:6; 3:7).

           Contents Malachi used a questions and answer method, there being no fewer than twenty-three questions in the book.

 

Chapter 1 God’s compassion for Israel

        His compassion declared in 1-4

“An oracle: the word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi. “ I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you ask, “How have you loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? The Lord says, “Yet I have loved Jacob.”  But Esau I have hated and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals. Edom may say, “though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.” But this is what the Lord Almighty says, “they may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord. You will see it with your own eyes and say, “great is the Lord –even beyond the borders of Israel!”  

 

         I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated. Since the love is an elected love, the hate is the opposite; i.e. rejection from a chosen position (Gen.25:23; Rom.9:10-13).his mountains. The land of Edom, for the Edomites were descendants of Esau. Nebuchadnezzar invaded Edom in 586 (Jer.25:9, 21),and later the Nabataeans drove the Edomites from their territory.) How Wicked Edom was, read Gen.26:34;27:41; Obad.10-14.

 

God’s complaint against Israel ---Cheating 1:6-14

 

“A son honors his father and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the Lord Almighty. “It is you, O priests who show contempt for my name. But you ask, “How have we shown contempt for your name?”(v.6) You place defiled food on my altar.” But you ask, “How have we defiled you?”, “By saying that the Lord’s Table is contemptible (v.7).When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he accept you? Says the Lord Almighty.(v.8) “Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you? says the Lord Almighty.  

 

Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you? Says the Lord Almighty…My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place, incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty. (vv.9,11). But you profane it by saying of the Lord’s Table, “it is defiled, and of its food, “it is contemptible.”  And you say, “What a burden! And you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the Lord Almighty.(vv.12-13)

 

When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?  Says the Lord. “Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great King,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations.” (vv.13-14)   

 

        Defiled food. including meat. They offered defective animals (strictly forbidden by the law, Lev.22:20-25 and Deut.15:21), an act insulting even to an earthly governor, and much more so to the heavenly Ruler. God prefers no worship to contemptible worship. A blemished animal. Lit., a blemished female animal, in place of the more valuable male animal vowed to be offered.

 

 Chapter 2 unveils unfaithfulness, spiritual mixed marriage, and impiety and impertinence.

 

“ And now this admonition is for you, O priests. If you do not listen, and if you do  not set your heart to honor my name.” says the Lord Almighty, “ I will send accurse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to honor me.” (vv.1-2)

 

And you will know that I have sent you this admonition so that my covenant with Levi may continue, “ says the Lord Almighty. My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. Ture instruction was in his month and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin. (vv.4-6)

 

For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his month men should seek instruction-- because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty. But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have cause many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi.” Says the Lord Almighty. “So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law.” (vv.7-9)

           I will curse your blessings. I.e. dry up the supply from which the priests received their portions of meat, grain, and so on. Covenant with Levi. The arrangement with Levi and his descendants setting up the priesthood.(Num1:50). One of the principal functions of the Levites was to teach the people.(Deut.33;10), but they were showing partiality or favoritism in applying the law (cf.James2:1).

Spiritual mixed marriage 2:10-12

Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another? Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god. As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord cut him off from the tents of Jacob—even though he brings offerings to the Lord Almighty .(vv.10-12)

I hate divorce

Another thing you do: you flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, “ Why” It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. (vv.13-14)

 

Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring, so guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. (v.15)

 

“I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the Lord Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. (v.16)

          Verses 11-12 Marriage with non-Israelites violated the special relationship God had with the Jews as the Father of that people (Ex.4:22).Marriages with the heathen were prohibited in Ex.34:14-16 and Deut.7:3. The daughter of a foreign god. I.e., heathen girls brought foreign gods into Jewish homes, and said, in effect, Marry me, marry my religion. (Neh.13:23-28).

             Verses 13-15 though distressed that God no longer accepted their offerings, the people refused to face up to the seriousness of divorce. Some divorced wives were taken in youth. All divorce breaks the covenant (promise) made at the time of marriage, and remarriage violates the pattern God established at creation when He made only one wife for Adam (v.15). Covering himself. (v.16) Better, violence covers his garment (a symbol of protection). Divorce removed the wife’s protection and treated her cruelly.

 

Impiety and impertinence

 

You have wearied the Lord with your words. “How have we wearied Him?” you ask. By saying, “ all who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them” or “ where is the God of justice?”.  

 

          Not only had they tried to make evil…good, but they implied that God delighted in evil because He did not dispense immediate justice.

  

Chapter 3 Parenthesis: the coming of John the Baptist 3:1-6

 

“See, I will send my massager, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.” (v.1)

 

        Messenger. John the Baptist (Matt.11:10). The Lord and the messenger of the New Covenant (Matt.26:28) is Jesus Christ.

 

“So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.  I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. (vv.5-6).

 

         Specific violations of the law included sorcery (cf.Ex.22:18), adultery (cf.Ex.20:14), false swearing (cf.Lev.19:12), withholding wages (cf.Lev.19:13), oppressing the widow and orphan (cf.Ex.22:22-24) and injustice to a stranger (cf.Deut.24:17).

 

Robbery

 

Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. “But you ask, “How do we rob you?”“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse –the whole nations of you –because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the Lord Almighty. Then all the nations will call you blessed for yours will be a delightful land. (vv.8-12)

 

           Two tithes were required: an annual tithe for the maintenance of the Levites (Lev.27:30; Num.18:21) and a second tithe brought to Jerusalem for the Lord’s feast (Deut.14:22) Every third year, however, the second tithe was kept at home and used for the poor.(Deut.14:28). One’s use of money is often a barometer of his spirituality (cf.1 John3:17).

  From the time of King Hezekiah on (2 Chron. 31:11), special storehouses held grain brought in payment of tithes. These may have been special rooms in the Temple or a kind of lean –to against a side of the Temple.

 

Arrogance 3:13-15

 

“You have said harsh things against me,” says the Lord. “ Yet you ask, What have we said against you?” “You have said, “It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying gout his requirements and going g about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.

 

Some wrongly maintained that if material prosperity did not result, there was no point in serving the Lord.

 

God’s condemnation of the ungodly people but remembered the faithful one who fear his name 3:16-18

 

Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored His name. They will be mine, says the Lord Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked between those who serve God and those who do not.”   (vv.16-18).

         Not all had defected, and God remembered their faithfulness to Him.   

 

Chapter 4 the nature of God’s judgment

 

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire.” Say the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and lead like calves released from the stall. Then you will temple down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things.” Says the Lord Almighty. (vv.1-3)

 

Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. See I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” (vv.4-6).

 

          The day (v.1) The Day of the Lord (Zeph.1:14-18) Sun of righteousness. (v.2) An impersonal reference to the display of righteousness throughout the entire earth (as the sun sends its rays everywhere) in the coming millennial kingdom.  Horeb. Sinal (Deut.5:2) . Elijah. (Matt.17:11-12).                

 

 

    Bibliography,

Ryrie, Charles C. The Ryrie Study Bible (NIV).Chicago, IL: The Moody Bible Institute, 1986.