Malachi 3:13

3:13-18 Among the Jews at this time, some plainly discovered themselves to be children of the wicked one. The yoke of Christ is easy. But those who work wickedness, tempt God by presumptuous sins. Judge of things as they will appear when the doom of these proud sinners comes to be executed. Those that feared the Lord, spake kindly, for preserving and promoting mutual love, when sin thus abounded. They spake one to another, in the language of those that fear the Lord, and think on his name. As evil communications corrupt good minds and manners, so good communications confirm them. A book of remembrance was written before God. He will take care that his children perish not with those that believe not. They shall be vessels of mercy and honour, when the rest are made vessels of wrath and dishonour. The saints are God's jewels; they are dear to him. He will preserve them as his jewels, when the earth is burned up like dross. Those who now own God for theirs, he will then own for his. It is our duty to serve God with the disposition of children; and he will not have his children trained up in idleness; they must do him service from a principle of love. Even God's children stand in need of sparing mercy. All are righteous or wicked, such as serve God, or such as serve him not: all are going to heaven or to hell. We are often deceived in our opinions concerning both the one and the other; but at the bar of Christ, every man's character will be known.

Your words have been stout {m} against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? (m) The Prophet condemns them of double blasphemy against God: first, in that they said that God had no respect for those that served him, and next, that the wicked were more in his favour than the godly.

Malachi 3:13-15 . Your words, &c. — “From this verse to the end of Malachi 4:3 , the prophet expostulates with the wicked for their hard speeches; and declares that God will make a fearful distinction between them and the righteous.” — Newcome. Have been stout against me — Your words have been blasphemous, and void of all reverence and duty. Ye have spoken injuriously of me, and have uttered such things as dishonour me. Ye have even arraigned my proceedings, and spoken against them. Yet ye say, What have we spoken, &c. — This is to the same purport as their words in Malachi 3:8 , and some other foregoing verses. They impudently deny the charge, therefore the prophet renews it against them in the following words; Ye have said — If not with your lips, yet at least in your hearts; It is vain to serve God — We receive no advantage from it, it is of no use to us. That they should talk thus impiously in the times of Zerubbabel, when Malachi uttered these reproofs and exhortations, is not probable; but God, who sees into the hearts of men, saw, lurking in their hearts, the seeds of that impiety which broke out in the following age. And what profit is it — What benefit is it of to us; that we have kept his ordinance — That we have attended upon the institutions of his worship, and have governed our lives according to his laws? And that we have walked mournfully before the Lord — Have humbled ourselves before him with fasting and prayer, sackcloth and ashes.

Their beholding the prosperity of the wicked made them conclude, that it was to no purpose to walk according to the laws of God, or to confess their offences and express their sorrow for them. And, or rather, but, or therefore, now we call the proud happy — Those who behave themselves arrogantly against God, the proud contemners of his law. We can now do no less than think them happiest who do not concern themselves about the observance of God’s laws, but live according to their pleasure, and do every thing that their inclination or profit prompts them to do, without any fear of God’s calling them to an account for it. Yea, they that work wickedness are set up — Are the flourishing ones; are raised to prosperity, as buildings are to their height. Yea, they that tempt God are even delivered — Yea, they who, one would have supposed, should have wearied out God’s patience with their provocations, who have seemed to act as if they tried to provoke him, even these men escape those dangers and calamities which other men are involved in. Those who spake thus seem to have expected an exact distribution of temporal rewards and punishments to be made to good and bad men in this life.

(13) Your words . . . against me. —Better, your words put a constraint on me : viz., to prove myself to you to be “the God of judgment.” Spoken.—Or rather, conversed together. (Comp. Malachi 3:16.) They seem to have been in the habit of conversing together, and comparing the promises of God towards them with the then state of affairs. God had promised that they should be a proverb among the nations for blessedness; but, say they, seeing that things are as they are, “we [feel more inclined to] call the proud happy [or blessed].” (See further in Note on Malachi 3:15.)

Ch. Malachi 3:13 to Malachi 4:3 The righteous judgment of God 13 . have been stout ] See Malachi 2:17 . Comp. Job 21:14-15 ; Judges 15. so much ] Omit so much here, and often, Malachi 3:16 . The force of the Hebrew conjugation is “reciprocal” (Gesen.), to speak “together”, or “one with another”. Comp. Psalm 119:23 ; Ezekiel 33:30 . It was not the perplexed questioning of a devout heart (Psalms 73), nor the secret cogitation of an ungodly heart ( Psalm 14:1 ), but the open blasphemy of those who “sat in the seat of the scorner” ( Psalm 1:1 ).

13-18. He notices the complaint of the Jews that it is of no profit to serve Jehovah, for that the ungodly proud are happy; and declares He will soon bring the day when it shall be known that He puts an everlasting distinction between the godly and the ungodly. words … stout—Hebrew, "hard"; so "the hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him" (Jude 15) [Henderson]. have we spoken—The Hebrew expresses at once their assiduity and habit of speaking against God [Vatablus]. The niphal form of the verb implies that these things were said, not directly to God, but of God, to one another (Eze 33:20) [Moore].

Verses 13-18. - § 3. The impious murmuring of the people is contrasted with the conduct of those who fear God ; and the reward of the pious is set forth. Verse 13. - Your words have been stout against me. Ye have spoken hard words of me (comp. Jude 1:15 , where we read of "the hard speeches ( σκληρῶν ) which ungodly sinners have spoken against" God). Some specimens of these speeches are given in answer to the usual sceptical inquiry. They are of the same character as those in Malachi 2:17 , and imply that the course of this world is not directed by a moral Governor. What have we spoken so much ( together ) against thee! What have we said against thee in our conversations with one another? Malachi 3:13

Your words ; your discourses concerning my providences over you and others, your reasonings, censures, and verdicts passed on your own ways, and on the ways of your God. Have been stout; proudly justifying yourselves as deserving better usage from God, or insolently arraigning God for his kindness to others, who in your judgment are worse than yourselves, by such words as those Malachi 2:17 . Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? you think you have spoken nothing so proudly and stoutly, and challenge me to tell you wherein, or with what words you have showed such insolence.

Malachi ‘STOUT WORDS,’ AND THEIR CONFUTATIONMalachi 3:13 - Malachi 3:18 ; Malachi 4:1 - Malachi 4:6 . This passage falls into three parts,-the ‘stout words’ against God which the Prophet sets himself to confute { Malachi 3:13 - Malachi 3:15 }; the prophecy of the day which will show their falsehood { Malachi 3:16 - Malachi 4:3 }; and the closing exhortation and prediction { Malachi 4:4 - Malachi 4:6 }. I. The returning exiles had not had the prosperity which they had hoped. So many of them, even of those who had served God, began to let doubts darken their trust, and to listen to the whispers of their own hearts, reinforced by the mutterings of others, and to ask: ‘What is the use of religion? Does it make any difference to a man’s condition?’ Here had they been keeping God’s charge, and going in black garments ‘before the Lord,’ in token of penitence, and no good had come to them, while arrogant neglect of His commandments did not seem to hinder happiness, and ‘they that work wickedness are built up.’ Sinful lives appeared to have a firm foundation, and to rise high and palace-like, while righteous ones were like huts. Goodness seemed to spell ruin. What was wrong in these ‘stout words’? It was wrong to attach such worth to external acts of devotion, as if these were deserving of reward.

It was wrong to suspend the duty of worship on the prosperity resulting from it, and to seek ‘profit’ from ‘keeping his charge.’ Such religion was shallow and selfish, and had the evils of the later Pharisaism in germ in it. It was wrong to yield to the doubts which the apparently unequal distribution of worldly prosperity stirred in their hearts. But the doubts themselves were almost certain to press on Old Testament believers, as well as on Old Testament scoffers, especially under the circumstances of Malachi’s time. The fuller light of Christianity has eased their pressure, but not removed it, and we have all had to face them, both when our own hearts have ached with sorrow and when pondering on the perplexities of this confused world. We look around, and, like the psalmist, see ‘the prosperity of the wicked,’ and, like him, have to confess that our ‘steps had wellnigh slipped’ at the sight. The old, old question is ever starting up. ‘Doth God know?’ The mystery of suffering and the mystery of its distribution, the apparent utter want of connection between righteousness and well-being, are still formidable difficulties in the way of believing in a loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful God, and are stock arguments of the unbeliever and perplexities of humble faith. Never to have felt the force of the difficulty is not so much the sign of steadfast faith as of scant reflection.